Читать книгу Camilla Lackberg Crime Thrillers 1-3: The Ice Princess, The Preacher, The Stonecutter - Camilla Lackberg - Страница 14

He was indescribably lonely. The world was empty and cold without her, and there was nothing he could do to thaw the cold. The pain had been easier to bear when he could share it with her. After she vanished it was as if he had to endure both their pain, and it was more than he thought he could bear. He dragged himself through the days minute by minute, second by second. Reality outside him did not exist; all he had was the consciousness that she was gone forever.

The guilt could be divided up into equal bits and portioned out among the guilty. He did not intend to bear it all alone. He had never intended to bear it alone.

He looked at his hands. How he hated his hands. They carried both beauty and death – an incompatibility duality that he had learned to live with. Only when he caressed her had his hands been entirely good. His skin against her skin had driven away all the evil, forced it to flee for a while. At the same time they had nourished each other’s hidden wish. Love and death, hatred and life. Opposites that turned them into moths flying in circles closer and closer to the flame. She was burned first.

He felt the heat from the fire on the back of his neck. It was close now.

She was tired. Tired of cleaning up other people’s filth. Tired of her joyless existence. One day followed another with no differentiation. She was tired of bearing the guilt that weighed her down day in and day out. Tired of waking up each morning and going to bed each night and wondering how Anders was doing.

Vera put the coffee on the stove to boil. The ticking of the kitchen clock was the only sound to be heard. She sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the coffee to be ready.

She had spent today cleaning at the Lorentz family’s house. The house was so big that it took all day. Sometimes she missed the old days. Missed the security of going to the same place to work, the status that went along with being the housekeeper for the wealthiest family in northern Bohuslän. But she didn’t always feel that way. Most often she was glad that she didn’t have to go there every day. That she no longer needed to bow and scrape to Nelly Lorentz. The woman she hated beyond all rhyme and reason. And yet Vera had continued to work for her, year in and year out, until time finally caught up with her. Housekeepers went out of style. For over thirty years, she had lowered her eyes and muttered ‘yes, thank you, Mrs Lorentz, certainly, Mrs Lorentz, right away, Mrs Lorentz,’ at the same time as she repressed a desire to put her strong hands around Nelly’s frail neck and squeeze until that woman breathed no more. Sometimes the desire had been so overwhelming that she hid her hands underneath her apron so that Nelly wouldn’t see how they shook.

The kettle whistled to signal that the coffee was ready. With an effort Vera got up and straightened her back before she took out a battered old cup and poured the coffee. The cup was the last remnant of the wedding service they had received from Arvid’s parents when they got married. It was fine Danish porcelain. A white background with blue flowers that had scarcely lost any colour at all over the years. Now this cup was the only piece left. When Arvid was alive they had used the dishes as their good porcelain, but after his death it didn’t seem to make much sense to distinguish between the everyday and special occasions. Normal wear and tear had taken their toll over the years, and the rest Anders had smashed during an attack of delirium more than ten years ago. This last cup was her most prized possession.

She sipped the coffee with pleasure. When there were just a few drops left, she poured the coffee into the saucer and drank it with a lump of sugar between her teeth so the coffee filtered through. Her legs were tired and sore after a whole day of cleaning; she had propped them up on the chair in front of her for a little relief.

The house was small and simple. Here she had lived for almost forty years, and here she intended to stay until the day she died. It wasn’t actually very practical. The house stood high up on a steep hill, and she often had to stop and catch her breath several times on her way home. It was also much the worse for wear and looked shabby and run-down both inside and out. The location was good enough that she could get a pretty penny if she sold the house and moved into a flat instead, but the thought had never entered her mind. She would rather it rot away around her than move. Here she had lived with Arvid, after all, those few happy years of their marriage. In that bed in the bedroom she had slept outside her parents’ house for the first time. Her wedding night. In that same bed Anders had been conceived. And when she was very pregnant and couldn’t lie in any other position but on her side, Arvid had crept close to her and lain behind her back, caressing her belly. In her ear he had whispered words about how their life together was going to be. About all the children who would grow up in their house. All the happy laughter that would fill this house in the years to come. And when they grew old and the children had moved out, they would sit in their rocking chairs in front of the fireplace and talk about what a wonderful life they’d had together. They were in their twenties back then, incapable of imagining what was waiting for them beyond the horizon.

It was at this kitchen table she’d been sitting when she got the news. Constable Pohl had knocked on the front door with his cap in hand, and as soon as she saw him she knew what was coming. She had held her finger to her lips to stop him from speaking, and instead motioned him to come into the kitchen. She waddled after him, in her ninth month of pregnancy, and slowly and methodically made a pot of coffee. As they waited for the coffee to boil, she had sat staring at the man across the table. He, for his part, could not look at her. Instead, he let his eyes wander around the walls as he compulsively tugged at his collar. Not until they each had a cup of steaming hot coffee before them did she gesture to the constable to continue. She herself had not yet uttered a word. She listened to a humming sound in her head that grew louder and louder. She saw the constable’s mouth moving, but not a word penetrated the cacophony in her head. She didn’t need to hear. She knew that Arvid now was on the bottom of the sea, swaying in time with the seaweed. No words could change that. No words could chase away the clouds that now gathered in the sky until all that was visible was a murky grey.

Vera sighed as she sat now at the kitchen table, many years later. Others who had lost loved ones said that the image of them faded as the years passed. For her it had been just the opposite. The image of Arvid grew clearer and clearer; sometimes she saw him so clearly before her that the pain felt like an iron band round her heart. The fact that Anders was the spitting image of Arvid was both a curse and a blessing. She knew that if Arvid had lived, the evil never would have happened. He had been her strength; with him beside her she could have been as strong as she should have been.

Vera gave a start when the telephone rang. She had been deeply immersed in old memories and didn’t like being disturbed by the shrill ring of the phone. She had to lift her legs down from the chair where they had gone to sleep. Then she hobbled to the phone that was out in the hall.

‘Mamma, it’s me.’

Anders was slurring his words, and from years of experience she knew precisely what stage of intoxication he was in. About halfway to passing out. She sighed.

‘Hello, Anders. How’s it going?’

He ignored the question. She’d had countless conversations like this.

Vera could see herself in the hall mirror as she stood with the receiver to her ear. The mirror was old and worn, with dark spots on the glass; she thought how much she was like that mirror. Her hair was shabby and grey, with its original dark colour still visible here and there. She always combed her hair straight back and cut it herself with nail scissors in front of the bathroom mirror. No sense throwing money away on a hairdresser. Her face was furrowed and wrinkled with years of worry. Her clothes matched her appearance: almost colourless but practical, most often grey or green. Many years of hard work and a lack of interest in food had prevented her from becoming stout like many other women her age. Instead she looked wiry and strong. Like a work horse.

She suddenly registered what Anders was saying on the other end of the line and looked away from the mirror in shock.

‘Mamma, there are police cars outside. It’s a hell of an escort. It must be me they’re after. It has to be. What the hell should I do?’

Vera heard his voice getting more frantic; his panic was rising with each syllable. An icy cold spread through her body. In the mirror she saw that she was holding the phone with white knuckles.

‘Don’t do anything, Anders. Just wait there. I’m coming.’

‘Okay, but hurry for God’s sake. This isn’t the usual way the cops arrive, Mamma, they usually come in one car. Now there are three cars outside with all their blue lights and sirens going. Damn …’

‘Anders, listen to me now. Take a deep breath and calm down. I’m going to hang up now and I’ll be there as quick as I can.’

She could hear that she’d managed to calm him a little, but as soon as she hung up she threw on her coat and ran out the door, not bothering to lock it.

She ran across the car park beyond the old taxi stand and took the short-cut behind the loading dock of Eva’s Foods. She had to slow down after that, and it took her almost ten minutes to reach the block of flats where Anders lived.

She got there in time to see two husky policemen lead him away in handcuffs. A shriek surged up in her chest, but she forced it back when she saw all the neighbours hanging out their windows like snooping vultures. There was no way she was going to give them more of a show than what they had already witnessed. Her pride was all she had left. Vera hated the gossip that she knew clung to her and Anders like chewing-gum. There was always a lot of whispering going on, and now it would gather speed. She knew what they were going to say: ‘Poor Vera, first her husband drowns and then her son ruins his life with booze. And she’s such a dependable person.’ Yes, she knew exactly what they were going to say. But she also knew that she would do everything in her power to limit the damage. She just couldn’t break down now. Then everything would collapse like a house of cards. Vera turned to the closest police officer, a small blonde woman Vera thought looked ill-suited to the severe police uniform. She still hadn’t got used to the newfangled arrangement that women could apparently do any job they liked.

‘I’m Anders Nilsson’s mother. What’s happening here? Where are you taking him?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t give you any information. You’ll have to check with the police station in Tanumshede. They’re taking him there under arrest.’

Her heart sank with every word. She understood that it wasn’t about a drunken fight this time. The police cars began driving off one by one. In the last one she saw Anders sitting between two officers. He turned round as they pulled away and looked at her until they drove out of sight.

Patrik saw the car with Anders Nilsson drive off in the direction of Tanumshede. The massive police presence had been a little overdone, he thought. But Mellberg wanted a show, so there was a show. Extra resources from Uddevalla had been called in to assist in the arrest. In Patrik’s opinion the only result was that, of the six men present, it was a waste of time for at least four of them.

A woman was still standing in the car park, gazing after the police cars.

‘The perp’s mother,’ said senior constable Lena Waltin from the Uddevalla police, who had also stayed behind to help Patrik search Anders Nilsson’s flat.

‘You know better, Lena – he’s not a “perp” before he’s found guilty and convicted. Until then he’s just as innocent as the rest of us.’

‘I sure as hell doubt that. I’d bet a year’s salary that he’s guilty.’

‘If you’re so sure, then you would bet more than such a negligible sum.’

‘Ha ha, very funny. Joking with a cop about salary is like tripping a cripple, for God’s sake.’

Patrik had to agree. ‘No, there’s probably not much to expect. Shall we go up?’

He saw that Anders’s mother was still standing there gazing after the squad cars, even though they had long since disappeared from view. He felt genuinely sorry for her and considered for a moment going over to offer some words of solace. But Lena pulled on his sleeve and motioned towards the entrance to the building. He sighed, shrugged his shoulders and followed her inside to execute the search warrant.

They tried the door to Anders Nilsson’s flat. It was unlocked and they could walk straight into the hall. Patrik looked around and sighed for the second time in a minute. The flat was in sad shape, and he wondered how they would ever find anything of value in this mess. They stepped over empty bottles in the hall and surveyed the living room and kitchen.

‘Damn.’ Lena shook her head in disgust.

They took thin plastic gloves out of their pockets and pulled them on. In silent agreement, Patrik started in the living room while Lena took the kitchen.

It was a slightly schizophrenic feeling to be in Anders Nilsson’s living room. Filthy, filled with trash, and with an almost total lack of furniture and personal objects, it looked like a classic crash pad for a drunk. And Patrik had seen plenty of those during his years on the force. But he had never been inside a drunk’s flat where the walls were covered with art. The paintings were so close together that they completely filled the walls, from three feet above the floor all the way to the ceiling. It was an explosion of colour that made Patrik’s eyes hurt, and he had to stifle an impulse to put up his hand to shield them. The paintings were abstract, painted only in warm colours, and they struck Patrik like a kick in the stomach. The feeling was so physical that he had to fight to stand upright. He had to force himself to turn away from the paintings because they seemed to be jumping off the walls at him.

