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      CAMILLA LACKBERG

       The Drowning

      Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally

      Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

      Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2008

      Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden

      Translation copyright © Tiina Nunnally 2011

      First published in Swedish as Sjöjungfrun

      Camilla Lackberg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      FIRST EDITION

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780007419517

       Ebook Edition © July 2012 ISBN: 9780007419524

       Version: 2018-08-13

       To Martin

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Acknowledgements

       By the same author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

      1

      He had known that sooner or later it would come to light again. Something like that was impossible to hide. Every word had led him closer to what was unnameable and appalling. What he had been trying for so many years to repress.

      Now escape was no longer an option. He felt the morning air fill his lungs as he walked as fast as he could. His heart was pounding in his chest. He didn’t want to go there, but he had to. So he had chosen to let fate decide. If someone was there, he would have to speak. If nobody was there, he would continue on his way to work, as if nothing had happened.

      But the door opened when he knocked. He stepped inside and squinted in the dim light. The person standing in front of him was not the one he had expected to see. It was somebody else.

      Her long hair swung rhythmically from side to side as he followed her into the next room. He started talking, asking questions. His thoughts were whirling round and round in his head. Nothing was what it appeared to be. This was all wrong, and yet it seemed right.

      Suddenly he fell silent. Something had struck him in the solar plexus with a force that stopped his words in mid-sentence. He looked down and saw blood starting to seep out as the knife was pulled from the wound. Then a new stab, more pain, and the sharp blade twisting inside his body.

      He knew it was over. It would all end here, even though there was still so much he had left to do and see and experience. At the same time there was a kind of justice in what was happening. He hadn’t deserved the good life he’d enjoyed, or all the love he’d been given. Not after what he had done.

      After the pain had numbed his senses and the knife stopped moving, the water came. The

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