Still Waters (Sandhamn Murders Book 1) (29 page)

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72

The silence grew, sweeping over Nora and Signe. A terrible silence, paralyzing both of them.

In Signe’s ashen face Nora saw a truth she could not accept. The shock made her back away toward the wall and sink down on the steps in front of the door leading to the walkway.

She could hardly force the words out. “But it was an accident, wasn’t it, Auntie Signe?” In her confusion she used the familiar form of address from her childhood.

Signe shook her head without speaking. Her face was set in an inscrutable mask; only her thin lips moved. After a moment her expressionless voice sliced through the air like a knife. “Krister Berggren drowned because of me.”

“But why? What had he done to you? You didn’t even know him, did you?”

Signe’s expression was implacable. “Krister Berggren was Helge’s illegitimate son.”

“So you were related? You killed your nephew?”

Signe nodded. “But he didn’t know anything about our family connections until his mother died. Then he decided to come looking for me, demanding the Brand house as his inheritance.” Signe’s voice had a harshness that Nora had never heard before. It sounded as if she were talking about someone else altogether, rather than herself.

Nora had begun to shiver violently. She felt nauseous. She wished this were a nightmare and that she would wake up soon.

“I would have had to leave my home, Nora. He would have forced me to sell so I could pay him. I would never have been able to afford to buy him out.” She clenched her fists in fury. “I hadn’t planned to kill him. But it was the only solution. If he died, everything could just go back to normal.” Signe paused for a moment, closing her eyes as if she were trying to erase something from her mind. “At least that’s what I thought.” She took a deep breath and carried on, her words betraying a kind of relief at being able to talk about what had happened. “Then his body washed ashore. I realized right away that it was him. I didn’t know what to do.”

Nora hid her face in her hands. She hardly dared ask the next question. “What happened to his cousin? That woman they found in the Mission House?”

Signe folded her arms, her hands clenching and unclenching. “That terrible woman. She just turned up out of the blue, claiming to be Krister’s cousin. His only relative and heir. She demanded her share of his inheritance.”

Nora was finding it difficult to breathe. “So you killed her, too?”

Signe turned away. “I couldn’t let her take my home. It was their own fault. Both of them. If they’d only stayed away from Sandhamn, none of this would have been necessary.” Her voice was shaking with rage. “Who did they think they were? What right did they have to come here and destroy my life?”

Nora didn’t know what to say. Her tongue felt like a numb mass inside her mouth, incapable of forming anything intelligible. “And Jonny Almhult?” The words were no more than a whisper, lost syllables creeping out into the narrow tower, which by now was in near darkness.

Signe shook her head. “I had nothing to do with Jonny’s death. I have no idea what happened to him. I swear.”

Nora didn’t know what to think. Had her Signe killed two people? Auntie Signe, whom she had known since she was a little girl? Her extra grandmother.

Signe had turned and started down the steps. “It’s getting dark. I don’t suppose you’ve got any lights on that little boat of yours?” she said.

Nora shook her head, incapable of speech. She was so cold that her teeth were chattering. After a couple of minutes she forced herself to get to her feet and cautiously began to make her way down the worn stone steps. Signe had already reached the second landing.

Nora passed the blind passageway. She was moving slowly so as not to slip. She could hardly see a thing, and the little flashlight wasn’t much use.

Then she heard a door close at the bottom of the steps.

“Signe, are you there?” she called out into the darkness, increasing her speed.

Suddenly she stumbled and fell down the last few steps. She was unable to save herself in the blackness and landed headfirst on the hard stone floor with a sickening thud. She was vaguely aware of Signe’s muffled voice through the door.

“I’m so sorry, Nora, but there’s something I have to do. I’ll make sure someone comes to find you tomorrow.”

Nora sank down into the darkness. The last thing she heard was the echo of Signe’s footsteps disappearing into the night.

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When Nora regained consciousness she was enveloped in pitch darkness. She wondered how long she had been out; she had no way of telling whether it was minutes or hours.