Cautiously he began looking through Anders’s things. There wasn’t that much to look at. For a moment Patrik felt very grateful for the privileged life he led in comparison. His own problems all at once seemed very small. It fascinated him that the human will to survive was so strong that despite the complete absence of any quality of life, one still chose to go on, day after day, year after year. Was there any cause for rejoicing left in a life like Anders Nilsson’s? Did he ever experience the emotions that made life worth living: joy, anticipation, happiness, elation? Or was everything merely a stop on the way to the next shot of alcohol?

Patrik went through everything in the living room. He felt the mattress to see if anything was hidden inside, pulled out the drawers in the only cabinet and checked underneath. He carefully unhooked all the paintings one by one and looked behind them. Nothing. Absolutely nothing aroused his interest. He went out to the kitchen to see whether Lena had had better luck.

‘What a pig sty. How the hell can anybody live like this?’

With a disgusted expression she went through the contents of a rubbish bin that she emptied onto a newspaper.

‘Have you found anything interesting?’ Patrik asked.

‘Yes and no. I found some receipts in the trash. The list of calls on the telephone bill might be something to look at more closely. Otherwise the rest just seems to be garbage.’ She pulled off her plastic gloves with a snap. ‘What do you say? Should we call it a day?’

Patrik looked at the clock. They had already been there for two hours, and it was dark outside.

‘Yes, it doesn’t seem we’ll get much further today. How are you getting home? Do you need a lift?’

‘I brought my own car, so I’m okay. Thanks anyway.’

They left the flat with relief, careful not to leave it in the same unlocked state as when they arrived.

The streetlights were lit when they came out to the car park. It had begun to snow lightly while they were inside, and they both had to brush a good deal of snow from their windscreens. When Patrik drove off towards the OK Q8 petrol station he felt something rise to the surface in his mind, something that had been gnawing at him all day. In the silence of his car, alone with his thoughts, he had to admit that something didn’t feel right about the arrest of Anders Nilsson. He wasn’t confident that Mellberg had asked the right questions when he interviewed the witness, which had caused Anders to be brought in to the station. Perhaps he ought to take a closer look at the matter. In the middle of the intersection by the petrol station Patrik made up his mind. He turned the wheel hard and headed into the centre of Fjällbacka instead of towards Tanumshede. He hoped that Dagmar Petrén would be at home.

Erica was thinking about Patrik’s hands. She usually looked first at a man’s hands and wrists. She thought that hands could be incredibly sexy. They shouldn’t be small, but they didn’t need to be as big as toilet seat lids either. Just big enough and sinewy, without hair, vigorous and supple. Patrik’s hands were just right.

She forced herself out of her daydreams. It was futile, to say the least, to think about feelings that so far she only felt as a light quiver in her stomach. And it wasn’t even certain how long she would be here in these parts. When the house was sold there would be nothing to keep her here, and then her flat in Stockholm would be waiting for her, along with the life she had there with her friends. These weeks spent in Fjällbacka would be, in all probability, only a brief interlude in her life. Considering all of those things, it would be stupid to build romantic castles in the air regarding an old childhood friend.

Erica looked out at the twilight that was beginning to settle over the horizon, despite the fact that it was no later than three in the afternoon, and sighed deeply. She was huddled up in a big, loose-fitting sweater that her father used to wear at sea on cold days. She warmed her chilly hands by pulling them far up inside the long sleeves and twisting the ends together. At the moment she was feeling a little sorry for herself. There didn’t seem to be much to be happy about just now. Alex dead, the hassle with the house, Lucas, the book that was heavy going – it all weighed like, a huge burden on her chest. Besides, she felt that she still had a lot to deal with after her parents’ death, both practically and emotionally. In recent days, she hadn’t been able to face continuing the clean-up, and there were half-full trash bags and cartons all over the house. Inside her there were also half-full spaces, with loose threads and unresolved knots of emotion.

All afternoon she had been pondering the scene she witnessed between Dan and Pernilla. She simply couldn’t make sense of it. It was so long ago that there had been any friction between herself and Pernilla; it had all been cleared up for years now. In any case, that was what Erica had thought. So why had Pernilla reacted the way she did? Erica contemplated ringing Dan, but she didn’t really dare in case Pernilla answered the phone. She couldn’t face another conflict right now, so she decided not to think about it anymore. She would let it rest and hope that Pernilla had simply got up on the wrong side of the bed and that everything would have blown over by the next time they met. And yet the scene kept on gnawing at her. It was no random fit of temper on Pernilla’s part; it was something that went much deeper. But for the life of her, she couldn’t work out what it could be.

This delaying of the work on her book was stressing her out, and she decided to relieve her conscience and write for a while. She sat down at the computer in her workroom and realized that she would have to take her hands out of the sweater’s warmth in order to work. Things went sluggishly at first, but after a while she worked up both some creative steam and some body heat. She envied the writers who could keep to a strict discipline in their writing. She had to force herself to sit down and write every time. Not out of laziness but because of a deep-seated fear that she might have lost her ability since the last time she wrote anything. That she might sit there with her fingers on the keys and her eyes fixed on the screen and nothing would happen. There would just be emptiness, the words wouldn’t come, and she would realize that she was never going to put a single sentence on paper again. Each time that did not happen was a relief. Now her fingers were flying over the keyboard and she had written over two pages in only an hour. After another three pages, she felt she had earned a reward and allowed herself to spend a while on the book about Alex.

The cell was very familiar. It wasn’t the first time he had sat there. Drunken nights with vomit on the floor was an everyday occurrence during the periods when things were really bad. Although this time it was different. This time it was serious.

He lay down on his side on the hard cot, curled up in a foetal position and rested his head on his hands to avoid the feeling of plastic sticking to his face. Cold shivers ran through him from a combination of the cold in the cell and the alcohol deprivation in his body.

The only thing he’d been told was that he was suspected of murdering Alex. Then they shoved him into the cell and told him to wait. What else did they think he was going to do in this cold place? Teach courses in life-drawing? Anders smiled wryly to himself.

His thoughts wandered dully since there was nothing to rest his eyes on. The walls were painted light-green over worn concrete with grey spots where the paint had flaked off. In his thoughts, he painted the walls in bold colours. A brushstroke of red here, one of yellow there. Strong swathes that quickly obliterated the worn green colour. In his mind’s eye the room was soon a blazing cacophony of colours, and only then could he focus his thoughts.

Alex was dead. That wasn’t a thought he could flee from even if he wanted to; it was an irrefutable fact. She was dead, and his future was dead with her.

Soon they would come to get him. Drag him away. They would shove him roughly, taunt him, tear at him, until the truth lay there naked and shivering before them. He couldn’t stop them. He didn’t even know if he wanted them to be stopped. There was so much he no longer knew. Not that he’d known very much before. There was little that had enough power to cut through the redemptive fog of alcohol. Only Alex. Only the knowledge that she was breathing the same air somewhere, thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same pain. That was the only thing that had always had enough power to worm its way past, under, over, around the treacherous fogs that did their best to bury all his memories in merciful darkness.

His legs began to fall asleep as he lay stretched out on the cot, but he ignored the signals from his body and stubbornly refused to budge from the spot. If he moved, he might lose control over the colours that covered the wall and have to stare at bare ugliness again.

In more lucid moments, he could see some humour, or at least irony, in it all. The fact that he was born with an insatiable need for beauty, at the same time that he was condemned to a life of filth and squalor. Perhaps his fate was already written in the stars when he was born, perhaps his fate was rewritten on that ill-fated day.

If only. Many times his thoughts had run in circles around this ‘if’, playing with the thought of what his life would have been like if. Maybe a good and honourable life, with family, a home, and art as a source of joy instead of despair. Children playing in the garden outside his studio while fragrant aromas wafted from the kitchen. The very height of a Carl Larsson idyll, with a rosy glow round the edges of the fantasy. And Alex was always in the midst of this tableau. Always in the centre, with him like a planet circling round and round her.

His fantasies always made him feel warm inside, but suddenly the warm image was replaced with a cold one, with bluish tones and icy chill. He knew this image well. For many nights he’d been able to study it in peace and quiet so that he knew it down to the smallest detail. The blood was what he feared the most. The red, which stood in sharp contrast to the blue. Death was also there, as usual. He lurked along the edges, rubbing his hands in delight. Waiting for him to make his move, do something, anything at all. The only thing he could do was pretend not to see Death. Ignore him until he disappeared. Perhaps then the image could regain its rosy glow. Perhaps Alex could once again smile at him, the smile that tugged and tore at his guts. But Death was a much too familiar companion to be ignored. It was many years now that they had known each other, and the acquaintance had not grown more pleasant with the years. Even in the brighter moments he had shared with Alex, Death had wedged in between them, insistent, importunate.

The silence in the cell was comforting. In the distance he could hear the sound of people moving about, but they seemed so far away that they might be in another world. Not until he heard one of the sounds approaching did he snap out of his dream state. Footsteps in the corridor, steadily approaching his cell door. The rattle of the lock and then the door swung open and the fat little superintendent appeared in the doorway. Listlessly, Anders swung his legs over the edge of the cot and put his feet on the floor. Time for interrogation. Might as well get it over with.

The bruises had begun to fade enough that she could try covering them with a good layer of powder. Anna looked at her face in the mirror. She looked worn and harried. Without make-up she could clearly see the blue contours under her skin. One eye was still a bit bloodshot. Her blonde hair was dull and lifeless and in need of a trim. She hadn’t got round to booking a new appointment with the hairdresser; she simply never had the energy. All her strength went into taking care of the children’s daily needs and seeing to it that she kept her head up. How did things ever get to this point?

She pulled back her hair in a tight ponytail and laboriously got dressed as she tried to avoid moving in a way that would make her ribs hurt. Before, he used to be careful to hit her only in places that could be hidden by clothing, but during the past six months he had stopped being careful and had repeatedly struck her in the face.

But the beating wasn’t the worst of it. It was having always to live under the threat of future blows, waiting for the next time, the next fist. The cruellest thing was that he was well aware of this and played on her fear. He would raise his hand to strike her and then switch over to a caress and a smile. Sometimes he hit her for no apparent reason. Right out of the blue. Not because he needed much of a reason, but in the middle of a discussion about what to buy for dinner, or which TV programme they should watch, his fist might suddenly fly out and catch her in the stomach, on the head, on her back, or wherever else he aimed. Then he would continue the conversation without for a moment losing his train of thought, as if nothing had happened, as she lay on the floor gasping for breath. It was the feeling of power that he enjoyed.

Lucas’s clothes lay scattered all over the bedroom; she arduously picked up the clothes, one by one, and hung them up on hangers or put them in the laundry basket. When the bedroom was once again in perfect order she went to check on the children. Adrian was sleeping peacefully on his back with his dummy in his mouth. Emma sat playing quietly in her bed, and Anna stood a moment in the doorway watching her. She was so much like Lucas. The same determined, angular face and ice-blue eyes. The same stubbornness.

Emma was one of the reasons she couldn’t stop loving Lucas. Not loving him would feel like denying a part of Emma. He was a part of their daughter, and because of that, a part of Anna as well. He was also a good father to the children. Adrian was still too little to understand, but Emma worshipped Lucas, and Anna simply couldn’t take her away from her father. How could she take the children away from half of their security, rip up everything that was familiar and important to them? Instead she had to try to be strong enough for all of them; then they would be able to get through this. Things weren’t like that in the beginning. Things could be good again. As long as she was strong. After all, he told her that he really didn’t want to hit her, that it was for her own good, because she didn’t do what she was supposed to do. If only she could make more of an effort, be a better wife. She didn’t understand him, he said. If only she could find what made him happy, if only she could do the right things so that he didn’t have to be so disappointed in her all the time.

