Depths - By Henning Mankell & Laurie Thompson Page 0,106
why you are here,' she said. 'I just want you to explain the only thing that is important. Why did Laura have to die? That's all I want to know.'
He took a step backwards, stumbled over a piece of rock and fell. She grabbed hold of his arm.
'Don't you try and run away again. You're never going to do that again. I'll find you no matter where you hide. All your lies leave a clear trail that I can follow, wherever you go.'
He was punch-drunk. It felt as if the cold water was penetrating his skin and making his body swell up.
'We can't stand in the water like this,' he said. 'It's too cold.'
'This is only water. Death is cold. Laura is cold, not this water.'
'What happened?'
She took hold of his head and pulled it towards her. She had tears in her eyes, he recognised her now. There were glimpses of the woman he was married to behind all the wet hair.
'After you went off I stayed in hospital for a few weeks. Laura grew as she ought to do. She grew bigger and stronger. But then one night I was woken up by her screaming. It wasn't the usual sort of scream, it was something different. Dr Edman came. He thought it was colic and would die down of its own accord. But it didn't die down, it wasn't colic, it was ileus, an obstruction of the intestine. Laura died in terrible agony. There was nothing I could do, and where were you? I thought you were on an important mission, I thought that you were with me in spirit, I thought about all the sorrow we would have to bear together. But the baby's death exposed all your lies, that was the terrible price I had to pay in order to discover who you really are.'
She leaned even further forward into his face.
'Was it you who attacked my father?'
'Of course it wasn't. But will you stop shouting, I can't bear such loud noises.'
She slapped the water with her hand so that it splashed into his face.
'What do you know about noises? You have no idea what a dying baby sounds like. Do you want to hear? I can imitate exactly what she sounded like just before she died.'
He shook his head.
'I'm devastated,' he said. 'I don't understand what you're saying. Is Laura dead?'
'On 22 August at 4.35 in the afternoon Dr Edman said that he could only express his sympathy. She is dead. But you are alive. What can't you understand?'
He did not answer. He tried to picture the dead child, but all he could see was a black hole.
'We can't stay in the water like this. It's too cold.'
She started to hit his face again.
'Can't you hear what I'm saying? My daughter is dead.'
'She was my daughter as well.'
'She wasn't your daughter. You were never there, you reacted to her by telling lies to get away from her and from me and from yourself and from everything I've ever believed in.'
She could not find any more words. She stood in the water screaming in despair.
He could picture the shelves with the china figurines slowly falling down one after another, each one smashing to smithereens.
CHAPTER 187
He led her carefully out of the water.
He was appalled by her bitterness, but shaken most of all by the boundless sorrow he had caused her. For the first time he felt utterly defenceless when facing her. This time he would not be able to wriggle off the hook. And Sara Fredrika would not be able to rescue him. Her presence would only compound the catastrophe.
'Do you remember our holiday in Oslo?' she asked. 'That day when we went to Bygdøy, the beach, the young boys bathing naked in the water, a bunch of balloons climbing up into the sky?'
He remembered, but decided to deny it.
'Of course you remember. Above all you must remember the cross we drew in the sand, and said that the most important thing in our lives would always be telling the truth. Good Lord, I believed it, I really did believe that I had met a man who was as good as his word.'
A quick gust of cold wind made them shiver.
'Who are you?' she said. 'I try to understand, but I can't. I simply can't pin you down, my image of you cracks and breaks up, you become an incomprehensible creature that seems to thrive on deceiving others.'