She sensed where the door was and made an effort to get up. She felt dizzy and nauseous. She got to her knees and managed to crawl to the door. She tried to open it, but it wouldn’t move.

She was locked inside the lighthouse.

Tears came to her eyes, and she bit her lip hard.

Don’t cry,
she told herself.
Don’t cry.
She had to think clearly. How was she going to get out of here?

The nausea made its presence felt again, but she somehow managed to suppress the urge to vomit. Her entire body was shaking, but she couldn’t decide whether it was because of the fall or because her blood sugar was dropping.

The numbness in her lips and tongue suggested the latter, as did the trembling. It was a sure sign of hypoglycemia—dangerously low blood sugar. Desperately she searched her memory: when had she taken her insulin? It must have been around quarter to nine in the evening, and she had taken a higher dose. This was perfectly reasonable if the insulin was then matched by a substantial intake of food. But now the insulin could not be used to break down the sugar in a sudden influx of carbohydrates. Instead, it would consume the sugars already in the body, sugars that had already been used much more quickly than usual in climbing all those steps in the lighthouse. If she didn’t take in more sugar soon, her brain would suffer from an excess of lactic acid. Without sugar, she would quickly fall into a coma.

The next stage was death.

Nora was all too well aware of what would happen. First came the trembling and a sense of weakness, then sweating, racing heart, shaking, and blurred vision. She would have difficulty concentrating. As her body’s blood sugar level dropped, she would feel drowsy, then sleepy, and then she would lose consciousness. She would fall into a coma, which would lead to death. In a short time her body would give up the struggle.

It probably wouldn’t be an unpleasant death, Nora thought. But she didn’t want to die. Not now, not like this. Alone and locked in on Grönskär.

She forced herself not to think about the children; if she did she would just start crying.

She didn’t have much time. If it was after midnight, she only had minutes before she lost consciousness. If only she had something to eat.

She usually had glucose tablets in her pocket, but she hadn’t bothered to bring anything because she was only going to be away for a short time. She could have kicked herself. Had she done
anything
right this evening?

Where was the flashlight? She crawled around, trying to find it in the darkness. Perhaps she could use it to signal someone? Anyone who had spent a lot of time at sea knew the SOS signal by heart. Three short, three long, three short. With the help of the flashlight she would be able to let someone know where she was.

She ran her hands over the floor. At last. There it was. She pressed the button with trembling fingers.

Nothing happened.

She examined the flashlight as best she could in the darkness. The glass was broken, and she cut her finger. She brought the flashlight up to her ear and shook it to see if she could hear if the bulb was broken. It didn’t sound like it was, but there was still no light.

Tears sprang to her eyes again. There must be a way to let the outside world know where she was. It occurred to her that if she could find her phone, she would be able to call for help. Perhaps she hadn’t searched carefully enough the first time. What if it was somewhere inside the lighthouse after all?

She crawled along, feeling her way. Methodically, a few inches at a time.

Still no phone.

Breathless, she made her way up to the next level and crawled around the walls. Fumbled in the blind passageway, felt her way across every step with her fingers. No phone.

On all fours, she dragged herself up to the landing from which the narrow wrought-iron staircase led up to the lantern room. She opened the door to the walkway to let in some light, but it didn’t help much. She sank down on the floor.

No one knew where she was.

She could no longer stop the tears. She was sobbing now; she couldn’t help thinking about the boys, even though that made her cry even harder.

How could she have been so careless?

Why had she dropped her phone? Why had she let Signe come with her? Why hadn’t she told anyone where she was going?

She curled up in the fetal position on the hard stone floor. She could hear nothing but her own terrified, irregular breathing.

She tried to use her arms and upper body to induce a sense of calm so she could think, but her thoughts simply ran away with her.

She could see herself lying dead on the floor, abandoned and forgotten.

She was so frightened.

The darkness seemed to be even more dense now. The lighthouses at Svängen and Revengegrundet had begun to flash at regular intervals.

Like a heartbeat.

