Page 102 of All I Want for Christmas

‘Do you know anything about the circumstances in which Lilja died?’

‘Yes. She drowned.’

‘I know – but do you knowhowit happened? Was she in the bath? Swimming in a pond?’

Viggo hesitated. ‘Does it matter? The outcome is the same.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t,’ she shrugged. ‘But if I’m writing her biography, I ought to know the specifics, don’t you think?’

He looked uncomfortable and for the first time, she could see he was hedging a reply to her.

‘Viggo?’ she pressed. ‘Please tell me. It’s just a matter of fact, surely?’

His clear-eyed gaze met hers. ‘Not necessarily.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The death was recorded as an accidental drowning.’

‘...But?’ she prompted, hearing it hang in silence.

‘There were rumours—’ He looked pained. ‘...That she walked into the sea.’

‘Lilja killed herself?’ Darcy gasped. She fell still as he nodded. ‘...But that can’t be.’

‘Why not?’

She thought back to the certificates she had laid out: one marriage, two births, three deaths. ‘She’d just had another baby.’

‘Exactly why they wanted to stop speculation.’

Darcy stared at him. ‘So you’re saying the Madsens hid the truth?’

‘I’m saying they didn’t reveal the whole truth,’ he said carefully. ‘These were different times—’

Like a pubescent age of consent? Arranged marriages between young girls and older men? Adolescent pregnancies resulting in death and trauma? Those different times, Darcy wondered? Were any – or all – of those reasons why Lilja might have done it?

‘You have to understand, there was a certain stigma around suicide in those days,’ Viggo went on quickly. ‘Great shame was attached to the act back then. They had to think about what was best for the baby – what she would learn, growing up. Not to mention, when Casper died just a few days later, the family knew their high profile meant the double tragedy would become the subject of salacious gossip, not just in the capital butnationwide. It was bad enough that they had lost two young members of their future generation. They needed to grieve. If the whole story had been known, shame added to tragedy...It would have followed them everywhere.’

Darcy couldn’t imagine the level of despair it must take to wade into the waves and hold oneself under the surface. To leave a baby without its mother...

‘At the end of the day, the poor girl drowned. How or why she died was no one else’s business.’ He looked at Darcy. ‘Do you see?’

She nodded.Never underestimate the importance of reputation.Otto had told her that.

She looked away, bothered by what she had learned and knowing she would need to consult with Otto on it. Whatever the family’s best intentions had been back then, revealing the truth of Lilja’s death was surely the right and honourable thing to do now? Although she could well imagine Helle Foss’s response to this discovery.

She clicked onto the next slide, staring blankly at the image of a garden in full bloom.

‘It’s such a shame these pictures aren’t in colour,’ Viggo said. ‘It would look like Giverny, I’m sure. Old Sally knew what he was doing. They don’t make them like him any more. He could make anything grow, they said.’

Darcy rallied herself back to concentration. ‘Old Sally’s the gardener?’

‘Yes. He worked at Solvtraeer for over fifty years. His son worked with him too, when he came back from the Great War.’

‘...I thought Denmark was neutral?’ she frowned.

‘Yes. But the Sallys were from Schleswig, close to the German border. A more complicated picture there. They felt it was their duty to fight.’

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