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she walked slowly around the room as she looked at the artworks. As the gallery’s name indicated, all the paintings were done in the abstract style. Cubes, squares, circles and strange figures. Erica tilted her head and squinted, trying to see what the art aficionados saw. But it completely eluded her. Nope, still only cubes and squares like any five-year-old could produce, in her opinion. She would just have to accept that this was beyond her comprehension.
    She was standing before a gigantic red painting with yellow, irregularly divided sections when she heard Francine come up behind her with heels clacking on the chequerboard floor.
    ‘That one is certainly wonderful,’ said Francine.
    ‘Yes, indeed. Exquisite. But to be honest, I’m not really at home in the world of art. I think Van Gogh’s sunflowers are great, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes.’
    Francine smiled. ‘You must be Erica. Henri just rang and told me you were on your way here.’
    She held out a finely contoured hand. Erica hastily wiped off her own hand, still wet with rain, before she took Francine’s.
    The woman facing her was small and slender, with an elegance that Frenchwomen seem to have patented. Erica was five foot nine in her stockinged feet, and she felt like a giant in comparison.
    Francine’s hair was raven-black. It was pulled back smoothly from her forehead and gathered in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She wore a form-fitting black dress. The colour was no doubt chosen in view of the death of her friend and colleague; she seemed more the type to dress in dramatic red, or perhaps yellow. Her make-up was light and perfectly applied, but it could not conceal the telling red rims of her eyes. Erica hoped that her own mascara wasn’t running - no doubt a vain hope.
    ‘I thought we ought to sit down and talk over a cup of coffee. The weather is very mild today. Let’s go out back.’
    She led Erica towards a small room behind the gallery that was fully equipped with a refrigerator, microwave oven, and coffeemaker. The table was small and had room for only two chairs. Erica sat down and was instantly served a cup of steaming hot coffee by Francine. Her stomach protested after all the cups she had drunk when she was visiting Henrik. But she knew from experience, from the innumerable interviews she had conducted to dig up background material for her books, that for some reason people talked more easily with a coffee cup in their hand.
    ‘From what I understood from Henri, Alex’s parents asked you to write a commemorative article about her life.’
    ‘Yes. I’ve only seen Alex on brief occasions in the last twenty-five years, so I need to find out more about what she was like as a person before I can start writing.’
    ‘Are you a journalist?’
    ‘No, I write biographies. I’m only doing this because Birgit and Karl-Erik asked me. And besides, I was the first one to find her, well, almost the first. And in some strange way I feel as though I need to do this to create another picture of Alex for myself, a living picture. Does that sound odd?’
    ‘No, not at all. I think it’s fabulous that you’re taking so much trouble on behalf of Alex’s parents—and Alex.’
    Francine leaned across the table and placed a well-manicured hand over Erica’s.
    Erica felt a warm blush spread across her cheeks and tried not to think of the draft of the book she’d been working on for large parts of the previous day.
    Francine went on, ‘Henri also asked me to answer your questions with the utmost candour.’
    She spoke excellent Swedish. She rolled her R’s softly, and Erica noticed that she used the French Henri rather than Henrik.
    ‘You and Alex met in Paris?’
    ‘Yes, we studied art history together. We ran into each other the very first day. She looked lost and I felt lost. The rest is history, as they say.’
    ‘How long have you known each other?’
    ‘Let’s see, Henri and Alex celebrated their fifteenth