Erica didn’t understand. Erica with her independence and her solitude. Her courage and her overwhelming, stifling solicitude. Anna could hear the contempt in Erica’s voice, and it drove her mad. What did she know about the responsibility for keeping a marriage and a family going? About carrying a load on her shoulders that was so heavy she could barely stand upright. The only thing Erica had to worry about was herself. She’d always been such a know-it-all. Her excessive maternal concern for Anna had sometimes threatened to suffocate her. She had felt Erica’s restless, watching eyes following her everywhere, when all she wanted was to be left in peace. What did it matter if their mother never managed to care for them? They had Pappa, at least. One out of two wasn’t so bad. The difference between her and Erica was that she accepted things, while Erica was always trying to find a reason. More often than not, Erica also turned the questions inward and tried to find the reason inside herself. That was why she had always exerted herself too much. Anna, on the other hand, chose not to exert herself at all. It was easier not to worry, to go with the flow and take one day at a time. That was why she felt such bitterness towards Erica. She worried and fretted over her younger sister, coddling her, and that made it even harder for Anna to close her eyes to the truth and the people around her. Moving out of her parents’ house had been so liberating. When she then met Lucas soon afterwards, she thought she had finally found the only person who could love her just as she was and, above all, respect her need for freedom.

She smiled bitterly as she cleaned the table after Lucas’s breakfast. Freedom? She no longer even knew how to spell the word. Her life consisted of the space inside this flat. It was only the children who made it possible for her even to breathe, the children and the hope that if she found the right formula, the right answer, then everything could be the way it used to be.

In slow motion she placed the lid on the butter tub, put the cheese in a plastic bag, inserted the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and wiped off the table. When everything was shiny and clean, Anna sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and looked around the room. The only sound was Emma’s childish prattle from the nursery, and for a few minutes Anna allowed herself to enjoy a little peace and quiet. The kitchen was bright and airy, decorated in a tasteful combination of wood and stainless steel. They had spared no expense on the appliances, which meant that Philip Starck and Poggenpohl were the dominant brand-names. Anna herself had wanted a cosier kitchen, but when they moved into the lovely five-room flat in Östermalm she knew better than to air her views.

Erica’s concern over the house in Fjällbacka was something she couldn’t even consider. Anna couldn’t afford to be sentimental, and the money they would get from the sale of the house might mean a new start for her and Lucas. She knew that he wasn’t happy with his job here in Sweden and wanted to go back to London; that was where he thought the action and the career opportunities were. He viewed Stockholm as a backwater, careerwise. And even though he made a good, even excellent, salary at his present job, the windfall from the house in Fjällbacka, combined with the money they had already saved, would buy them a residence in London that was consistent with their social standing. That was important to Lucas, so it became important to her. Erica would get along all right. She had only herself to think of; she had a job and a flat in Stockholm. The house in Fjällbacka would only serve as a summer cottage. The money would help her out as well – a writer made no money to speak of, and Anna knew that Erica sometimes went through hard times. She would soon realize that this was for the best. For both of them.

Adrian’s shrill voice came from the children’s room, and her brief respite was over. No sense sitting and fretting. The bruises would go away as they always did, and tomorrow was another day.

Patrik felt inexplicably light-hearted and took the stairs to Dagmar Petrén’s house two at a time. But when he was almost to the top he had to catch his breath, bending over with his hands on his knees. He certainly wasn’t twenty years old anymore. The woman who opened the door definitely wasn’t either. He hadn’t seen anything so little and wrinkled since the last time he opened a bag of prunes. Stooped and hunched as she was, she hardly came up much past his waist, and Patrik was afraid she’d snap in two in the slightest breeze. But the eyes that looked up towards him were as clear and alert as a young girl’s.

‘Don’t stand there puffing, son. Come in and have a cup of coffee.’

Her voice was surprisingly powerful, and Patrik suddenly felt like a schoolboy as he followed her obediently inside. He resisted a strong urge to bow and struggled to maintain the snail’s pace so as not to run over Mrs Petrén. Inside the door he stopped short. Never in his entire life had he seen so many Santa Clauses. Everywhere, on every available surface, there they were. Big ones, little ones, old ones, young ones, winking ones and grey ones. He felt his brain go into overdrive to handle all the sensory input flowing towards him.

‘What do you think? Aren’t they magnificent!’

Patrik didn’t know quite what to say, and after a moment he managed to stammer a reply.

‘Yes, absolutely. Fantastic.’

He gave Mrs Petrén an anxious look to see whether she could hear that his words didn’t really match his tone of voice. To his amazement she gave him a roguish smile that made her eyes flash.

‘Don’t worry, boy. I’m well aware that it’s not really your taste, but when one gets old it involves certain responsibilities, you understand.’

‘Responsibilities?’

‘One is expected to show a bit of eccentricity to be interesting. Otherwise one is simply a sad old crone, and no one wants that, you know.’

‘But, why gnomes?’

Patrik still didn’t quite understand. Mrs Petrén explained it to him as if she were speaking to a child.

‘Well, the best thing, you see, is that one only needs to put them up once a year. The rest of the year I can keep the place nice and tidy. Then there’s the advantage that it brings a pack of children running up here at Christmastime. And for an old crone who doesn’t have many visitors, it’s a joy to the soul when the little creatures come and ring my bell to see the Santas.’

‘But how long do you keep them up, Mrs Petrén? We’re in the middle of February now.’

‘Well, I start putting them up in October and then take them down around April. Although you must realize that it probably takes a week or two to put them up and take them down.’

Patrik had no difficulty at all visualizing that it would take time. He tried doing a quick calculation in his head, but his brain hadn’t really recovered from the shock of the whole scene. Instead he turned to Mrs Petrén with a direct question.

‘How many do you actually have here?’

The reply was instant. ‘One thousand four hundred and forty-three, no excuse me, one thousand four hundred and forty-two – I happened to break one yesterday. And one of the nicest ones at that,’ said Mrs Petrén with a sad expression.

But she pulled herself together, her eyes flashing again. With astonishing strength she tugged on Patrik’s sleeve and more or less dragged him to the kitchen, where in contrast there was not a Santa to be seen. Patrik discreetly smoothed out his jacket but had a feeling that she would have grabbed hold of his ear instead if she could reach that high.

‘We’ll sit here. One gets a bit testy always having a bunch of old men around one. Here in the kitchen they’re banned.’

He sat down on the hard kitchen bench after all his offers of assistance were brusquely refused. Steeling himself at the thought of some thin, wretched boiled coffee, his mouth fell open for the second time at the sight of the huge, stainless-steel, hypermodern coffee brewer enthroned on the worktop.

‘What would you like? Cappuccino? Café au lait? Maybe a doppio espresso – you look like you could use it.’

Patrik managed only a nod. Mrs Petrén was apparently enjoying his amazement.

‘What did you expect? An old percolator from ’43 and hand-ground beans? No, just because I’m an old crone doesn’t mean that one can’t enjoy the good things in life. I got this from my son as a Christmas present a couple of years ago, and it’s always running, I can tell you that. Sometimes there’s a queue of old ladies from the neighbourhood waiting to have a drop.’

She patted the machine tenderly, which was now sputtering and fizzing as it whipped up milk to an airy froth.

As the coffee was being prepared, one fantastic pastry after another materialized on the table in front of Patrik. Not a Finnish pin roll or Karlsbad kruller as far as the eye could see; instead big cinnamon buns, stunning muffins, sticky chocolate biscuits, and fluffy meringue cakes were set out as Patrik’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. His mouth started watering so much that saliva threatened to run out the corners of his mouth. Mrs Petrén chuckled when she saw the expression on his face, and sat down across from him on one of the Windsor chairs. She served them each a cup of hot, aromatic, freshly brewed coffee.

‘I understand that it’s the girl in the house across the way that you want to talk to me about. Well, I already spoke with your superintendent and told him what little I know.’

With an effort Patrik detached himself from the sticky bun he had just sunk his teeth into. He had to clean his front teeth with his tongue before he could open his mouth.

‘Yes, Mrs Petrén, perhaps you would be so kind as to recount what you said? Is it all right if I turn on the tape recorder, by the way?’

He pressed the red button on the tape recorder and made sure to chew thoroughly while waiting for her reply.

‘Yes, of course you may. Well, it was Friday, the twenty-second of January, at six thirty. And please don’t be so formal. It makes me feel ancient.’

‘How can you be so sure of the date and time? It’s been a couple of weeks since then.’

Patrik took another bite.

‘Well, you see, it was my birthday that day, so my son and his family were here. We had cake and they brought me presents. Then they left just before the six-thirty news on channel 4, and that was when I heard a devil of a row outside. I rushed to the window that faces out back and over by the lass’s house, and that’s when I saw him.’

‘Anders?’

‘Anders the painter, yes. Drunk as a lord he was, standing there yelling like a madman and banging on the door. Finally she let him in and then it was quiet. Well, he may have kept yelling, I don’t know anything about that. It’s impossible to hear what goes on inside these houses.’

Mrs Petrén noticed that Patrik’s plate was empty, so she pushed over the tray of cinnamon buns to tempt him. He didn’t need a great deal of persuasion. He quickly helped himself to one on top.

‘And you’re quite sure, Mrs Petrén, that it was Anders Nilsson? No doubts on that point?’

‘Oh no, I’d know that rascal anywhere. He used to come over at all hours, and if he wasn’t here then he’d be down with the drunks on the square. I never did understand what he had to do with Alexandra Wijkner. That girl had class, I have to tell you. Both good-looking and well-brought-up. When she was little she’d often come over for juice and buns. She used to sit right there on the bench, often together with Tore’s little girl, what was her name now …?’

‘Erica,’ said Patrik with his mouth full of cinnamon bun, and he felt a tingle in the pit of his stomach just from saying her name.

‘Erica, that’s right. She was a nice girl too, but there was something special about Alexandra. She had a radiance about her. But then something happened … she stopped coming by and hardly ever said hello. A couple of months later they moved to Göteborg, and then I didn’t see her until she started coming here on weekends a couple of years ago.’

‘Weren’t the Carlgrens ever here during the years in between?’

‘No, never. But they kept the house in order. Painters and carpenters would come by, and Vera Nilsson came twice a month to clean.’

‘And you have no idea, Mrs Petrén, what happened before the Carlgrens moved to Göteborg, what might have changed Alex, I mean? No fight in the family or anything like that?’

‘There were rumours, of course, there always are here, but nothing I’d put much store in. Even though plenty of folks here in Fjällbacka claim to know most of what’s going on with everyone else, one thing you should be clear about: nobody ever knows what goes on inside the four walls of anyone else’s home. That’s why I won’t speculate about it either. It serves no purpose. Look, take another pastry, you still haven’t tasted my meringue dreams.’

Patrik patted his stomach and found that yes, there was a tiny little nook that he might be able to fill with a meringue dream.

‘Did you see anything else after that? Did you notice when Anders Nilsson left, for example?’

‘No, I didn’t see him anymore that evening. But I did see him go into the house several times in the following week. That was odd, I must say. From what I heard in town she was already dead by then. So what in all the world could he have been doing in there?’

That was precisely what Patrik was wondering. Mrs Petrén gave him an inquiring look. ‘So, did you enjoy those?’

‘Probably the best pastries I’ve ever tasted, Mrs Petrén. How is it that you can rustle up a tray of pastries just like that? I mean, I didn’t ring more than fifteen minutes before I came here. You would have had to be as fast as Superman to bake all these goodies.’

She basked in the compliment and tossed her head proudly.

‘For thirty years, my husband and I ran the pastry shop here in Fjällbacka, so one hopes one has learned something over the years. Old habits are hard to break, so I still get up at five in the morning and bake every day. What doesn’t go to the kids and old ladies who come to visit, I feed to the birds. And then it’s always fun to try new recipes. There are so many modern baked goods that are so much better than those dry old Finnish pin rolls we used to bake tons of in the old days. I find recipes in the food magazines, and then I modify them to my liking.’

