about 2:10. If we also include children and unmarried guests, all in all about forty
family members arrived in the course of the day. Along with servants and residents,
there were sixty-four people either here or near the farm. Some of them—the ones
who were going to spend the night—were busy getting settled in neighbouring
farms or in guest rooms.
“Harriet had previously lived in a house across the road, but given that neither
Gottfried nor Isabella was consistently stable, and one could clearly see how that
upset the girl, undermined her studies and so on, in 1964, when she was fourteen, I
arranged for her to move into my house. Isabella probably thought that it was just
fine to be spared the responsibility for her daughter. Harriet had been living here
for the past two years. So this is where she came that day. We know that she met
and exchanged some words with Harald in the courtyard—he’s one of my older
brothers. Then she came up the stairs, to this room, and said hello to me. She said
that she wanted to talk to me about something. Right then I had some other family
members with me and I couldn’t spare the time for her. But she seemed anxious
and I promised I’d come to her room when I was free. She left through that door,
and that was the last time I saw her. A minute or so later there was the crash on the
bridge and the bedlam that followed upset all our plans for the day.”
“How did she die?”
“It’s more complicated than that, and I have to tell the story in chronological order.
When the accident occurred, people dropped whatever they were doing and ran to
the scene. I was...I suppose I took charge and was feverishly occupied for the next
few hours. Harriet came down to the bridge right away—several people saw her—
but the danger of an explosion made me instruct anyone who wasn’t involved in
getting Aronsson out of his car to stay well back. Five of us remained. There were
myself and my brother Harald. There was a man named Magnus Nilsson, one of my
workers. There was a sawmill worker named Sixten Nordlander who had a house
down by the fishing harbour. And there was a fellow named Jerker Aronsson. He
was only sixteen, and I should really have sent him away, but he was the nephew of
Gustav in the car.
“At about 2:40 Harriet was in the kitchen here in the house. She drank a glass of
milk and talked briefly to Astrid, our cook. They looked out of the window at the
commotion down at the bridge.
“At 2:55 Harriet crossed the courtyard. She was seen by Isabella. About a minute
later she ran into Otto Falk, the pastor in Hedeby. At that time the parsonage was