Camilla Läckberg: The Ice Princess

‘How has she reacted to Alex’s death? What was their relationship like?’

‘You’ll probably have to ask Birgit or Karl-Erik about that. I haven’t seen Julia in more than six months. She’s studying to be a teacher up north in Umeå, and she doesn’t like coming back here. She didn’t even come home for Christmas last year. As far as her relationship with Alex goes, Julia has always worshipped her big sister. Alex had already started boarding school when Julia was born, so she wasn’t home much, but whenever we visited the family Julia would follow her sister around like a puppy. Alex didn’t like it much but she left her alone. Sometimes she could get angry at Julia and snap at her, but usually she just ignored her sister.’

Erica felt that the conversation was nearing an end. In the pauses the silence in the house had been total, and she could sense that in the midst of all this luxury it had now become a lonely house for Henrik Wijkner.

Erica stood up and held out her hand. He took it in both of his, held it for a few seconds, then released it. He walked her to the door.

‘I think I’ll drive down to the gallery and look around a bit,’ she said.

‘That’s a good idea. Alex was incredibly proud of it. She built the business from the ground up, together with a friend from her student years in Paris, Francine Bijoux. Well, now her name is Sandberg. We used to socialize with Francine and her husband a good deal, although that became less frequent after they had children. Francine is probably at the gallery. I’ll give her a ring and explain who you are. I’m sure she’ll be glad to help out and tell you a bit about Alex.’

Henrik held open the door for Erica. With a last thank you, she turned away from Alex’s husband and walked to her car.

At the same moment that she got out of her car, the heavens opened up. The gallery was in Chalmersgaten, parallel to the main shopping street Avenyn, but after half an hour of looking for a parking spot Erica resigned herself and parked at Heden. It wasn’t so far away, really, but in the pouring rain it felt like ten kilometres. And the parking fee was twelve kronor an hour. Erica could feel her mood sinking. Naturally she hadn’t brought an umbrella with her, and she knew that her curly hair would soon look like a bad home-perm.

She hurried across Avenyn and just managed to dodge the number 4 tram that came thundering in the direction of Mölndal. After passing Valand, where she had spent many an evening during her student years, she turned left into Chalmersgaten.

Galleri Abstract was on the left, with big display windows facing the street. A bell over the door pinged as she entered, and she saw that the space was much bigger than it looked from outside. The walls, floor and ceiling were painted white so as not to distract from the works of art hanging on the walls.

At the far end of the gallery she saw a woman who looked unmistakably French. She exuded sheer elegance as she discussed a painting with a customer, gesturing eagerly as she talked.

‘I’ll be right there, please have a look around in the meantime.’ Her French accent sounded charming.

Erica took the woman at her word. With her hands clasped behind her back she walked slowly around the room as she looked at the artworks. As the gallery’s name indicated, all the paintings were done in the abstract style. Cubes, squares, circles and strange figures. Erica tilted her head and squinted, trying to see what the art aficionados saw. But it completely eluded her. Nope, still only cubes and squares like any five-year-old could produce, in her opinion. She would just have to accept that this was beyond her comprehension.

She was standing before a gigantic red painting with yellow, irregularly divided sections when she heard Francine come up behind her with heels clacking on the chequerboard floor.

‘That one is certainly wonderful,’ said Francine.

‘Yes, indeed. Exquisite. But to be honest, I’m not really at home in the world of art. I think Van Gogh’s sunflowers are great, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes.’

Francine smiled. ‘You must be Erica. Henri just rang and told me you were on your way here.’

She held out a finely contoured hand. Erica hastily wiped off her own hand, still wet with rain, before she took Francine’s.

The woman facing her was small and slender, with an elegance that Frenchwomen seem to have patented. Erica was five foot nine in her stockinged feet, and she felt like a giant in comparison.

Francine’s hair was raven-black. It was pulled back smoothly from her forehead and gathered in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She wore a form-fitting black dress. The colour was no doubt chosen in view of the death of her friend and colleague; she seemed more the type to dress in dramatic red, or perhaps yellow. Her make-up was light and perfectly applied, but it could not conceal the telling red rims of her eyes. Erica hoped that her own mascara wasn’t running – no doubt a vain hope.

‘I thought we ought to sit down and talk over a cup of coffee. The weather is very mild today. Let’s go out back.’

She led Erica towards a small room behind the gallery that was fully equipped with a refrigerator, microwave oven, and coffeemaker. The table was small and had room for only two chairs. Erica sat down and was instantly served a cup of steaming hot coffee by Francine. Her stomach protested after all the cups she had drunk when she was visiting Henrik. But she knew from experience, from the innumerable interviews she had conducted to dig up background material for her books, that for some reason people talked more easily with a coffee cup in their hand.

‘From what I understood from Henri, Alex’s parents asked you to write a commemorative article about her life.’

‘Yes. I’ve only seen Alex on brief occasions in the last twenty-five years, so I need to find out more about what she was like as a person before I can start writing.’

‘Are you a journalist?’

‘No, I write biographies. I’m only doing this because Birgit and Karl-Erik asked me. And besides, I was the first one to find her, well, almost the first. And in some strange way I feel as though I need to do this to create another picture of Alex for myself, a living picture. Does that sound odd?’

‘No, not at all. I think it’s fabulous that you’re taking so much trouble on behalf of Alex’s parents-and Alex.’

Francine leaned across the table and placed a well-manicured hand over Erica’s.

Erica felt a warm blush spread across her cheeks and tried not to think of the draft of the book she’d been working on for large parts of the previous day.

Francine went on, ‘Henri also asked me to answer your questions with the utmost candour.’

She spoke excellent Swedish. She rolled her R’s softly, and Erica noticed that she used the French Henri rather than Henrik.

‘You and Alex met in Paris?’

‘Yes, we studied art history together. We ran into each other the very first day. She looked lost and I felt lost. The rest is history, as they say.’

‘How long have you known each other?’

‘Let’s see, Henri and Alex celebrated their fifteenth anniversary last fall so it would be…seventeen years. For fifteen of those years we’ve run this gallery together.’

She fell silent and to Erica’s astonishment lit a cigarette. For some reason she hadn’t pictured Francine as a smoker. The Frenchwoman’s hand shook a little as she lit the cigarette, and then she took a deep drag without taking her eyes off Erica.

‘Didn’t you wonder where she was?’ Erica asked. ‘She must have been lying there a week before we found her.’

It occurred to Erica that she hadn’t thought to ask Henrik the same question.