She gestured at an enormous stack of food magazines on the floor next to the kitchen bench – there was everything from Amelia Mat to Allt om mat, several years’ worth. Judging by the price per issue, Patrik suspected that Mrs Petrén must have saved a pretty penny during her years at the pastry shop. He had a bright idea.

‘Do you know whether there was any connection between the Carlgren family and the Lorentz family, besides the fact that Karl-Erik worked for them? Did they ever get together socially, for example?’

‘Goodness gracious, the Lorentzes getting together with the Carlgrens? No, my friend, that would only have happened if there were two Thursdays in one week! They didn’t move in the same circles. The fact that Nelly Lorentz – according to what I heard – showed up at the funeral reception at the Carlgrens’ house, I’d have to call that quite a sensation, nothing less!’

‘But what about the son? The one who disappeared, I mean. Did he ever have anything to do with the Carlgrens, as far as you know?’

‘No, one would hope not. A nasty boy he was. Always trying to nick pastries behind one’s back in the pastry shop. But my husband taught him a lesson when he caught him red-handed. That boy got the scolding of his life. Then, of course, Nelly came rushing over here to tell us off. She threatened to call the police on my husband. Well, he put a stop to that when he told her that there were witnesses to the pilfering, so she could go right ahead and ring the public prosecutor.’

‘But no connection to the Carlgrens, as far as you know, then?’

She shook her head.

‘Well, it was just a thought on my part,’ said Patrik. ‘Next to the murder of Alex, Nils’s disappearance is probably the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened here, and one never knows. Sometimes the most interesting coincidences turn up. So, I don’t think I have any other questions, so I’ll just say thanks for the coffee. Tremendously good pastry, I must say. I’ll have to eat salad for a few days.’ He patted his stomach.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have to eat rabbit food. You’re still a growing boy.’

Patrik chose to accept the compliment, instead of pointing out that at thirty-five only his waistline was still growing. He got up from the kitchen bench but had to sit right down again. It felt like he had a tonne of concrete in his stomach, and a wave of nausea rose up in his throat. On second thought, it hadn’t been such a good idea to stuff himself with all these pastries.

He tried to squint a bit as he walked through the living room, and all one thousand four hundred forty-two Santas winked and glittered at him.

Walking out to the door took as long as it had to come in. He had to restrain himself from running around Mrs Petrén as he shuffled behind her toward the front door. She was a feisty old woman, no doubt about it. She was also a reliable witness, and with her testimony it was only a matter of time before they would be able to add another couple of pieces to the puzzle and build a water-tight case against Anders Nilsson. For the time being, it was mostly circumstantial evidence, but it looked as though the murder of Alexandra Wijkner was now solved. Yet he had an uneasy feeling in his stomach, to the extent he could feel anything besides pastry. It was a feeling that the simple solutions were not always the correct ones.

It was magnificent to breathe fresh air, which somewhat relieved the nausea. He was just thanking Mrs Petrén once more and turning to go when she pressed something into his hand before he pulled the door closed. He looked to see what it was. It was a shopping bag from ICA stuffed full of pastries – and a little Santa Claus. He grabbed his stomach and groaned.

‘Well now, Anders, things aren’t looking so good for you.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Oh yeah – is that all you have to say? You’re sitting up to your neck in shit if you haven’t realized that! Have you realized that?’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Bullshit! Don’t you sit there and shovel bullshit right in my face. I know you murdered her, so you might as well confess and save us all some trouble. If you save me trouble, you’ll save yourself trouble. Do you get what I’m talking about?’

Mellberg and Anders were sitting in the only interrogation room at Tanumshede police station, and unlike American cop shows, there was no one-way glass wall through which his colleagues could watch the interrogation. Which suited Mellberg just fine. It was completely against regulations to be alone with a subject under interrogation, but what the hell, as long as he delivered, nobody would care about any stupid regulations. And Anders hadn’t asked for an attorney or anyone else to be present, so why should Mellberg insist?

The room was small and sparsely furnished, with bare walls. The only furniture was a table and two chairs, now occupied by Anders Nilsson and Bertil Mellberg. Anders was leaning back nonchalantly in his chair, with his hands folded in his lap and his long legs stretched out under the table. Mellberg stood leaning halfway over the table with his face as close to Anders’s as he could stand, in view of the suspect’s anything but minty-fresh breath. But it was close enough for tiny drops of saliva to spray in Anders’s face when Mellberg spat out his words. Anders didn’t bother to wipe his face. He chose to pretend that the superintendent was merely an annoying fly, so insignificant that it wasn’t even worth swatting away.

‘Both you and I know that you were the one who murdered Alexandra Wijkner. Tricked her into taking sleeping pills, put her in the bathtub and slit her wrists, and then calmly watched as she bled to death. So why don’t we just make this easy on both of us? You confess and I’ll write it down.’

Mellberg felt very pleased with what he regarded as a powerful start to the interrogation. He sat down on the chair and clasped his hands over his big paunch. He waited. No response from Anders. His head continued to droop forward, his hair concealing any facial expression. A twitch at the corner of Mellberg’s mouth revealed that indifference was not what he considered his preamble deserved. After waiting in silence a bit longer, he slammed his fist on the table to try to rouse Anders out of his torpor. No reaction.

‘What the hell, you fucking drunk! Do you think you can get out of this by sitting there and not saying a word? Then you’ve ended up in the hands of the wrong cop, I can tell you that. You’re going to tell me the truth if we have to sit here all day!’

The sweat stains under Mellberg’s arms were growing larger with each syllable.

‘You were jealous, weren’t you? We found some paintings you did of her, and it’s quite obvious that you were fucking each other. And to dispel any further doubt, we also found your letters to her. Your sickly sweet, pathetic love letters. Jesus, what fucking crap. What did she see in you, anyway? I mean, just look at you. You’re filthy and disgusting and as far from any Don Juan as you could get. The only explanation would have to be that she was some kind of pervert. That she was turned on by filth and revolting old drunks. Did she take on the other winos in Fjällbacka too, or were you the only one she serviced?’

Quick as a weasel Anders was on his feet. He launched himself across the table and had his hands around Mellberg’s neck.

‘You fuck, I’m going to kill you, you cop son of a bitch!’

Mellberg tried in vain to prise off Anders’s hands. His face got redder and redder, and his hair fell out of its nest and hung down over his right ear. From sheer astonishment Anders loosened his grip on Mellberg’s neck, and the superintendent was able to take a deep breath. Anders fell back in his chair and glowered at Mellberg.

Mellberg had to cough and clear his throat to recover his voice. ‘Don’t you ever do that again! Do you hear me, never! Now you’re going to sit still, damn it, or I’ll toss you in a cell and throw away the key, do you hear me?’

Mellberg sat back down on his chair but kept his eyes vigilantly on Anders. There was a hint of fear in Mellberg’s eyes that wasn’t there before. He discovered that his meticulously arranged hairdo had suffered a real blow, and with a practised motion he swung the hair up onto the shiny patch in the middle of his scalp, at the same time as he tried to pretend that nothing had happened.

‘Now, back to business. So you had a sexual relationship with the victim, Alexandra Wijkner?’

Anders muttered something into his lap.

‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ Mellberg leaned forward across the table with his hands clasped in front of him.

‘I said we loved each other!’

The words echoed and bounced off the bare walls. Mellberg gave Anders a contemptuous smile.

‘Okay, so you loved each other. Beauty and the beast loved each other. How touching. So how long did you “love” each other, then?’

Anders mumbled something incomprehensible again, and Mellberg had to ask him to repeat it.

‘Since we were kids.’

‘Oh, I see, okay. But I assume that you weren’t screwing like rabbits since you were five, so let me reformulate that question: how long did you have a sexual relationship? How long was she shagging you on the side? How long did you dance the horizontal tango? Do I have to go on, or have you managed to understand the question?’

Anders glared with hatred at Mellberg but made a great effort to stay calm.

‘I don’t know, off and on over the years. I don’t really know, I didn’t check off the dates on the calendar.’ He picked at some invisible threads on his trousers. ‘She wasn’t here very much back then, so it wasn’t that often. Mostly I just painted her. She was so beautiful.’

‘What happened the night she died? Was it a lovers’ quarrel? Didn’t she want to put out? Or was it the fact that she was knocked up that made you so mad? Sure, that must have been it. She was knocked up and you didn’t know whether it was your kid or her husband’s. She probably threatened to make life hell for you too, didn’t she?’

Mellberg felt extremely pleased with himself. He was convinced that Anders was the killer, and if he just pushed hard enough on the right buttons he would undoubtedly get a confession out of him. No doubt about it. Then Göteborg would beg and plead for him to come back to the force. They would probably try to tempt him with a promotion and a higher salary if he kept them on the hook for a while. He rubbed his belly in pleasure and only now noticed that Anders was staring at him wide-eyed. His face was white, empty of all blood. His hands were twitching in spasms. When Anders raised his head and for the first time looked straight at Mellberg, the superintendent saw that his lower lip was quivering and his eyes were full of tears.

‘You’re lying! She couldn’t have been pregnant!’ Snot was dripping from his nose, and Anders wiped it on his sleeve. He gave Mellberg an almost imploring look.

‘What do you mean? Condoms aren’t a hundred per cent safe, you know. She was in her third month, so don’t try to get all dramatic on me. She was knocked up and you know very well how it happened. Whether it was you or her high-class husband who delivered the goods, well, we’ll never know, will we? It’s a man’s curse, I have to tell you. I’ve been close to getting nailed a few times, but no fucking bitch has ever got me to sign any papers.’ Mellberg chuckled.

‘Not that it’s any of your business, but we hadn’t had sex in over four months. Now I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Take me back to my cell, because I don’t intend to say another word.’

Anders gave a big snuffle and the tears kept threatening to spill over. He leaned back in the chair with his arms crossed and glared spitefully from under his mop of hair at Mellberg, who heaved a deep sigh but acquiesced.

‘All right, we’ll continue in a couple of hours. And just so you know – I don’t believe a fucking word of what you’re saying! Go think about that while you sit in your cell. The next time we talk I want a complete confession from you.’

He remained sitting there for a while after Anders was led away to his cell. The stinking drunk hadn’t confessed. Mellberg thought it was utterly incredible. But his trump card was still unplayed and intact. The last time Alexandra Wijkner had been heard alive was at a quarter past seven on Friday, January twenty-second, exactly one week before she was found dead. On that occasion she had talked to her mother on the phone for five minutes and fifty seconds, according to Telia, the phone company. That also matched the time-frame indicated by the medical examiner. Thanks to the neighbour, Dagmar Petrén, he had testimony that Anders Nilsson visited the victim not only on that very evening, just after six-thirty, but that he was also seen going into the house on several occasions during the following week. And by that time Alexandra Wijkner lay dead in the bathtub.

A confession would have made Mellberg’s work considerably easier, but even if Anders turned out to be obstinate, Mellberg felt sure that he would be able to get a conviction. Not only did he have the testimony from Mrs Petrén, but on his desk he also had a report on the search of Alex Wijkner’s house. Most interesting were the data from the scrupulous examination of the bathroom where she was found. Not only had a footprint been found in the coagulated blood on the floor that matched a pair of shoes confiscated in Anders’s flat, but Anders’s fingerprints had also been found on the victim’s body. Not as clear as they would have been on a hard, even surface, but still clear and identifiable.

He hadn’t wanted to use all his options today, but at the next interrogation he would bring out the big guns. And damn if he wouldn’t crack this bastard then.

Pleased with himself, Mellberg spat on his palm and smoothed back his hair with saliva.

