Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 4-6: The Stranger, The Hidden Child, The Drowning

They had talked a lot about the past too. He had told her about Simon and proudly showed her a picture of his son who had come into his life so late. Rose-Marie had commented on how handsome he was, so like his father; she said that she really looked forward to meeting him. She herself had a daughter up north in Kiruna and one in the States. So far away, both of them, she’d said with sorrow in her voice, and she showed him pictures of her two grandchildren who lived in America. Maybe they could take a trip over there together next summer, Rose-Marie had suggested, and he had nodded eagerly. America – he’d never dreamed of travelling so far. To tell the truth, he’d never even been outside the borders of Sweden before. A brief trip across the bridge to Norway at Svinesund hardly counted as foreign travel. But Rose-Marie was opening a whole new world for him. She had just begun to think about buying a time-share condo in Spain, she told him as she lay in his arms one night. A white stucco house with a balcony, a view over the Mediterranean, its own pool, and bougainvillea climbing up the façade, smelling so wonderful in the warm air. Mellberg could picture it. How he and Rose-Marie would sit on the balcony on a warm summer evening with their arms round each other, sipping their ice-cold drinks. A thought had then occurred to him and refused to let go. In the darkness of the bedroom he had turned his face to hers and solemnly suggested that they buy the apartment together. He waited nervously for her reaction; at first she hadn’t been as enthusiastic as he’d hoped; she seemed a bit uneasy. Then they’d talked about having to get legal documents for everything so that it wouldn’t lead to any arguments about money. That wouldn’t do at all. He had smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. She was so cute when she was worried. But at last they’d agreed to do it.

As Mellberg sat there in his office chair with his eyes closed he could almost feel the warm breeze on his cheeks. The scent of sun-tan oil and fresh peaches. The curtains fluttering in the wind that brought the smell of the sea. He saw himself leaning over to Rose-Marie, lifting the brim of her sun hat, and … A knock on his door woke him out of his daydream.