The Hidden Child by Camilla Läckberg

it slowed down, and the driver seemed to be glancing in the rear-view mirror. Then the car swiftly backed up, and Patrik swore to himself. Only now did he realize that the car belonged to his mother.
    ‘What’s this, are the two of you out for a walk together?’ asked Kristina. Having rolled down the window, she looked in surprise at Patrik and Karin.
    ‘Hi, Kristina! How nice to see you!’ Karin leaned towards the open window. ‘I’ve moved back to Fjällbacka and happened to run into Patrik. We discovered that we’re both on leave from our jobs and in need of company. I have a little boy named Ludvig.’ Karin pointed to the pushchair, and Kristina leaned forward, uttering the appropriate cooing sounds at the sight of the one-year-old.
    ‘Oh, how nice,’ said Kristina in a tone of voice that made Patrik’s stomach clench. Then a thought occurred to him that made his stomach hurt even more. Without wanting to know the answer, he asked his mother, ‘And where are you off to right now?’
    ‘I was on my way to your house. It’s been a while since I dropped by. I’ve brought some baked goods with me.’ She pointed happily to a bag of buns and sponge cake on the seat next to her.
    ‘Erica’s working . . .’ Patrik ventured lamely, but he knew it was pointless.
    Kristina shifted into first gear. ‘That’s good. Then she’ll be happy to take a little coffee break. And you’ll be home soon too, won’t you?’ She waved to Maja, who merrily waved back.
    ‘Sure, of course,’ said Patrik, trying frantically to come up with a way to ask his mother not to mention who he’d been walking with. But his brain was completely blank, and in resignation he raised his hand to wave goodbye. With his stomach in knots, he watched his mother race off towards Sälvik. He was going to have to do quite a bit of explaining.
    The work on her book was going well. She’d written four pages this morning, and now she stretched with satisfaction as she sat at her desk. Her anger from yesterday had faded, and in hindsight she thought that she might have over-reacted. She would make it up to Patrik tonight by cooking something extra good for dinner. Before the wedding they’d both made an effort to lose a few pounds, but now they were back to their daily routines. And it was important to treat themselves once in a while. Maybe fillet of pork with gorgonzola sauce. Patrik liked that.
    Erica stopped thinking about dinner and reached for her mother’s diaries. She really ought to sit down and read through all of them at once, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do that. She’d have to do it in small doses. Little glances into her mother’s world. She propped her feet up on the desk and began the laborious task of trying to decipher the old-fashioned, ornate handwriting. So far she’d mostly read about daily life in her mother’s home, the chores she’d helped out with, minor meditations about the future, their worry about Elsy’s father who spent all his time out at sea, even on the weekends. The descriptions of life were filled with the naïveté and innocence of a teenager, and Erica had a hard time associating the girlish voice evident in the text with the mother she remembered. She had seemed so remote, so stern and forbidding; Erica and Anna had never known her to speak a tender word or display any affection for them.
    After reading partway down the second page, Erica suddenly sat up straight. A familiar name had appeared. Or rather, two names. Elsy wrote that she’d been over to Erik and Axel’s house while their parents were away. The text was mostly a lyrical description of their father’s library, which had impressed Elsy enormously, but Erica saw only the two names: Erik and Axel. It had to be Erik and Axel Frankel. Eagerly she read through the whole passage about the visit, realizing from the tone that they must have spent a lot of time together, Elsy and Erik, and two other youths named Britta and Frans. Erica