The telephone call interrupted her just as she was typing up an account of her conversation with Henrik Wijkner. Annoyed, Erica took her hands off the keyboard and reached for the phone.

‘Yes?’ She sounded more irritated than she had intended.

‘Hello, it’s Patrik. Am I interrupting you?’

Erica sat bolt upright in her chair and regretted that she hadn’t sounded nicer when she answered.

‘No, absolutely not. I’m just sitting here writing, and I was so into what I was doing that I jumped when the phone rang, so I might have sounded a bit … but you’re not bothering me at all, it’s quite all right, I mean …’

She slapped her forehead when she heard herself rambling on like a fourteen-year-old girl on the phone. Time to pull herself together and control those hormones, she thought. This is ridiculous.

‘Well, I’m in Fjällbacka and just thought I’d see if you were at home and whether I could drop by for a while.’

He sounded self-confident, manly, secure and calm, and Erica felt even more idiotic for stammering like a teenager. She looked down at what she was wearing, which today consisted of a slightly dirty jogging suit. At the same time she felt her hair. Yep, just as she feared. Her hair was pulled into a knot on top of her head with loose strands sticking out in every direction. The situation could almost be called disastrous.

‘Hello, Erica – are you still there?’ Patrik sounded puzzled.

‘Uh yes, I’m still here. I just thought it sounded like your mobile dropped the call.’

Erica slapped her forehead for the second time in about ten seconds. God in heaven, you’d think she was a beginner at this.

‘Hello-o-o, Erica – can you hear me? Hello?’

‘Uh, of course I can. Come on over. Just give me fifteen minutes, because I’m busy … uhh … writing a very important part of my book that I’d like to finish first.’

‘Sure, no problem. Are you sure I’m not bothering you? I mean, we’re seeing each other tomorrow night so –’

‘No, absolutely not. I’m sure. Just give me fifteen minutes.’

‘Okay. See you then.’

Erica carefully put down the receiver and took a deep breath full of anticipation. Her heart was beating so hard that she could hear it. Patrik was on his way to her place. Patrik was on … She gave a start as if someone had tossed a bucket of cold water on her, and jumped out of her chair. He was going to be here in fifteen minutes and she looked like she hadn’t washed or combed her hair in a week. She went upstairs two steps at a time as she pulled the jogging sweatshirt over her head. In the bedroom she wriggled out of her sweatpants, tripped and almost fell on her face.

In the bathroom she washed under her arms and sent a silent prayer of thanks that she had shaved her underarms when she showered this morning. She dabbed perfume on her wrists, between her breasts, and at her throat where she felt her pulse beating so strong beneath her fingers. She threw open the wardrobe and tossed most of the contents on the bed before she managed to decide on a simple black Filippa top and matching tight black skirt that came down to her ankles. She looked at the clock. Ten minutes left. Bathroom again. Powder, mascara, lip gloss and a light eye shadow. No need for rouge, her face was red enough already. The effect she was going for was the fresh, unpainted look, and with every year that passed it seemed to take more and more make-up to achieve.

The doorbell rang. As she cast one last look in the mirror she realized in panic that her hair was still up in a slovenly top-knot, held in place with a neon-yellow elastic. She ripped off the elastic and with a brush and a little mousse she managed to make her hair look presentable. Another ring, more insistent this time, and she hurried downstairs but stopped halfway to catch her breath and compose herself for a second. With the coolest expression she could muster, she opened the door with a big smile.

His finger was shaking a little as he pressed the doorbell. He’d been about to turn round several times and phone her with some excuse, but the car practically drove itself towards Sälvik. Of course he remembered where she lived and automatically took the tight curve to the right on the hill before the campground on the way up to her house. Although it was only afternoon it was black as night out, but the streetlights were bright enough that he could glimpse a view of the sea. All at once he understood how Erica felt about her parents’ house. He also understood the pain she must feel at the thought of losing it. And he realized the impossibility of his feelings for her. She and Anna would sell the house and then there would be nothing to keep Erica in Fjällbacka. She would move back to Stockholm, and a provincial cop from Tanumshede wouldn’t make much of an impression compared with the lounge lizards of Stureplan. He plodded with Moloch-like steps up to the front door and rang the bell.

No one came to the door, so he rang the doorbell again. This was definitely starting to feel like a bad idea, not the way he had first imagined on the way from Mrs Petrén’s house. He simply couldn’t resist calling Erica since she was so close. But he was beginning to regret the whole thing as soon as she answered the phone. She sounded so busy, even irritated when he rang. Oh well, it was too late to worry about that now. The chime of the doorbell echoed for the second time through the house.

He could hear someone coming down the stairs. The footsteps paused for a moment before they continued the rest of the way to the door. The door opened and there she stood with a big smile. She took his breath away. He couldn’t understand how she always managed to look so fresh. Her face was bare of any make-up, with the natural beauty that he found most attractive in a woman. Karin had never dreamed of showing her face without make-up, but Erica looked so amazing in his eyes that he couldn’t imagine anything that could possibly improve her appearance.

The house looked exactly the same as always, the way he remembered it from his visits as a child. Here the furniture and the house had been allowed to age together with dignity. Wood and white paint predominated, with light-coloured fabrics in blue and white that harmonized with the ageing patina of the furniture. She had lighted candles to drive away the winter darkness. The whole place breathed calm and tranquillity. He followed Erica out to the kitchen.

‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Yes, please. Oh, and I brought these.’ Patrik handed over the bag of pastries. ‘Although I should really take some back to the station. I’m sure there’s enough for everybody, and then some.’

Erica peeked into the plastic bag. She smiled. ‘I see you’ve been visiting Mrs Petrén.’

‘Yep. And I’m so full I can hardly move.’

‘A charming old lady, don’t you think?’

‘Incredible. If I were around ninety-two I’d marry her.’

They smiled at each other.

‘So, how are you doing?’

‘Fine, thanks.’

A moment of silence made them both squirm. Erica poured coffee into two cups and then poured the rest into a table thermos.

‘Let’s sit on the veranda.’

They took their first sips and the silence no longer felt uncomfortable, but rather pleasant. Erica sat on the wicker sofa across from him. He cleared his throat.

‘How’s it going with the book?’

‘Good, thanks. And what about you? How’s the investigation going?’

Patrik thought for a moment and decided to tell her a little more than he actually should. Erica was already involved anyway, and he couldn’t see that it would hurt any.

‘It looks like we’ve probably solved it. We actually have a suspect in custody. He’s being interrogated right now, and the evidence is as watertight as it could possibly be.’

Erica leaned forward with an inquisitive expression. ‘Who is it?’

Patrik hesitated a moment. ‘Anders Nilsson.’

‘So it was Anders after all. Strange, but that doesn’t feel quite right.’

Patrik was inclined to agree with her. There were simply too many loose ends that couldn’t be tied up by Anders’s arrest. But the physical evidence from the murder scene and the testimony of witnesses – that he was in the house not only just before the time Alex was presumably murdered, but also on a number of other occasions after she was killed – didn’t leave much room for doubt. And yet …

‘Well, I suppose it’s over then. Funny, I thought I’d feel more relieved. What about the article I found? The one about Nils’s disappearance, I mean. How does that fit into the picture if Anders is the killer?’

Patrik shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands, palms up.

‘I just don’t know, Erica. I don’t know. Maybe it had nothing to do with the murder. Pure coincidence. In any case there’s no reason to rummage through everything anymore. Alex took her secrets with her to the grave.’

‘And the baby she was expecting? Was it Anders’s?’

‘Who knows? Anders’s, Henrik’s … Your guess is as good as mine. I really wonder what got those two together. Talk about odd couples. It’s true that there’s nothing unusual about people having someone on the side, but Alexandra Wijkner and Anders Nilsson? I mean, I find it hard to believe that he could get anyone in bed, and Alexandra Wijkner was … well, cute as hell is the only thing I can think of to describe her.’

For a moment Patrik thought he saw a furrow form between Erica’s eyebrows, but the next second it was gone and she was her usual polite, agreeable self. At least he imagined as much. She was just opening her mouth to say something when the theme song from an ice-cream advert was heard from the hall. Both Patrik and Erica gave a start.

‘It’s my mobile,’ Patrik said. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’

He rushed out to the hall to take the call, and after rummaging in his jacket pocket he took out his mobile.

‘Patrik Hedström.

‘Hmm … okay … I get it … Well, then we’re back at square one again. Yeah, I know. Oh, so he said that? Well, you couldn’t have known about that. Okay, Superintendent, see you later.’ He flipped his phone closed with a decisive click and went back to Erica.

‘Throw on a jacket and let’s take a ride.’

‘Where to?’ Erica gave him a quizzical look with the coffee cup halfway to her mouth.

‘There’s new information about Anders’s involvement. It looks like we have to cross him off the suspect list.’

‘Really? But where are we going?’

‘Both you and I could feel that there was something wrong about this. You found the article about Nils’s disappearance at Alex’s house, and there may be more things to find there.’

‘But didn’t the police already go through the house?’

‘Sure, but I’m not sure we were looking for the right things. I just want to test an idea I have. Come on.’

Patrik was already halfway out the door. Erica had to throw on her jacket and run after him.

The house looked small and dilapidated. It was beyond her comprehension that people could live like this. That anyone could endure such a dreary and grey existence, so – impoverished. But that was the way of the world. Some were rich and some were poor. Nelly thanked her lucky stars that she belonged to the former category and not the latter. It wasn’t in her nature to be poor. A woman like her was made for furs and diamonds.

The woman who opened the door had probably never even seen a real diamond. Everything about her was grey and brown. Nelly viewed with disgust Vera’s shabby cardigan and the chapped hands holding it closed over her breast. Vera said nothing, just stood in the doorway.

After nervously looking around, Nelly finally had to say, ‘Well, are you going to invite me in, or shall we stand here all day? I’m sure neither you nor I wants anyone to see me visiting you, am I right?’

Vera still said nothing, just backed into the hallway so that Nelly could come in.

‘We have to talk, you and I, don’t we?’

Nelly elegantly removed the gloves she always wore outdoors and took a look around the house with distaste. The hallway, the living room, the kitchen, and a small bedroom. Vera walked behind her with her eyes cast down. The rooms were dark and dismal. The wallpaper had long since seen its best days. No one had bothered to take up the linoleum to reveal the hardwood floors underneath, as most people did with old houses these days. But everything was shiny clean and neat. No dirt in the corners, only a depressing hopelessness that permeated the house from floor to ceiling.

Nelly sat down cautiously on the very edge of the old wing chair in the living room. As if she were the one who lived there, she motioned to Vera to take a seat on the sofa. Vera obeyed, also sitting on the very edge. She didn’t make a sound, but her hands nervously fidgeted in her lap.

‘It’s important that we continue to keep this to ourselves. You understand that, don’t you?’ Nelly’s voice was urgent. Vera nodded as she kept her eyes on her lap.

‘Well, I can’t say that I feel sorry about what happened to Alex. She got what she deserved, and I think you’ll agree with me about that. That hussy was going to come to grief sooner or later, I’ve always known that.’

Vera reacted to Nelly’s words by casting a hasty glance up at her, but she still didn’t say a word. Nelly felt a great contempt for this plain, sad woman, who didn’t seem to have even an ounce of will left in her body. Typical working-class, with her downcast eyes. Not that she thought it should be otherwise, but she still couldn’t help feeling scorn for these people without class, without style. What irritated her most of all was that she was dependent on Vera Nilsson. But no matter what it cost, she had to secure Vera’s silence. It had worked before, and it would have to work again.

‘It’s unfortunate that things turned out as they did, but now it’s even more important that we don’t do anything hasty. Everything must continue as before. We can’t change the past, and there’s no reason to drag old rubbish out into the open.’