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Nora looked at her watch. It was difficult to make out the time in the darkness; it seemed to be after midnight, but it was hard to say.

She tried to calm her breathing to prevent the panic from bubbling up. Forced herself not to give in to her shaking body. She was the only person who could do anything about this situation. She had to pull herself together; there was no other way.

She decided to go up to the lantern room—she would have the best overview from there. Perhaps someone had come back to the island and might be able to help her. She peered out into the darkness, looking for any signs of life in the houses below.

Nothing. Not a soul in sight.

Why was no one at home this evening? It was so unfair.

She tried to judge the distance from the walkway to the ground. Could she jump? It must be at least sixty feet. She would probably kill herself on the rocks if she tried.

It must be possible to signal somehow. There had to be someone out there who would pick up a signal. Nora went through her pockets again. In the first she found only a pair of gloves, in the second a wrapper, a five-kronor piece, lip balm, and a box of matches.

Matches.

Could she set fire to something, then use it as a distress signal?

Her arms and legs were beginning to feel heavy; yet another sign that there was too much insulin in her body. She tried to ignore the feeling and concentrate on the task at hand.

The light from the lamp in the lantern room was a relief. It was ghostly, but somehow it made her feel more secure. It was a reminder of life. The prisms of light shone in the green glow as Nora looked at the piece of material wrapped around the lens.

Linen would burn, and it would burn quickly. She tried to remember what she had seen in the rest of the lighthouse earlier in the day. Hadn’t the doors on the landings been held open with wooden wedges? And hadn’t there been piles of wood shavings next to them?

She climbed back down and felt her way along the bottom of the door. Her fingers found the wedge holding it open. Underneath the iron steps she found several bits of wood and some shavings. She gathered everything into a pile and went down to the next level, where she found another small wedge, along with more sawdust and some sticks. Cautiously, she edged over to the blind passageway opposite her treasure trove. Bingo! She discovered a whole plank about a foot long as far as she could tell in the darkness. That would burn for a decent amount of time.

But it was getting harder to fight the exhaustion, to keep her mind clear, and her limbs were getting heavier and heavier. Cold sweat was trickling down the back of her neck.

She tucked the bits of wood and shavings into her jacket and carried them up to the lantern room. Carefully she arranged them in a pile around the piece of linen, which would be best on the inside. She heaped the shavings on top. The green lamp flashed every ten seconds, giving her just enough light to see what she was doing.

She managed to get the pile in the right place on top of the light prisms. She checked that the small air vent down in the corner was open. The fear of dying from smoke inhalation had already been superseded by the realization that she was on the point of hypoglycemic shock.

She was finding it harder to focus and had to keep blinking to see clearly. She knew she would have to make her way down from the lantern room as soon as her makeshift bonfire began to burn; she had to get as far away from the fire as possible.

With shaking fingers she struck a match. In the glow of its flame she could see her own reflection in the glass wall. Eyes wide open, terrified. Her face was tense and gray.

Was this what you looked like when you were about to die?

She brought the match to the linen, but nothing happened. She struck another match. And another. Still nothing.

In despair she struck three matches at once and held them right up against the fabric. At first it looked as if they too were going to burn out, but suddenly the fabric glowed red and burst into flames.

Nora breathed out. She couldn’t suppress a sob of relief. The fire had really caught hold. One of the pieces of wood began to burn, and the orange flames spread.

Feeling dizzy, she backed away and edged down the steps. Every movement was torture. She felt as if her body were full of lead. She clutched the rail with both hands so she wouldn’t lose her balance.

“Don’t go to sleep,” she said to herself like a mantra. “Don’t go to sleep, for God’s sake. Stay awake.”

She crawled backward down to the last landing, where Signe had locked the door from the other side. The acrid smell of smoke followed her.

She was so tired. All she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes. For a second she thought about the air vent in the lantern room, hoping that it would let in enough oxygen so she wouldn’t be suffocated by the smoke. Then she just didn’t have the strength to think about it anymore.

With one final effort she crawled over to the locked door, as far away from the fire as possible.