Page 144 of All I Want for Christmas

‘Ah,’ he breathed. ‘Well, I guess that trumps me. Don’tworry, I won’t linger. I’ll head off as soon as I’ve offered my congratulations.’

‘You don’t have to go on my account.’

The bartended handed over their drinks.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her heart pounding at this surprise encounter. Of all the people she hadn’t expected to see tonight, he was top of the list.

Quickly, she took a sip of her champagne. It tasted colder, fresher, sharper than usual, another small jolt to her shocked body as she tried to gather her composure. Their last meeting had ended so abruptly, with such finality...And yet seeing him again, she remembered only the weight of his head upon her breast, his hand on her hip.

‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

Darcy watched in shock as he turned to go. That wasit? He’d blocked her online and he had nothing to say to her face?

‘Haven’t you spoken to Viggo?’ she asked to his back.

He stopped and half turned back. ‘Not yet. I’ve been in board meetings all day.’

‘Well then perhaps you should.’

‘Viggo would alert me if there was anything I needed to know.’

Unless Viggo was leaving it to her? He clearly wasn’t blind to what was going on between her and Max, and after what they’d discovered today...‘There is.’

He sighed. ‘Yeah? And what further surprises await?’

She swallowed at his flat sarcasm. Viggo had been right; he wasn’t acting to type. It was as if he had completely checked out. Acceptance of his fate. The Madsens were the villains of this piece and he was one of them. Right? ‘Johan Trier was there the night Lilja died; he was a witness. He put it all in his diary. That was the bequest.’

There was a long silence as Max digested the news. Outwardly, he appeared not to react, but she saw the tension in his mouth, the unnatural stillness in his body. ‘Did he detail what happened?’

She nodded.

He walked back over, standing right beside her. ‘Tell me,’ he said in a low voice, not wanting anyone to overhear.

‘...They had all gone to bed when he heard an argument down the corridor. Casper was shouting. Lilja was crying. Johan could hear her pleading with Casper, saying he owed her this happiness. Trier thought he heard things being thrown and he debated going through and intervening – but he didn’t.’

Max blinked, saying nothing.

‘I assume he felt that as a guest in his patron’s house, it wasn’t his place to interfere in domestic disputes – although he was clearly conflicted. From the earlier diary entries, it’s clear he and Lilja had become friends over the summer.’ She bit her lip. ‘Eventually it seemed to die down. Everything went quiet and he fell asleep. But then he woke up later in the night. He needed the bathroom and said that as he was walking back to his bed, he saw Casper through his window, coming up the garden. He was fully clothed but soaking wet, as if he’d just gone for a swim. Apparently he’d had a lot to drink at dinner so it wasn’t...completely inexplicable.’

Max looked away, his jaw clenched.

‘Trier went back to sleep. It was only in the morning, when Casper started shouting for Lilja, that he realized something was wrong. The baby was crying, needing to be fed, and she was nowhere to be found...It was Johan who ran down to the beach and found her.’

‘Jesus,’ Max muttered through clenched teeth, closing his eyes momentarily as he sighed, the sound weary and dark.It was a moment before he looked back at her. ‘So then it’s exactly as we thought. Trier’s given us confirmation – but no surprises.’ It was a deliberate dig, echoing her accusations at their last meeting that he had known all along what Casper had done.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Because he wasn’t just a witness...He became an accomplice.’

‘By hiding the portrait?’ he asked sceptically. ‘That would hardly meet the threshold for obstruction of justice.’

‘No, not that crime. He realized what he’d seen the night before and told the Sallys – he knew all about Arne and Lilja; he knew they were in love. Arne was destroyed by her death. He had known there was no way Lilja would leave him or Emme. So when he heard Trier’s account...he went after Casper.’

Max’s eyebrows raised. ‘Arne killed Casper?’

‘Trier too. They all did.’

‘But how? There was no evidence of foul play.’

‘Not externally. Mrs Sally served him a lunch of ham, eggs and mushrooms. The mushrooms had been freshly foraged that day by Arne and his father. They collected them from the woods at the back.’

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