Nelly opened her handbag, took out a white envelope and placed it on the coffee table.

‘Here’s a little something to make your budget go a little further. Come on, take it.’

Nelly pushed the envelope towards her. Vera didn’t pick it up but only stared at it.

‘I’m sorry things have turned out this way with Anders. It might even be the best thing that could have happened to him. There’s not much alcohol to be had in prison, I mean.’

Nelly understood at once that she’d gone too far. Vera slowly got up from the sofa and with a shaking finger pointed towards the front door.

‘Get out!’

‘Now now, dear little Vera, you mustn’t take it –’

‘Get out of my house! Anders isn’t going to prison, and you can take your filthy money and go to hell, you fucking bitch! I know exactly where someone like you comes from, and it doesn’t matter how much perfume you try to pour over it. The smell of shit is still there!’

Nelly shrank back at the naked hatred in Vera’s eyes. Her fists were clenched and she stood erect, staring straight into Nelly’s eyes. Her whole body seemed to be shaking with years of pent-up rage. There was no trace of the subservience she had displayed before, and Nelly began to feel very uncomfortable in this situation. Talk about over-reacting! All she had done was speak the truth. A person ought to be able to stand a little truth. She hurried towards the door.

‘Get out of here and don’t ever show your face here again!’

Vera as good as chased her out of the house, and just before she slammed the door she threw the envelope out. Nelly had to laboriously stoop down and pick it up. Fifty thousand wasn’t something one left lying on the ground, no matter how humiliating it was to see the neighbours pulling their curtains aside. They watched as she practically grovelled in the gravel. What an ingrate! Well, Vera would probably show a little more humility when her money ran out and nobody would hire her as cleaning woman anymore. Her job at the Lorentz home was definitely over, and it probably wouldn’t take much to make her other jobs dry up as well. Nelly would see to it that Vera came crawling on her bare knees to the welfare office before she was done with her. No one insulted Nelly Lorentz with impunity.

It felt like walking through water. His limbs were heavy and stiff after the night spent on the cot in jail, and his head was full of cotton for want of alcohol. Anders looked around the flat. The floor was covered with the dirt of police boots tramping about. But he hardly cared. A little dirt in the corners had never bothered him.

He took a six-pack of strong beer out of the fridge and flopped down on the mattress in the living room. Leaning on his left elbow, he opened the beer with his right hand and greedily took long, deep swallows until the tin was empty to the last drop. Then he tossed it in a wide arc through the living room. It landed with a clank on the floor in the far corner. With his most acute need temporarily quenched, he lay down on the mattress with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling as he allowed himself to sink for a while into memories from long ago. It was only in the past that he could sometimes find a little respite for his soul. Between these brief moments when he allowed himself to reminisce about better days, the pain would cut through his heart with ceaseless intensity. It amazed him that past events could feel simultaneously so remote and so near.

In his memory the sun was always shining. The asphalt felt warm on his bare feet, and his lips were still salty from swimming in the sea. Oddly enough he could never remember anything but summertime. No winters. No overcast days. No rain. Only sunshine from a clear blue sky and a light breeze that broke the shining mirror of the sea.

Alex in her light summer dresses that clung to her legs. Her hair that she refused to cut, so it hung blonde and straight all the way down to the small of her back. Sometimes he could even recall her fragrance so strongly that he felt it in his nostrils, tickling and awakening a sense of longing. Strawberries, salt water, shampoo with Timothy-grass. Sometimes mixed with a smell of sweat that was not at all unpleasant as they raced their bicycles or climbed the rocky hills until their legs gave out. Then they might lie on their backs at the top of Veddeberget, with their feet pointing out to sea and their hands clasped on their stomachs. Alex in the middle between them, with her hair spread out and her eyes looking up at the sky. On rare, precious occasions she would take their hands in hers and for a moment it was as if they were one instead of three.

They were careful not to let anyone ever see them together. That would ruin the magic. The spell would be broken and they would no longer be able to keep reality at bay. Reality was something that had to be warded off at all costs. It was ugly and grey and had nothing to do with the sun-drenched dream-world they could construct when they were together. Reality was nothing they ever spoke about. Instead their days were filled with frivolous games and frivolous conversation. Nothing could be taken seriously. Then they could pretend that they were invulnerable, unconquerable, unreachable. Each of them alone was nothing. Together they were the Three Musketeers.

The grown-ups were only peripheral dream creatures, mere extras who moved about in their world without affecting them. Their mouths moved, but no sound came out. They made gestures and faces that supposedly had meaning but seemed stilted and meaningless, taken out of context.

Anders smiled faintly at the memories, but slowly he was forced out of his catatonic dream state. Nature called, and he was once again back in his own anxiety. He got up to take care of the problem.

The toilet was located below a mirror covered with dust and dirt. When he relieved his bladder he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass, and for the first time in many years he saw himself the way other people saw him. His hair was greasy and matted. His face was pale with a sickly grey hue to his skin. Years of neglect had given him a couple of gaps in his front teeth, which made him look decades older than he actually was.

The decision was made without him really being aware of it. As he fumbled to do up his fly, he understood what the next step would have to be. The look in his eyes was resolute when he went into the kitchen. After searching through the drawers he found a big kitchen knife that he wiped off on his trouser leg. Then he went into the living room and began methodically taking down the paintings from the walls. One by one, he lifted down the paintings that were the result of many years’ work. Those he had kept and hung up were only the ones he was most satisfied with. He had thrown out many others because they didn’t really pass muster in his eyes. Now the knife slashed through the canvas of one painting after another. He worked slowly and with a steady hand, slicing the paintings into thin strips until it was impossible to see what they had once depicted. It was surprisingly hard work to cut through the canvases, and when he was done beads of sweat lined his brow. The room looked like a battlefield of colours. Strips of canvas covered the living room floor, and frames gaped empty like toothless gums. He looked around in satisfaction.

‘How do you know that it wasn’t Anders who murdered Alex?’ asked Erica.

‘A girl who lives in the same building as Anders saw him coming home just before seven o’clock, and Alex talked to her mother at quarter past. It would have been impossible for him to make it back there in such a short time. Which means that Dagmar Petrén’s testimony can only tie him to the house while Alex was still alive.’

‘But what about the fingerprints and footprints you found in the bathroom?’

‘Those don’t prove that he murdered her, only that he was in the house after she died. In any case it’s not enough to hold him in custody any longer. Mellberg will no doubt bring him in again; he’s still convinced that Anders is the killer, but for the time being he has to release him, otherwise an attorney could make mincemeat of him. I’ve always thought that something didn’t feel quite right, and this confirms it. Anders is still under suspicion, but there are enough question marks that there’s reason to keep looking.’

‘And that’s why we’re on the way to Alex’s house? What is it you hope to find there?’ asked Erica.

‘I don’t really know. I just feel that I need to get a clearer picture of how things happened.’

‘Birgit said that Alex couldn’t talk to her because she had a visitor. If it wasn’t Anders, then who was it?’

‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?’

Patrik was driving a bit too fast for Erica’s taste. She was holding on tight to the handle over the door. He almost missed the turn-off by the sailing club and turned right at the very last second, which meant he was a hair’s-breadth from taking out a fence as they zipped past.

‘Are you afraid that the house might not be there if we don’t get there fast?’ Erica gave him a wan smile.

‘Oops, sorry. I just got a little excited.’

He slowed down considerably, and on the last bit of road to Alex’s house Erica dared let go of the handle. She still didn’t understand why he wanted her to come along, but she had agreed. It might provide some information for her book.

Outside the door Patrik stopped with a sheepish look on his face.

‘I forgot that I don’t have a key. I’m afraid we won’t be able to get in. Mellberg wouldn’t appreciate it if one of his cops was caught red-handed climbing in through a window.’

Erica gave a deep sigh and bent down to feel under the mat. With a mocking smile she held up the key to Patrik and then opened the door and let him go in first.

Someone had got the furnace started again; the temperature inside was now considerably warmer than outside, and they took off their coats and hung them on the rack by the stairs leading to the top floor.

‘Now what do we do?’ Erica crossed her arms and gave Patrik a questioning look.

‘Some time after quarter past seven, when she was talking to her mother on the phone, Alex ingested a large quantity of sedatives. There was no sign that anyone broke in, so in all probability that means that she had a visit from someone she knew. Someone who then had the opportunity to give her the sedatives. How did this someone manage to do that? Well, they must have had something to eat or drink together.’

Patrik was pacing up and down in the living room as he spoke. Erica sat down on the sofa and watched with interest.

‘Actually,’ he stopped pacing and raised an index finger in the air, ‘the medical examiner was able to tell us what she last ate, based on the contents of her stomach. What did Alexandra eat on the evening of the murder? According to the ME, her stomach contained fish casserole and cider. In the rubbish bin was found an empty packet of Findus fish casserole, and there was an empty cider bottle on the worktop, so that seems to match. What seems a bit strange is that in the fridge there were two large beef fillets, and in the oven there was a frozen potato dish. But the oven was not on, and the potato dish was still raw. There was also a bottle of white wine on the worktop. It was opened, and about five ounces were gone. That corresponds to about one glass.’

Patrik measured the amount between his thumb and index finger.

‘But there was no wine in Alex’s stomach?’ Erica was leaning forward with interest, resting her elbows on her knees.

‘No, precisely. Since she was pregnant she must have drunk cider instead of wine, but the question is, who drank the wine?’

‘Were there any dirty dishes?’

‘Yes, there was a plate, a fork and a knife with remnants of fish casserole on it. There were also two glasses in the sink. One glass was full of fingerprints – Alex’s. But there were no prints on the other glass.’

He stopped pacing and sat down in the easy chair facing Erica, stretching out his long legs and clasping his hands on his stomach.

‘Which must mean that someone wiped off the fingerprints on the glass,’ said Erica.

She was feeling incredibly intelligent as she sat there coming up with deductions, and Patrik was polite enough to try to look as though he hadn’t already thought of all this before.

‘Yes, that’s what it looks like. Since the inside of the glasses had been rinsed out we found no residue of sedative in either of them, but my guess is that Alex drank it in her cider.’

‘But why would she eat fish casserole all alone if she had a smashing dinner of beef fillets for two under way in the kitchen?’

‘Yes, that’s the question, all right. Why would a woman abandon a feast and instead heat up something in the microwave?’

‘Because she planned a romantic dinner for two, but her date never showed up.’

‘That’s my guess too. She waited and waited, but finally gave up and tossed something from the freezer into the nuker. I completely understand. It’s not much fun eating beef fillet by yourself.’

‘Anders actually came here for a visit, so it could hardly be him she was waiting for. How about the child’s father?’ said Patrik.

‘Yes, that seems the most plausible. How tragic. Here she’s prepared the world’s greatest dinner and put wine in the fridge to cool, maybe to celebrate the baby, what do I know, and then he doesn’t show up. So she sits here waiting and waiting. The question is, who came over instead?’

‘We can’t rule out the person she was waiting for,’ said Patrik. ‘He could have still shown up later than expected.’

‘Yes, that’s true. Oh, this is so frustrating! If only the walls could talk.’ Erica looked around the room.

It was a very lovely room. It felt new and fresh. When she sniffed the air she could even smell a hint of paint. The paint on the walls was one of Erica’s favourite colours, light-blue with a hint of grey, crisply contrasted with the white of the window-frames and furniture. A sense of calm filled the room, making her want to lean her head back against the sofa and close her eyes. She had seen this sofa at the House boutique in Stockholm, but on her income she could only dream about it. It was big and puffy and sort of flowed over all the edges. New furniture was mixed with antiques in an especially tasteful blend. Alex must have found the antiques during her work restoring the house in Göteborg. Most of the antique furniture was in the Gustavian style of the 1770s–80s. Erica thanked IKEA for the fact that she could even identify the style. She had often wished that she could buy a couple of pieces from their series of reproductions based on precisely this style. She gave a deep, envious sigh and then reminded herself why they were here. That quickly quashed any feeling of envy.

