CAMILLA LACKBERG
The Stranger

previously entitled

The Gallows Bird

Translated by Steven T. Murray

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published as The Gallows Bird in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011

Published by agreement with Nordin Agency, Sweden

English translation copyright © Steven T. Murray 2011

First published in Swedish as Olycksfågeln in 2006

Copyright © Camilla Lackberg 2006

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

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

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

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

Ebook Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 9780007384389

Version: 2018-08-13

To Wille & Meja

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Acknowledgements

Read on for the opening of The Hidden Child

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

1

What he remembered most was her perfume. The one she kept in the bathroom. That shiny lavender bottle with the sweet, heavy fragrance. As an adult he had searched in a perfume shop until he found the exact same one. He had chuckled when he saw the name: ‘Poison’.

She used to spray it on her wrists and then rub it on her throat and, if she was wearing a skirt, on her ankles too.

He thought that was so beautiful. Her fragile, delicate wrists gracefully rubbing against each other. The scent spread through the space around her, and he always longed for the moment when it came really close, when she leaned over and kissed him. Always on the mouth. Always so lightly that sometimes he wondered if the kiss was real or if he was just dreaming.

‘Take care of your sister,’ she always said before she left, seeming to float rather than walk out the door.

Afterwards he could never remember if he had answered out loud or only nodded.

The springtime sun shone in through the windows at the Tanumshede police station, mercilessly exposing the dirt on the windowpanes. The winter grime lay like a film over the glass, and Patrik felt as though the same film were covering him. It had been a hard winter. Life with a child in the house was infinitely more fun but also infinitely more work than he ever could have imagined. And even though things were going much more smoothly with Maja than they had in the beginning, Erica was still not used to the life of a stay-at-home mum. This knowledge tormented Patrik every second and every minute he spent at work. And everything that had happened with Anna had placed an extra burden on their shoulders.

A knock on the door-jamb interrupted his gloomy thoughts.

‘Patrik? We just got a call about a traffic accident. A single car on the road to Sannäs.’

‘Okay,’ said Patrik, getting up. ‘By the way, isn’t this the day that Ernst’s replacement is arriving?’

‘Yes,’ said Annika. ‘But it’s not quite eight yet.’

‘Then I’ll take Martin with me. Otherwise I thought I’d have her ride with me for a while until she gets the hang of things.’

‘Well, I do feel a bit sorry for the poor woman,’ said Annika.

‘Because she has to ride with me?’ said Patrik, pretending to take offence.

‘Naturally. I know the way you drive … But seriously, it’s not going to be easy for her with Mellberg.’

‘After reading her CV I’d say that if anyone can handle him, it would be Hanna Kruse. Seems to be a tough cookie, judging by her service record and the great references.’

‘The only thing that seems fishy to me is why she would want to apply to Tanumshede.’

‘Yes, you may have a point there,’ said Patrik, pulling on his jacket. ‘I’ll have to ask her why she wants to sink so low as to work in this career blind alley with us law-enforcement amateurs.’ He winked at Annika, who slapped him lightly on the shoulder.

‘You know that wasn’t what I meant.’

‘Sure, I was just giving you a hard time. By the way, have you got any more information about the accident site? Any injuries? Fatalities?’

‘According to the person who called it in, there seems to be only one person in the car. Dead.’

‘Damn. I’ll get Martin and we’ll ride out there to have a look. We’ll be back soon. You can show Hanna around in the meantime, can’t you?’

At that moment they heard a woman’s voice from the reception area. ‘Hello?’

‘That must be her now,’ said Annika, hurrying off towards the door. Curious about the new female addition to the force, Patrik followed her.

He was surprised when he saw the woman standing in reception waiting for them. He wasn’t sure just what he’d expected, but someone … larger, perhaps. And not quite so good-looking … and blonde.

She held out her hand first to Patrik and then to Annika and said, ‘Hello, I’m Hanna Kruse. I’m starting here today.’

Her voice more than lived up to his expectations. Rather deep, with a resolute tone to it.

Her handshake testified to many hours in the gym, and Patrik again revised his first impression.

‘Patrik Hedström. And this is Annika Jansson, the backbone of the station.’

Hanna smiled. ‘The sole female outpost in the land of males here, I understand. Till now, at least.’

Annika laughed. ‘Yes, I have to admit it feels good to have a counterbalance to all the testosterone inside these walls.’

Patrik interrupted their banter. ‘You girls can get acquainted with each other later. Hanna, we have a call about a single-car accident with a fatality. I thought you should come along with me right now, if that’s okay with you. Get a jump start on your first day here.’

‘Works for me,’ said Hanna. ‘Can I just leave my bag somewhere?’

‘I’ll put it in your office,’ said Annika. ‘We can do the tour later.’

‘Thanks,’ said Hanna, hurrying after Patrik, who was already heading out the main door.

‘So, how does it feel?’ Patrik asked after they’d got in the police car and headed off in the direction of Sannäs.

‘Fine, thanks. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to start a new job.’

‘You’ve already managed to move around quite a bit, judging by your CV.’

‘Yes, I wanted to pick up as much experience as possible,’ Hanna said as she gazed out of the window with curiosity. ‘Different parts of Sweden, different-sized service areas, you name it. Anything that can broaden my experience as a police officer.’

