Silver Tears
ALSO BY CAMILLA LÄCKBERG
The Golden Cage
The Ice Princess
The Preacher
The Stonecutter
The Stranger (previously titled The Gallows Bird)
The Hidden Child
The Lost Boy
Buried Angels
The Ice Child
The Girl in the Woods
Short Stories
The Scent of Almonds & Other Stories
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Translation copyright © 2021 by Ian Giles
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in Sweden as Vingar av silver by Bokförlaget Forum, Stockholm, in 2020. Copyright © 2020 by Camilla Läckberg.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Läckberg, Camilla, [date] author. | Giles, Ian (Translator), translator.
Title: Silver tears : a novel / Camilla Läckberg ; translated by Ian Giles.
Other titles: Vingar av silver. English
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.
Identifiers: lccn 2021006392 (print) | lccn 2021006393 (ebook) | isbn 9780525657996 (hardcover) | isbn 9781984899293 (paperback) | isbn 9780525658009 (ebook)
Subjects: gsafd: Suspense fiction.
Classification: lcc pt9877.22.a34 v5613 2021 (print) | lcc pt9877.22.a34 (ebook) | ddc 839.73/8—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006392
lc ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006393
Ebook ISBN 9780525658009
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover photograph by lambada / E+ / Getty Images
Cover design by John Gall
ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Also by Camilla Läckberg
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 23
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 17
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 22
Part Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Fjällbacka—Then
Chapter 18
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
For Karin
PART ONE
Two inmates convicted of murder escaped early this morning from their prison transport. When their prison guard stopped at the Gränna motorway services on the E4, the men seized the opportunity and fled into the forest.
Several police patrol cars were summoned to the scene, but the search for the fugitives has as yet been fruitless.
According to the Swedish Prison and Probation Service’s press spokesperson, Karin Malm, the men are not considered to pose a threat to the public.
Aftonbladet, 5 June
Faye switched on the Nespresso machine. While it made her an espresso, she looked out of the tall window in the kitchen. As always, the view blew her away.
The house in Ravi had become her paradise on earth. The village itself wasn’t all that large—it was home to just two hundred permanent inhabitants. It took all of five minutes or so to walk around the entire village, if you dragged your heels a bit. But in the center of the small piazza there was a restaurant that served the best pizza and pasta she had ever eaten. And it was packed to the rafters every night. Sometimes a few tourists would trickle in, and now that the end of May was approaching their number was increasing. Enthusiastic French cyclists or American retirees who had rented a motorhome and were now fulfilling their dream of seeing Italy, while their grown-up children wondered despairingly why their parents insisted on having their own lives instead of being on call as babysitters for the grandkids.
But no Swedes.
Faye hadn’t seen a single Swede here since she had bought the house. That had been a deciding factor in the choice of location. In Sweden, she was famous the length and breadth of the country. In Italy, she wanted and needed to be anonymous.
The beautiful old house she had bought wasn’t actually in the village—it was some twenty minutes’ walk beyond it. It was high on a hill with vines climbing the slope toward the house. Faye loved to stroll up and down the steep village streets buying bread, cheese, and air-dried prosciutto. It was the ultimate cliché of life in the Italian countryside, and she was enjoying it to the fullest. Over the
last two years, while her ex-husband languished in a Swedish prison, she’d made a safe haven here for the two people she cared about most in the world: her daughter, Julienne, and her mother, Ingrid. This week they’d been joined by Faye’s closest friend and business associate, Kerstin, who doted on Julienne as if she were her own and had spent her visit competing with Ingrid to spoil the child.
The espresso was ready. Faye picked up her cup and went into the living room at the rear of the house, where the sound of splashing and happy childish cries divulged that there was a pool before it came into view. She loved the living room. It had taken time to decorate the house, but her own patience and one of Italy’s most talented interior designers meant it was exactly the way she wanted it. The house had thick stone walls that kept the heat out and made it cool even in the hottest summer months, but it was consequently rather dark indoors. They had remedied that with large, light furniture and plenty of discreet lighting. The large windows at the back also helped to let in the light. She loved how almost imperceptibly the living room faded into the terrace.
The white drape caressed her as she stepped outside. She tasted the espresso and watched her daughter and her mother without them noticing her at first.
Julienne had grown so big, while her hair—bleached by the sun—was almost white. She got new freckles pretty much every day. She was beautiful, healthy, and happy. Everything that Faye wanted for her. Everything that had been made possible by life without Jack.
“Mommy, Mommy, look! I can swim without armbands!”
Faye smiled and made an expression of amazement to show her daughter how impressed she was. Julienne was swimming in the deep end of the pool, doing a tortuous doggy paddle but completely independent of her Bamse the bear armbands, which were lying on the edge. Ingrid was watching her grandchild nervously, half sitting, half standing, ready to throw herself into the pool if need be.
“Relax, Mom. She’s got this.”
Faye took another sip of the espresso, which was almost all gone, and wandered farther out onto the terrace. She regretted not having made a cappuccino instead.
“She’s insisting on staying in the deep end,” said Faye’s mother, looking despairingly at her.
“I think she takes after her mother.”
“Thank you very much, I can see that!”
Ingrid laughed and Faye was struck—as she had been on so many occasions over these past two years—by how beautiful her mother was. Despite everything life had put her through.