‘So what you’re saying is that someone she knew, her lover or somebody else, came here and they had a glass together and then this someone put a sedative in Alex’s cider glass,’ Erica said.

‘Yes, that’s the most plausible scenario.’

‘And then what? What do you think happened after that? How did she end up in the bathtub?’

Erica burrowed even deeper into the sofa and propped her feet up on the coffee table. She really had to save up for a sofa like this! For a moment the thought occurred to her that if they sold her parents’ house she would have enough money to buy any furniture she wanted. She instantly pushed that thought away.

‘I think that the killer waited until Alex fell asleep, undressed her, and dragged her into the bathroom.’

‘Why do you think the killer dragged her and didn’t carry her into the bathroom?’

‘The autopsy report showed that she had scrape marks on her heels and bruises under her upper arms.’

Patrik sat bolt upright in the easy chair and gave Erica a hopeful look. ‘Could I try something?’

Erica said sceptically, ‘It depends on what it is.’

‘I was thinking you could play murder victim.’

‘Oh, thanks a lot. Do you really think my acting talents can handle such a stretch?’ She laughed but willingly stood up.

‘No, no, sit back down. The likely scenario is that they sat here and Alex fell asleep on the sofa. So could you please collapse into a lifeless heap?’

Erica grunted but did her best to act like an unconscious person. When Patrik began pulling on her she opened one eye and said, ‘I hope you’re not thinking of taking my clothes off too.’

‘Oh no, absolutely not, I wouldn’t, I hadn’t intended to, I mean …’ he stammered and blushed.

‘That’s cool, I was only kidding. Go ahead, murder away.’

She felt him drag her onto the floor after first shoving aside the coffee table a bit. He started by trying to drag her by her wrists, but when that didn’t work very well he grabbed her under her armpits and dragged her towards the bathroom. All at once she felt extremely conscious of her weight. Patrik must think that she weighed half a tonne. She tried to cheat a little and push so she wouldn’t feel so heavy, but received a reprimand from Patrik. Oh, why hadn’t she followed the Weight Watchers diet a little more strictly the past few weeks? To be honest, she hadn’t even tried to follow it; instead she had devoted herself to unrestrained comfort eating. To top it off her jumper rode up when Patrik dragged her, and a treacherous spare tyre threatened to spill out of her waistband. She tried to suck in her stomach by taking a deep breath, but was forced to exhale after only a second.

The tiled floor in the bathroom was cold against her back and she shivered involuntarily, but not only from the cold. When Patrik had dragged her all the way over to the bathtub, he carefully set her down.

‘Well, that went smoothly enough. Rather heavy, but not impossible. And Alex weighed less than you do.’

Thanks a lot for that, Erica thought as she lay on the floor discreetly trying to pull her jumper down over her stomach.

‘Now all the killer had to do was get her into the tub.’

He made a move to lift Erica’s feet, but she got up quickly and brushed herself off.

‘No, Patrik, I refuse to go along with that. I’ve already got enough bruises for one day. And I’m not getting in that bathtub where Alex was found, that’s one thing for damn sure!’

He reluctantly accepted her protests and they left the bathroom and went back to the living room.

‘After the killer got Alex into the tub it was a simple matter to run the water and then slit her wrists with a razor blade from a bag in the medicine cabinet. Then all the killer had to do was clean up after himself. Rinse out the glasses and wipe off the fingerprints from one of them. Meanwhile Alex slowly bled to death in the bathroom. Terribly, terribly cold-hearted.’

‘And the furnace? Was it already off when she arrived in Fjällbacka?’

‘Yes, it seems so. Which was lucky for us. It would have been much harder to gather any evidence from the body if it had been in room temperature for a whole week. For example, it would probably have been impossible to distinguish Anders’s fingerprints.’

Erica shuddered. The thought of taking fingerprints off a corpse was a little too macabre for her taste.

Together they searched the rest of the house. Erica took time to go through Alex and Henrik’s bedroom more thoroughly, since her previous visit had been so rudely interrupted. But she found nothing else. The feeling that something was missing lingered, and it irritated her that she couldn’t think of what it was. She decided to tell Patrik; he was just as frustrated as she was. To her satisfaction she also saw that he looked quite uneasy when she told him about the intruder and how she had been forced to hide in the wardrobe.

Patrik heaved a sigh and sat down on the edge of the big four-poster bed, trying to help her figure out what it was she was searching for in her memory.

‘Was it something small or something big?’

‘I don’t know, Patrik, probably something small, otherwise I would have noticed it, don’t you think? If the four-poster bed was gone, for instance, I would probably have noticed it.’ She smiled and sat down next to him.

‘But where in the room was it? By the door? Over by the bed? On the bureau?’

Patrik fingered a little scrap of leather he found on Alex’s nightstand. It looked like some sort of club insignia, with an inscription burned into the leather in a childish hand: ‘T.T.M. 1976.’ When he turned it over he saw some indistinct spots of what looked like old dried blood. He wondered where it had come from.

‘I don’t know what it was, Patrik. If I did I wouldn’t be sitting here tearing out my hair.’

She glanced at him in profile. He had wonderfully long, dark eyelashes. His beard stubble was perfect. Just long enough to be felt as light sandpaper against the skin, but short enough not to scratch uncomfortably. She wondered how it would feel against her skin.

‘What is it? Have I got something on my face?’

Patrik wiped his mouth nervously. She quickly looked away, embarrassed that he had caught her out staring at him.

‘It’s nothing. A little crumb of chocolate. It’s gone now.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Well, what do you say – we’re not going to get any farther now, do you think?’ Erica said at last.

‘No, probably not. But listen, ring me as soon as you think of what’s missing. If it’s important enough for someone to come here to find, it must be important to the investigation as well.’

They locked up carefully, and Erica placed the key back under the mat.

‘Would you like a ride back?’

‘No thanks, Patrik. I’ll enjoy the walk.’

‘See you tomorrow night then.’ Patrik shifted from one foot to the other, feeling like an awkward fifteen-year-old.

‘Okay, I’ll see you at eight. Come hungry,’ Erica said.

‘I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything. Right now it doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be hungry again.’ Patrik laughed as he patted his stomach and nodded at Dagmar Petrén’s house across the street.

Erica smiled and waved as he drove off in his Volvo. She could already feel anticipation churning inside of her, mixed with insecurity, anxiety and outright fear.

She started for home but hadn’t gone more than a few yards before she stopped short. An idea had come out of nowhere, and it had to be tested before she could let it go. With determined steps she went back to the house, took the key from under the mat, and entered the house again, after first carefully kicking the snow off her shoes.

What should a woman do who was waiting for a man who never showed up for a romantic dinner? She should ring him, of course! Erica said a prayer that Alex had a modern telephone and hadn’t fallen for the trendiness of a ’50s Cobra phone or still had some old Bakelite model. She was in luck. A brand-new Doro hung on the wall in the kitchen. With trembling fingers she pushed the button for the last number called and crossed her fingers that nobody had used the phone since Alex’s death.

The phone rang and rang. After seven rings she was about to hang up, but then the voicemail switched on. She listened to the message but hung up before the beep. Her face pale. Erica slowly replaced the receiver. She could almost hear the clatter in her head as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Suddenly she knew precisely what it was that was missing from the bedroom upstairs.

Mellberg was seething with rage. He strode through the station in a fury. If they could have, the employees at Tanumshede police station would have taken cover under their desks. But grown-ups didn’t do that, so they had to suffer through a whole day of fiery oaths, reprimands and general abuse. And Annika had to bear the brunt of it. Even though she’d developed a tough hide during the months since Mellberg had become boss, for the first time in a long time she felt on the verge of tears. By four o’clock she’d had enough. She left work and stopped at Konsum to buy a large tub of ice cream. Then she went home, turned on Glamour TV and let the tears run down into the chocolate ice cream. It was just one of those days.

It drove Mellberg crazy that he’d been forced to release Anders Nilsson from gaol. He felt in every bone of his body that Anders was Alex Wijkner’s killer, and if he’d only had more time alone with him he would have wrung the truth out of him. Instead he’d been forced to release Anders because of a fucking witness who said she saw him come home just before Separate Worlds started on TV. That placed him at home in his flat by seven o’clock, and Alex had talked with Birgit at a quarter past. Bloody hell.

Then there was that young cop, Patrik Hedström. Kept spouting a bunch of wild ideas that it was somebody other than Anders Nilsson who murdered the woman. No, if there was anything he’d learned in all his years in the police, it was that everything was most often exactly what it appeared to be. No hidden motives, no complicated plots. Just riff-raff that made life unsafe for honest citizens. Find the riff-raff and you find the perpetrator, that was his motto.

He hit the number of Patrik’s mobile.

‘Where the hell are you?’ No pleasantries needed here. ‘Are you sitting around gathering navel lint somewhere, or what? Down here at the station we’re working. Overtime. I don’t know if that’s a phenomenon you’re familiar with. If not, I can fix it so you no longer have to worry about that either. Not here, at any rate.’

He felt a bit better in the pit of his stomach when he’d had a chance to put some pressure on that young whippersnapper. You had to keep them on a short leash, or those young cocks would get too full of themselves.

‘I want you to drive down and talk to a witness who places Anders Nilsson at home at seven o’clock. Press her, twist her arm a little and see what you can find out … yes, NOW, damn it.’

He slammed down the receiver, grateful for the circumstances in life that put him in a position to make other people do the dirty work. Suddenly, life seemed considerably brighter. Mellberg leaned back in his chair, pulled open the top drawer, and took out a packet of chocolate balls. With his short sausage-like fingers he took one out of the packet and blissfully stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. When he finished chewing it he took another. Hard-working men like himself needed fuel.

Patrik had already turned off towards Tanumshede via Grebbestad when Mellberg rang. He pulled into the entrance to the Fjällbacka golf course and turned the car around. He gave a deep sigh. It was getting to be late afternoon and he had plenty to do back at the station. He shouldn’t have stayed so long in Fjällbacka, but being with Erica exerted a particularly strong attraction on him. It felt like being sucked into a magnetic field; he had to use both strength and will power to pull himself free. Another deep sigh. This could only end one way. Badly. It wasn’t so long ago that he finally got over the break-up with Karin, and now he was already going full speed ahead towards new pain. Talk about self-destructive. The divorce had taken over a year to process. He had spent many nights in front of the TV staring blankly at high-quality shows like Walker, Texas Ranger and Mission Impossible. Even TV Shopping had felt like a better alternative than lying alone in the double bed, tossing and turning, while images of Karin in bed with another man flickered past like a bad soap opera. And yet the attraction he felt for Karin in the beginning was nothing compared to the attraction he now felt for Erica. Logic whispered malevolently in his ear: won’t the fall be that much greater?

He drove much too fast, as usual, in the last tight curves before Fjällbacka. This case was starting to get on his nerves. He took out his frustration on the car and was in real mortal danger when he sped round the last curve before the hill down to the place where the old silo once stood. Now it was torn down and instead there were houses and boat-houses built in the old-fashioned style. Prices were around a couple of million kronor per house; he never ceased to be amazed at how much money people must have to be able to buy a summer house at those prices.

A motorcyclist appeared out of nowhere in the curve and Patrik had to swerve in panic. His heart was pounding fast and he braked to a bit below the posted speed limit. That was a close call. A check in the rear-view mirror assured him that the biker was still on his machine and could continue his journey.

