The Body in the Fjord Read Online Free PDF Page B

missed.
    It grew worse as she got older. Tønsberg seemed hopelessly conventional. It was the sixties and she craved new experiences. Some of them, she found through drugs. Then she met Sven and he became the most powerful addiction of them all. Throughout, her mother and father strove to stay with her, fearing a break, offering her any kind of help, whatever she wanted, trying not to be demanding. They never wavered in their love, even when it was rejected. Across the ocean, Ursula would read Marit’s letters and feel helpless. She went to visit her friend alone and came back visibly upset. “This will not end well,” she told her daughter, who was by then old enough to know what was going on.
    Hanna took off with Sven. They went wherever their fancy took them. Marit and Hans received postcards and were grateful for them. Then the cards stopped. Hanna returned home eight months later, pregnant. Sven had abandoned her in Greece when he learned he was about to become a father. Hanna had thought he would marry her. Instead, he found another young girl and left. She was penniless and had to work to save money for a ticket home. She did not want to ask her parents for it. Maybe she wasn’t even sure that was where she was headed.
    When Kari was born, at first it seemed that Hanna was happy. She insisted on doing everything to take care of the golden-haired baby, a baby who always smiled, especially when her mother picked her up. It brought the Hansen family together for a brief, very special time, later a time treasured like the salvaged beads of a favorite broken necklace—not enough to string, but put away to save forever nonetheless.
    Hanna killed herself on Kari’s second birthday. She went deep into the woods, climbed high up into a tall Norwegian spruce, made a noose, and hanged herself. Some hikers found her.
    Now all the old accounts were being resurrected. Hadthe daughter done something similar, convincing her lover to join her? asked the papers. Or was there some aberrant strain in the family that erupted in madness and Kari had pushed Erik to his doom, then killed herself—or run away?
    â€œNone of this is true, Marit. You know that.” Ursula was polishing off a smørbrød with a kind of ground meat patty and fried onions. “Stop reading the papers and don’t turn on the radio or TV. If there’s anything you have to know, the police or someone will tell you. Besides, you’ll be meeting us on the tour soon.”
    â€œI know, but I just wanted to tell you what’s been going on.” Marit pursed her mouth. “It makes people feel better if they think others are worse off.”
    Pix had never heard Marit speak so pessimistically. She thought of the questions she and Faith had raised. Now was the time to ask them. When they met Marit at the hotels the tour would be stopping at, they would supposedly be meeting for the first time and striking up a casual acquaintance. The tour. Marit’s call to Ursula had been a plea for Ursula to pose as a tourist, but the two women had quickly decided Pix would be useful. “You’ll be the hund, ” Marit had told Pix earlier. “The dog—you know, like for the blind. You will be our hund, since we are now such old women and can’t do everything we once did.” Pix wasn’t sure how she felt about her new role, but it was true that, while in terrific shape, Marit and Ursula just might not be able to do things like the trip by horseback they’d taken across the vast Hardangervidda some thirty years ago.
    The Mermaid/Troll tour. It reminded Pix of her first question—actually, two questions.
    She had wondered from the beginning why Marit was adamant they join the tour to investigate, eliminating all other possibilities.
    â€œYou seem so sure that whatever has happened is linked to the tour. I know it was where they were last seen, but couldn’t the explanation for all this lie