The only people who knew that Ingrid and Julienne were alive were Faye and Kerstin. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, both were dead, Julienne murdered by her father—a crime for which Jack was now serving a life sentence in Sweden. He had come so close to crushing Faye. Her love for him had made her a victim, but in the end she’d seen to it that he paid the price.
Faye went to her mother and sat down next to her in a rattan armchair. Ingrid continued to watch Julienne, her body tense.
“Do you have to go away again?” she asked, without shifting her gaze from her granddaughter.
“This is a busy time for us. Expanding the Revenge brand into the American market means negotiating our way through a lot of red tape. And then there’s the Italian acquisition, which will give us a foothold in Rome. Giovanni, the owner, wants to sell, but, like all men, he seriously overestimates his own value. It’s just a case of making him realize that my price is the best offer he’ll get.”
Her mother looked anxiously from Faye to Julienne.
“I don’t understand why you’re still working so much. You’ve only got a ten percent stake in Revenge now, and you’ll never have to lift a finger again given the fortune you made selling your shares.”
Faye shrugged, drained the last drops of espresso, and then placed the cup on the rattan table.
“Sure, there’s part of me that would really like to hang out here with you two. But you know me. I’d die of boredom after a week. And no matter how many shares I have, Revenge is my baby. And I’m still chairman. What’s more, I feel a tremendous responsibility for all those women who came on board and invested and are now shareholders in Revenge. They took a chance on me and the company, and I want to carry on repaying that. In fact, I’ve been thinking about buying a bigger stake, if there’s anyone willing to sell. It would be a good exit for them, at any rate.”
Ingrid sat up slightly as Julienne turned at the far side of the pool.
“The sisterhood,” she huffed, then caught herself and apologized. “I’m afraid I don’t have quite the same perspective on women’s loyalty that you do.”
“We’re in new times, Mom. Women stick together. Anyway, Julienne is okay with me taking a quick jaunt to Rome—we talked about it yesterday.”
“You know I think you’re incredibly smart? You know that I’m proud of you?”
Faye took Ingrid’s hand.
“Yes, Mom, I know. You take care of the kid and make sure she doesn’t drown, and I’ll be home again soon.”
Faye went to the edge of the pool. Julienne was snorting, switching between strokes and swallowing mouthfuls of cold water.
“Bye, sweetheart, I’m off now!”
“Bye, b—”
The rest was drowned out by another gulp of water as Julienne tried to wave while swimming. From the corner of her eye, Faye saw Ingrid hurrying toward the pool.
In the living room, her stylish Louis Vuitton case was packed and ready to go. The limousine to take her to Rome had probably already arrived. She lifted the case to make sure the wheels didn’t scratch the dark wood floors and headed toward the front door. As she passed Kerstin’s study, she spotted Kerstin absorbed in something on the computer screen, her glasses on the tip of her nose as always.
“Knock knock—I’m off now…”
Kerstin didn’t look up—there was a deep worry line between her eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
Faye took a step into the room and put down the bag.
“I don’t know…” Kerstin said slowly, without looking up.
“Now you’re making me worried—is it something to do with the stock issue? Or America?”
Kerstin shook her head.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do I need to worry?”
Kerstin took her time to reply.
“No…not yet.”
A car honked outside and Kerstin nodded toward the front door.
“Off you go. Seal the deal in Rome. Then we’ll talk.”
“But…”
“It’s probably nothing.”
Kerstin smiled reassuringly at her, but as Faye went toward the heavy wooden door, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on. Something threatening. But she would deal with it. She would have to. That was the person she was.
She got into the backseat, waved at the chauffeur to drive, and opened the mini bottle awaiting her. As the car purred off toward Rome, she sipped the champagne thoughtfully.
Faye examined her face in the elevator mirror. Three men in suits were eyeing her appreciatively. She opened her Chanel bag, puckered her lips, and carefully applied Revenge’s own lipstick to them. She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear, and replaced the cap with the engraved R just as the elevator reached the lobby. The men stepped aside to let her exit first. Her footsteps echoed on the white marble floor, the night air making her red dress flutter as the doorman held open the glass doors.
“Taxi, signora?” he asked.
She shook her head, smiling without slowing down, and turned right when she reached the pavement. The traffic beside her was at a standstill. Cars were honking and drivers were swearing through wound-down windows.
She reveled in the freedom of being a solo visitor to a city where she knew almost nobody and where no one could demand anything from her
. Free from responsibility, free from guilt. The meeting with Giovanni, the owner of the small family-owned cosmetics firm that was going to supplement Revenge’s existing line of products, had gone splendidly. As soon as Giovanni had realized he couldn’t use mastery and male dominance to convince her to agree to his terms, the meeting had been turned to her advantage.
Faye loved the game of negotiation. The opposing players were usually men, and they always made the mistake of underestimating her expertise simply because she was a woman. Later, when they had to admit defeat, there were two types of men. There were the ones who left the meeting boiling with rage, their hatred of women even more firmly entrenched. And then there were the ones who loved it, who were turned on by her commanding presence and know-how, who left the meeting with a hard-on in their trousers and an inquiry about whether she was free for dinner.
As Faye walked through the balmy evening, the city buzzed around her and she felt it drawing her in with everything she had longed for. Her walk had no objective. Some opportunity would arise, all she had to do was let the pulse of the city take over her body.