Читать книгу Buried Angels - Camilla Lackberg - Страница 13

The Sjölins were having another party. Dagmar was grateful for every occasion that they celebrated with a party. She needed the extra income, and it was marvellous to have the chance to see up close all those rich and beautiful people. They lived such wonderful and carefree lives. They ate good food and drank copiously, they danced, sang, and laughed until dawn. She wished that her own life was like that, but so far she would have to settle for waiting on those more fortunate, basking in their presence for a short while.

This party seemed to be something special. Early in the morning she and the other staff had been taken over to an island off Fjällbacka, and all day long boats had shuttled back and forth, bringing food, wine, and guests.

‘Dagmar! You need to fetch more wine from the root cellar!’ shouted Mrs Sjölin, the doctor’s wife. Dagmar hurried off.

She was anxious to stay on good terms with Mrs Sjölin. The last thing she wanted was for the woman to start keeping an eye on her. If that happened, Mrs Sjölin would soon notice the glances and affectionate pinches her husband kept giving Dagmar during their parties. Sometimes he went even further, if his wife excused herself and retired to her room. By then the rest of the revellers would be too drunk or preoccupied with their own merriment to care about anything else going on around them. After those occasions, the doctor would slip Dagmar a little extra when the wages were handed out.

Quickly she plucked up four bottles of wine and dashed back up the steps with them. She was hugging them close to her chest when she ran right into somebody, and the bottles fell to the ground. Two of them broke, and Dagmar realized with anguish that the cost would most likely be deducted from her wages. Tears began rolling down her cheeks as she stared at the man in front of her.

‘Forgive me!’ he said, but the Danish words he spoke sounded strange.

Her distress swiftly turned to anger.

‘What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know you can’t stand in front of a door like that?’

‘Forgive me,’ he repeated. ‘Ich verstehe nicht,’ he said in German.

Suddenly Dagmar knew who he was. She had collided with the evening’s guest of honour, the German hero, the pilot who had fought bravely during the war. But after Germany’s stinging defeat, he had been making his living by flying in air shows. Everyone had been whispering about him all day. He’d apparently made a home for himself in Copenhagen, but it was rumoured that some scandal had now forced him to come to Sweden.

Dagmar stared at him. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He didn’t seem to be as drunk as many of the other guests, and his gaze was unwavering as he looked into her eyes. For a long moment they stood there, staring at each other. Dagmar lifted her chin. She knew she was beautiful. She’d had this confirmed so many times by men who ran their hands over her body and panted words in her ear. But never before had she been so pleased with her own beauty.

Without taking his eyes off her, the pilot bent down and began picking up shards of glass from the broken bottles. Carefully he carried them over to a little grove of trees and tossed them to the ground. Then he set his finger to his lips, stepped into the root cellar and brought out two more bottles. Dagmar smiled gratefully as she went over to take the bottles from him. She happened to glance down at his hands and discovered that he was bleeding from a cut on his left index finger.

She gestured to show that she wanted to have a look at his hand, so he set the bottles on the ground. It was not a deep cut, but it was bleeding heavily. With her eyes fixed on his, she put his finger in her mouth and gently sucked away the blood. His eyes widened, and she saw the familiar look as they glazed over. She moved away and picked up the bottles. As she turned and walked back to the guests, she could feel his eyes following her.