The Ice Child. Camilla Lackberg

Fjällbacka the house in the photographs had become known as the House of Horrors. Not a particularly original name, but definitely appropriate. After the tragedy, no one had wanted to buy the place, and it had gradually fallen into disrepair. Erica reached for a picture of the house as it had looked back then. Nothing hinted at what had gone on inside. It looked like a completely normal house: white with grey trim, standing alone on a hill with a few trees nearby. She wondered what it looked like now, how run-down it must be.

      She sat up abruptly and placed the photo back on her desk. Why not drive out there and have a look? While researching her previous books she’d always visited the crime scene, but she hadn’t done that this time. Something had been holding her back. It wasn’t that she’d made a conscious decision not to go out there; more that she had simply stayed away.

      It would have to wait until tomorrow though. Right now it was time to go and fetch her little wildcats. Her stomach knotted with a mixture of longing and fatigue.

      The cow was struggling valiantly. Jonas was soaked with sweat after spending several hours trying to turn the calf around. The big animal kept resisting, unaware that they were trying to help her.

      ‘Bella is our best cow,’ said Britt Andersson. She and her husband Otto ran the farm which was only a couple of kilometres from the property owned by Jonas and Marta. It was a small but robust farm, and the cows were their main source of income. Britt was an energetic woman who supplemented the money they made from milk sales to Arla by selling cheese from a little shop on their property. She was looking worried as she stood next to the cow.

      ‘She’s a good cow, Bella is,’ said Otto, rubbing the back of his head anxiously. This was her fourth calf. The previous three births had all gone fine. But this calf was in the wrong position and refused to come out, and Bella was obviously exhausted.

      Jonas wiped the sweat from his brow and prepared to make yet another attempt to turn the calf so it could finally slide out and land in the straw, sticky and wobbly. He was not about to give up, because then both the cow and the calf would die. Gently he stroked Bella’s soft flank. She was taking, short, shallow breaths, and her eyes were open wide.

      ‘All right now, girl, let’s see if we can get this calf out,’ he said as he again pulled on a pair of long rubber gloves. Slowly but surely he inserted his hand into the narrow canal until he could touch the calf. He needed to get a firm grip on a leg so he could pull on it and turn the calf, but he had to do it cautiously.

      ‘I’ve got hold of a hoof,’ he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Britt and Otto craning their necks to get a better look. ‘Nice and calm now, girl.’

      He spoke in a low voice as he began to tug at the leg. Nothing happened. He pulled a little harder but still couldn’t budge the calf.

      ‘How’s it going? Is it turning?’ asked Otto. He kept scratching his head so often that Jonas thought he would end up with a bald spot.

      ‘Not yet,’ said Jonas through clenched teeth. Sweat poured off him, and a strand of hair from his blond fringe had fallen in his eyes so he kept having to blink. But right now the only thought in his mind was getting the calf out. Bella’s breathing was getting shallower, and her head kept sinking into the straw, as if she were ready to give up.

      ‘I’m afraid of breaking something,’ he said, pulling as hard as he dared. And something moved! He pulled a bit harder, holding his breath and hoping not to hear the sound of anything breaking. Suddenly he felt the calf shift position. A few more cautious tugs, and the calf was lying on the ground, feeble but alive. Britt rushed forward and began rubbing the newborn with straw. With firm, loving strokes she wiped off its body and massaged its limbs.

      In the meantime Bella lay on her side, motionless. She didn’t react to the birth of the calf, this life that had been growing inside of her for close to nine months. Jonas went over to sit near her head, plucking away a few pieces of straw close to her eye.

      ‘It’s over now. You were amazing, girl.’

      He stroked her smooth black hide and kept on talking, just as he’d done throughout the birth process. At first the cow didn’t respond. Then she wearily raised her head to peer at the calf.

      ‘You have a beautiful little girl. Look, Bella,’ said Jonas as he continued to pat her. He felt his racing pulse gradually subside. The calf would live, and Bella would too. He stood up and finally pushed the irritating strand of hair out of his eyes as he nodded to Britt and Otto.

      ‘Looks like a fine calf.’

      ‘Thank you, Jonas,’ said Britt, coming over to give him a hug.

      Otto awkwardly grasped Jonas’s hand in his big fist. ‘Thank you, thank you. Good work,’ he said, pumping Jonas’s hand up and down.

      ‘Just doing my job,’ said Jonas with a big smile. It was always satisfying when something worked out as it should. He didn’t like it when he wasn’t able to resolve things, either on the job or in his personal life.

      Happy with the final results, he took his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. For a few seconds he stared at the display. Then he dashed for his car.

       FJÄLLBACKA 1964

       The sounds, the smells, the colours. Everything so bedazzling, radiating excitement. Laila was holding her sister’s hand. They were too old for that sort of thing, but instinctively she and Agneta would reach for each other’s hand when anything unusual happened. And a circus in Fjällbacka was undeniably something out of the ordinary.

       They had hardly ever been away from the small fishing village. Two day-trips to Göteborg. That was the furthest they’d gone. The circus brought with it the promise of the big wide world.

       ‘What language are they speaking?’ Agneta whispered, even though they could have shouted without anyone hearing because of the buzz of voices all around them.

       ‘Aunt Edla said the circus came from Poland,’ she whispered back, squeezing her sister’s sweaty hand.

       The summer had consisted of an endless string of sunny days, but this had to be the hottest day so far. Laila had been allowed to take a day off from her job selling sewing accessories. She looked forward to every minute she didn’t have to spend inside that stuffy little shop.

       ‘Look! An elephant!’ Agneta pointed excitedly at the big grey beast ambling past them, accompanied by a man who looked to be in his thirties. The sisters stopped to watch the elephant, which was so impressively beautiful and so completely out of place in the field outside of Fjällbacka, where the circus was setting up.

       ‘Come on, let’s go look at the other animals. I heard they have lions and zebras too.’ Agneta tugged at her sister’s hand, and Laila followed, out of breath. She could feel the sweat running down her back and making damp patches on her thin summer dress with the floral pattern.

       They ran between the wagons parked around the big tent which was being raised. Strong men in white undershirts were working hard to get everything ready for the next day when Cirkus Gigantus would have its first performance. Many of the locals hadn’t been able to wait until then and had come over to gawp at the spectacle. Now they were staring wide-eyed in wonder, never having seen the like before. Except for the two or three bustling summer months when tourists arrived to spend time on the beach, daily life in Fjällbacka was anything but exciting. One day followed the other with nothing in particular happening. The news that a circus was coming to town for the first time had spread like wildfire.

       Agneta kept on tugging at Laila, drawing her over to the wagons where a striped head was sticking out of a hatchway.

       ‘Oh, look how beautiful it is!’

       Laila had to agree.