Alma Vogler lived near the sea. You could sense the sea even if it was concealed by a few sparse rows of pine trees. It was there as a smell, something cool and fresh in the air and a quiet swelling against the stones of the shore. The house must have been built in recent years. It looked modern and deliberate with black wooden panels, large windows, and an unpainted metal roof. Both foreign and Fårö at the same time.
“I just can’t understand it,” said Alma. “Here on Fårö. It’s so awful.”
Sara did not need to convey any news of the deaths. Alma Vogler started talking about the murders even before Sara and Ove managed to say hello.
“I didn’t know Malin and Axel,” Alma continued. “I’ve only met Malin one time, at Mother’s funeral—”
She interrupted herself and lowered her eyes.
“But even if I didn’t know them, they are related in some way. And Henrik—”
She interrupted herself again and looked in the direction of the sea that was so present, but not visible.
Yes, thought Sara, how was it really with Henrik?
They asked to come in. Alma suggested the living room. The kitchen was one big mess, she said. Sara and Ove sat down on a firm black felt couch, and Alma sat across from them in an armchair. She sat far out on the cushion, attentively leaning forward with her forearms supported against her knees.
“Where were you between six and eight o’clock yesterday evening?” said Sara.
Alma looked up toward the wall, somewhere above Ove’s and Sara’s heads, while she answered.
“We had dinner at five thirty, all of us, that is, Krister and I and the kids. Then I mostly sat in front of the TV. Krister was out working on his car for a while.”
“So all of you were at home the whole evening?”
“The kids were over at the neighbors, right after dinner, but Krister and I were home.”
“But you were in here and he was outside?”
“Yes, but that was only for a short time and right outside,” she said with a gesture toward the window.
“How did you find out that Malin and Axel Andersson had been murdered?” asked Sara.
Alma’s eyes narrowed when she heard the word.
“It can’t be anyone from here who did it,” she said, squinting at Sara. “It must be some complete lunatic, right?”
Sara did not answer, but noted that “lunatic” and “stranger” were synonymous.
Alma looked at her in confusion for a while, but then remembered the question.
“Excuse me. It was Elisabet who called. Although then she didn’t know what had happened. Just that there was something going on with helicopters and police and that presumably someone had been killed.”
“What time was that?”
“Right after ten.”
“Do you know how Elisabet found out about it?” asked Sara.
“Someone phoned her. I don’t remember who.”
Sara turned over a new page in her notepad and looked out the high windows that reached almost all the way from floor to ceiling. You could actually see glimpses of blue between the trees.
“Was it you who built the house?” she asked.
“No.”
Alma looked toward the windows, too.
“But it was practically new when we bought it. The family that built it lived here less than a year. They weren’t from here. They probably didn’t feel at home.”
“It’s nice. Extremely modern.”
“Yes. The old stone houses have their charm, but I prefer this.”
Alma cleared her throat briefly. She was presumably starting to wonder what Sara was after with her questions. Sara changed track.
“When did you find out that Henrik was your half brother?”
The question did not appear to come as a surprise. Alma barely reacted. Possibly she shrank a little in the armchair.
“Mother told Elisabet when she was eighteen and Elisabet told me, of course. Mother didn’t want us to find out about it only after she died. Then that sort of thing comes out, with inheritance and such.”
“Yes, that’s the way it is, of course,” said Sara.
“I actually wrote to Henrik once when I was sixteen. It was maybe six months after Mother told. But I never got an answer. I don’t even know if he ever got the letter.”
“Did you talk about it later? I mean the whole arrangement that Henrik grew up with his grandmother. Well, your grandmother, too, of course.”
Alma slid backward in the armchair.
“No, that’s not something anyone talks with Dad about.”
“Not with your mother, either, when she was alive?”
“I asked a few times about what really happened, but Mother never really answered. Just something to the effect that it was different at that time, but I never really understood. That was in the seventies…”
Alma turned toward Ove Gahnström, as if she wanted to assure herself that he was listening, too, even though he had not said a thing since they sat down.
“I think it was extremely painful for her,” she said. “It must have been.”
“And Henrik?” asked Sara. “Didn’t he ever try to make contact with you and Elisabet, or your mother?”
“No, not with us anyway. And if he was in touch with Mother that wasn’t anything we heard about. I think he turned his back on everything, as if he wanted to show that he didn’t need this place. He lived in Los Angeles for a while. He talked about that at the funeral. As I said before, I probably would have done the same.”
Ove pointed toward the windows and the light that flooded in from the south.
“You practically have a waterfront lot here,” he said.
“Yes,” Alma admitted. “But the trees there aren’t on my lot, so there isn’t any sea view.”
“That can’t be cheap here on Fårö?” he continued.
“No,” said Alma with a perplexed crease between her eyebrows. “Actually it’s a depopulated area, but the summer visitors jack up the prices.”
“But you got help to buy the house in connection with your father turning over the farm to Elisabet, is that correct?”
“Yes?”
The crease between her eyebrows had deepened and was joined by several wrinkles on her forehead.
“Was it your mother’s inheritance from your grandmother that paid for the house?”
Alma’s smile froze a little.
“I don’t know exactly how they resolved that.”