Still Waters (Sandhamn Murders Book 1) Read Free Page B

idea. I’ll try.”

C HAPTER 5
    Nora cycled home deep in thought. She wondered if the man who had died had been a resident or a total stranger. If he lived on Sandhamn, then she should have heard that someone was missing. The island was small enough for most people to keep an eye on each other. The social network was strong. But she hadn’t heard a thing.
    As she lifted Simon down and parked the bike by the fence, she saw her next-door neighbor, Signe Brand, watering her roses. The most glorious roses covered the south-facing wall of Signe’s house, pink interspersed with red. The rose bushes were several decades old, their stems as thick as a wrist.
    Signe, or Auntie Signe as Nora called her when she was little, lived in the Brand house, one of the most beautiful houses on the island, right in the middle of Kvarnberget, just by the inlet to Sandhamn. When the old windmill that had stood on Kvarnberget was moved in the 1860s, Signe’s grandfather, the master pilot Carl Wilhelm Brand, saw an opportunity to make use of the land. After many years he built a truly imposing house right at the top of the hill.
    Although the fashion at the time was to build houses close together in the village in order to protect each other from the wind, the master pilot built his house so that it stood alone in solitary majesty. It was the first thing visitors saw when the steamboat docked in Sandhamn, a landmark for all those who came to the island.
    The master pilot had skimped on nothing when the house was being built. He used only the finest material. The National Romantic style was fully embraced, with narrow roof projections, wide decorative bargeboards, and gently curving lines in the attic and bay windows. Inside were lavish tiled stoves, specially ordered from the porcelain factory in Gustavsberg, and a huge claw-foot bathtub in what was an unusually modern bathroom for the time. There was even an indoor toilet, which provoked great surprise among the neighbors, who were used to the inconvenience of the outhouse.
    Some of them had shaken their heads, muttering something about fancy city ways, but the master pilot had taken no notice. “I’ll shit where I like,” he had roared when the gossip reached him.
    Signe had bought herself a television after resisting for many years, but that was the only thing that didn’t fit in with the style of the house. Everything was so beautifully preserved it was barely noticeable that a hundred years had passed since the house was furnished.
    These days, Signe lived alone in the house with her dog, a Labrador named Kajsa. From time to time she complained about the cost of everything, but each time some fresh outsider tried to tempt her with an amazing offer for what had to be one of Sandhamn’s most beautiful buildings, she snorted and sent them packing.
    “This is where I was born, and this is where I’m going to die,” she would say without a shred of sentimentality. “No rich kid from Stockholm is moving in here.”
    Signe loved the house she had inherited, and Nora could understand why. When she was little, Signe had been like an extra grandmother, and Nora felt just as much at home in her house as in her parents’.
    “Did you hear about what happened?” she asked Signe.
    “No, what?” Signe said, putting down the watering can. She straightened up and came over to the fence.
    “Somebody drowned—they found a body over on the west beach. The police are out in force.”
    Signe looked at her in surprise.
    “You can imagine how wound up the parents at the swimming school were,” Nora said.
    “Somebody’s dead, is that what you said?”
    “Yes. I bumped into Thomas down by Westerberg’s. He’s here to investigate the death.”
    “Do they know who it is? Did you recognize the body?”
    “I wasn’t there. Thomas said it was a man, and the body was in a really bad state. Apparently it’s been in the water for several months.”
    “So Thomas is here on police business. To think