He kept going straight ahead, past the minigolf course and up to the intersection by the petrol station. There he turned left to the blocks of flats. He reflected one more time over how horribly ugly the buildings were. Brown and white constructions from the Sixties, like big square blocks tossed near the southern entrance to Fjällbacka. He wondered about the rationale of the architect who designed them. Had he gone in for making the buildings as ugly as possible, as an experiment? Or did he just not care? Apparently, they were the result of the frenzy to build a million housing units in the Sixties. ‘Homes for all.’ Too bad they didn’t say: ‘Beautiful homes for all.’

He parked in the lot and went into the first entrance. Number five. The stairwell to Anders’s flat, but also the flat of the witness Jenny Rosén. They lived two flights up. He was puffing hard when he reached the right landing, reminded that he’d been getting far too little exercise and way too much coffee cake lately. Not that he’d ever been a paragon of physical training, but it had never been this bad before.

Patrik stopped for a second outside Anders’s door and listened. Not a sound to be heard. Either he wasn’t home or he was passed out.

Jenny’s door was on the right, and directly opposite from Anders. She had exchanged the standard name-plate for her own made out of wood, with the names Jenny and Max Rosén in ornate script with decorative roses winding round the plate. So she was married.

She had rung the police station with her testimony early this morning, and he hoped she would still be at home. She hadn’t been when they knocked on all the doors in the stairwell yesterday, but they had left a card and asked her to ring the police station. That’s why it wasn’t until today that they got the information about Anders’s return home on the Friday evening when Alex died.

The doorbell echoed in the flat, followed at once by a loud shriek from a child. Footsteps could be heard in the hall, and Patrik felt rather than saw someone looking at him through the peephole in the door. A safety chain was unhooked and the door opened.

‘Yes?’

A woman with a one-year-old child was standing there. She was very thin with bleached blonde hair. From the colour of her roots, her natural hair colour must have been somewhere between dark brown and black, which was confirmed by a pair of nut-brown eyes. She wore no make-up and looked tired. She had on a pair of worn jogging trousers with baggy knees, and a T-shirt with a big Adidas logo on the front.

‘Jenny Rosén?’

‘Yes, that’s me. What’s this about?’

‘My name is Patrik Hedström and I’m from the police. You put in a call to us this morning, and I’d like to talk with you a little about the information you gave.’

He spoke in a low voice so he wouldn’t be heard in the flat across the landing.

‘Come in.’ She stepped aside to let him in.

The flat was small, a bedsit, and there was definitely no man living there. None older than one year at any rate. The flat was an explosion in pink. Everything was pink. Rugs, tablecloths, curtains, lamps, everything. Rosettes were once again a popular motif, and they were on lamps and candlesticks in a profusion that was both lavish and superfluous. On the walls were pictures that further emphasized the romantic disposition of the occupant. Soft-focus female faces with birds fluttering past. Even a picture of a crying child hung over the bed.

They sat down on a white leather sofa, and thank goodness she didn’t offer him coffee. He’d had plenty of that today. She set the child on her lap, but he squirmed out of her grasp. So she put him on the floor, where he toddled about on his still unsteady legs.

Patrik was struck by how young the woman was. She couldn’t be out of her teens, he guessed about eighteen. But he knew that it wasn’t unusual for girls in small towns to have one or two children before the age of twenty. Since she called the boy Max, he concluded that the father didn’t live with them. That wasn’t unusual either. Teenage relationships often couldn’t survive the stress of a baby.

He pulled out his notebook.

‘So it was Friday the week before last, the twenty-second, that you saw Anders Nilsson come home at seven o’clock? How is it that you’re so sure of the time?’

‘I never miss Separate Worlds on TV. It starts at seven and it was just before that when I heard a lot of commotion outside. Nothing unusual, I must say. It’s always rather lively over at Anders’s place. His drinking buddies come and go at all hours, and sometimes the police show up as well. But I still went to check through the peephole in the door, and that’s when I saw him. Drunk as a lord, he was trying to unlock his door, but the keyhole would have had to be a metre wide for him to find it. He finally got the door open and went inside, and that’s when I heard the theme song for Separate Worlds and hurried back to the TV.’

She was chewing nervously on a lock of her long hair. Patrik saw that her nails were bitten down to the quick. There were traces of hot pink nail polish on what was left of her nails.

Max had steadily worked his way round the coffee table in the direction of Patrik and now took triumphant possession of his trouser leg.

‘Up, up, up,’ he chanted, and Patrik gave Jenny a questioning look.

‘Sure, pick him up. He obviously likes you.’

Patrik awkwardly lifted the boy onto his knee and gave him his bunch of keys to play with. The child beamed like the sun. He gave Patrik a big smile and showed two front teeth that looked like little grains of rice. Patrik gave him a big smile back. He felt a quavering in his chest. If things had turned out differently he could have had a boy of his own on his knee by this time. He cautiously stroked Max’s downy head.

‘How old is he?’

‘Eleven months. He keeps me busy, you’d better believe.’

Her face lit up with tenderness when she looked at her son, and Patrik saw at once how sweet she was behind the tired exterior. He couldn’t even imagine how much work it must take to be a single parent at her age. She should be out partying and living life with her friends. Instead she spent her evenings changing diapers and keeping house. As if to illustrate the tensions within her, she took a cigarette out of a packet lying on the table and lit it. She took a deep, pleasurable drag and then held out the packet to Patrik. He shook his head. He had definite views about smoking in the same room as a baby, but it was her business, not his. Personally he couldn’t understand how anyone could sit and suck on something that smelled as bad as a cigarette.

‘So couldn’t he have come home and then gone out again?’

‘The walls are so thin in this building that you can hear a pin drop out on the landing. Everyone who lives here knows exactly who comes and goes – and when. I’m quite sure that Anders didn’t go out again.’

Patrik realized that he wouldn’t get much further. Out of curiosity he asked, ‘What was your reaction when you heard that Anders was suspected of murder?’

‘I thought it was bullshit.’

She took another deep drag and blew the smoke out in rings. Patrik had to restrain himself from saying anything about the dangers of second-hand smoke. On his knee Max was fully occupied with sucking on his key-ring. He held it between his chubby little fingers and occasionally looked up at Patrik as if to thank him for lending him this fantastic toy.

Jenny went on, ‘Sure, Anders is a fucking wreck, but he could never kill anyone. He’s a decent guy. He rings my bell and asks to bum a cigarette now and then, and whether he’s sober or pissed he’s always decent. I’ve even let him baby-sit Max a few times when I had to run out to the market. But only when he was completely sober. Never otherwise.’

She stubbed out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.

‘Actually there’s nothing bad about any of the winos here. They’re just unfortunate devils, drinking away their lives together. The only people they’re hurting is themselves.’

She tossed her head to get the hair out of her face and reached for the cigarette packet again. Her fingers were yellow from nicotine, and this cigarette obviously tasted as good to her as the first one. Patrik was starting to feel smoked out and didn’t think he’d get any more useful information from Jenny. Max protested at being lifted down and handed back to his mother.

‘Thanks for the help. We’ll probably have occasion to come back again.’

‘Well, I’m always here. I’m not going anywhere.’

The cigarette now lay smouldering in the ashtray and the smoke curled towards Max, who squinted his eyes in annoyance. He was still chewing on the keys and gave Patrik a look as if challenging him to try to take them. Patrik gave a cautious pull, but the rice-grain teeth were amazingly strong. By this time the keys were covered in drool, and it was hard to get a real grip on them. He tentatively pulled a little harder and got an angry grunt in reply. Jenny, used to handling such situations, took a firm grip and managed to extract the keys and hand them to Patrik. Max shrieked at the top of his lungs to show his displeasure at how the situation had turned out. Holding the key ring between his thumb and index finger, Patrik discreetly tried to wipe it off on his trouser leg before he stuffed it back in his pocket.

Jenny and a screaming Max followed him to the door. The last thing Patrik saw before the door closed were big tears running down the boy’s round cheeks. Again he felt an ache somewhere deep in his heart.

The house was too big for him now. Henrik wandered from room to room. Everything in the house reminded him of Alexandra. She had loved and cared for every inch of this house. Sometimes he had wondered if it was for the sake of the house that she had married him. It wasn’t until he had brought her home that their relationship had turned serious, for her. As for him, he’d been serious since the first time he saw her at a university meeting for foreign students. Tall and blonde, she had an aura of aloofness that attracted him more than anything else in his whole life. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted Alex. And he was used to getting whatever he wanted.

His parents had been far too preoccupied with their own lives to have time to put any energy into his. The hours that weren’t taken up by the business had been devoured by endless social events. Charity balls, cocktail parties, dinners with business associates. Henrik had to sit nicely at home with the nanny. What he remembered most about his mother was the smell of her perfume when she kissed him good-bye, in her thoughts already on her way to some elaborate party. As compensation he had only to point at something and he would have it. Nothing material had ever been denied him, but it was given with indifference, the same way one absentmindedly scratches a dog that begs for attention.

Alex had been the first thing in Henrik’s life that he couldn’t have just for the asking. She was inaccessible and contrary and therefore irresistible. He had courted her stubbornly and intensely. Roses, dinners, presents and compliments. No effort had been spared. And she had reluctantly let herself be courted and led into a relationship. Not under protest – he never could have coerced her – but with indifference. It wasn’t until he took her home to Göteborg that first summer and they walked into the house here on the island of Särö that she began to take an active interest in the relationship. She responded to his embraces with a new-found intensity, and he was happier than ever before. They were married that same summer in Sweden after knowing each other for only a few months. After they returned to France for one last year at university and graduation, they returned to the house on Särö for good.

Now that he thought back, he realized that the only time he’d seen her really happy was when she was refurbishing the house. He sat down in one of the big Chesterfield easy chairs in the library, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Images of Alex flickered past like in an old Super 8 film. He felt the leather cool and taut under his hands and followed the winding path of an age crack with his index finger.

What he remembered best were her different smiles. When she found a piece of furniture for the house that was exactly what she’d been looking for, or when she cut away old wallpaper with a knife and found the old original wallpaper in good condition underneath, then her smile was big and genuine. When he kissed her on the nape of her neck, or caressed her cheek, or told her how much he loved her, she would also smile – sometimes. But not always. Her smile then was a smile he came to hate, a distant, preoccupied smile. Afterwards, she would always turn away, and he could see her secrets wriggling like little snakes just beneath the surface.

He had never asked any questions. Out of sheer cowardice. He’d been afraid to start a chain reaction whose consequences he was not prepared to handle. It was better at least to have her physically by his side, with the hope that she would one day be his completely. He was prepared to risk that he might never have everything, but at least he’d be sure of keeping a part of her. A fragment of Alex was enough. That’s how much he loved her.

He looked round the library. The books that covered all the walls and which she had laboriously tracked down in the antiquarian bookshops of Göteborg were only for show. Except for textbooks at university he couldn’t recall ever seeing her read a book. Perhaps she had enough of her own pain and didn’t need to read about other people’s.

What was hardest for him to accept was the pregnancy. Whenever he brought up the question of children she would shake her head vehemently. She didn’t want to bring children into a world that looked like this one, she had told him.

He’d accepted the fact that there was another man. Henrik knew that Alex wasn’t driving so eagerly to Fjällbacka every weekend to be alone, but he could live with that. Their own sex life had been dead for more than a year. He could live with that too. Even her death he could learn to live with, over time. What he couldn’t accept was that she was ready to bear another man’s child but had refused to bear his. That was what haunted him at night. In a sweat he would toss and turn between the sheets with no hope of sleep. He had developed dark circles under his eyes and lost several kilos. He felt like an elastic band that was stretched and stretched and sooner or later would reach a point where it broke with a snap. So far, he had grieved without tears, but now Henrik Wijkner leaned forward, put his face in his hands and wept.