‘But why? What’s your ultimate goal, so to speak?’

Hanna smiled. Her smile was friendly but at the same time staunchly determined. ‘A position as chief, of course. In one of the larger police districts. So I’ve been taking all sorts of courses, learning as much as possible and working as hard as I can.’

‘Sounds like a recipe for success,’ said Patrik with a smile, but the enormous sense of ambition radiating towards him also made him feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t something he was used to.

‘I hope so,’ said Hanna, still watching the countryside passing by. ‘And what about you? How long have you worked in Tanumshede?’

To his chagrin Patrik heard himself sounding a bit ashamed when he replied. ‘Oh … ever since police academy, actually.’

‘Ooh, I never could have managed that. I mean, you must really enjoy it. That’s a good omen for my time here.’ She laughed and turned to look at him.

‘Well, I suppose you could think of it that way. But a lot of it has to do with habit and my comfort zone too. I grew up here, and I know the area like the back of my hand. Although I actually don’t live in Tanumshede anymore. Now I live in Fjällbacka.’

‘That’s right, I heard you were married to Erica Falck! I love her books! Well, the ones about murders, that is; I haven’t read the biographies, I have to admit.’

‘You don’t have to be ashamed about that. Half of Sweden has read the latest crime novel, judging by the sales figures, but most people don’t even know that she published five biographies of Swedish women writers. The one that sold best was about Karin Boye, and I think it got up to around two thousand copies. Anyway, we aren’t married yet – but we will be soon. We’re getting married on Whitsun Eve!’

‘Oh, congratulations! How lovely to have a Whitsuntide wedding.’

‘Well, we hope so. Although to be honest, at this point I’d rather fly off to Las Vegas and get away from all the hullabaloo. I had no idea it was such an undertaking to plan a wedding.’

Hanna gave a hearty laugh. ‘Yes, I can imagine.’

‘But you’re married too, I saw in your file. Didn’t you have a big church wedding?’

A dark shadow passed over Hanna’s face. She turned away and mumbled so faintly he could barely hear her: ‘We had a civil wedding. But that’s a story for some other time. It looks like we’re here.’

Up ahead they saw a wrecked car in the ditch. Two firemen were busy cutting through the roof, but they were in no hurry. After a look in the front seat Patrik understood why.

It was not by chance that the town council were meeting in his own home rather than the community centre. After months of intense remodelling, at a cost of two million kronor, the house was ready to be inspected and admired. It was one of the oldest and largest houses in Grebbestad, and it had taken a good deal of persuasion to get the previous owners to sell. Their protests about how it ‘belonged in the family’ had soon subsided when he raised the offer. It never even occurred to them that he had offered considerably less than he would have been willing to pay.

‘As you can see, we took great pains to respect the integrity of the place. In fact the photographer sent by Residence said he’d never seen such a tasteful renovation. If anyone missed last month’s issue, we have a few extra copies – do help yourself on the way out, then you can leaf through it at your leisure.’

Ushering his guests into the dining room, Erling W. Larson pointed to the large dining-room table that was set for coffee. ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we.’ His wife had made all the arrangements while he was showing the house, and now she stood silently by the table waiting for them to sit down. Erling gave her an appreciative nod. She was worth her weight in gold, that Viveca; a bit quiet perhaps, but better a woman who knew when to keep her mouth shut than a chatterbox.

‘Well, you know where I stand,’ said Uno Brorsson, dropping four sugar cubes into his cup. Erling regarded him with distaste. He didn’t understand men who neglected their health. For his part he jogged ten kilometres every morning and had also had some discreet work done. But only Viveca knew about that.

‘We certainly do,’ said Erling, a hint more sharply than he’d intended. ‘But there’s no point debating the matter now that an agreement has been reached. The TV team will be arriving shortly, so let’s be reasonable and make the best of things, eh? Just look at the boost Åmål got from the seasons they filmed there, and that was nothing compared with the publicity generated by Sodding Töreboda. Over the coming weeks, the whole country will be sitting down to watch Sodding Tanum. What a unique opportunity for us to show off our little corner of Sweden from its best side!’

‘Best side?’ Uno snorted. ‘Boozing and sex and dumb reality show bimbos – is that how we want to depict Tanumshede?’

‘Well, I for one think it’s bound to be terribly exciting!’ said Gunilla Kjellin in her strident voice, her eyes sparkling at Erling. Though she would never admit it, she had a massive crush on him. Which suited Erling, so long as it guaranteed him her vote.

‘Yes, listen to Gunilla. This is the spirit in which we should be welcoming the upcoming project. It’s an exciting adventure we’re embarking on, and an opportunity we should embrace whole-heartedly!’ Erling was using the persuasive tone he’d employed with such success over the years as director of a huge insurance firm. Every once in a while he grew nostalgic for those halcyon days. It hadn’t been easy, taking early retirement after his heart attack, but it had proved to be the best decision he’d ever made. And he’d got out in the nick of time. Right before the press, scenting blood, began ripping his former colleagues to pieces.

‘What are we doing about the risk of damage? I heard that Töreboda had a lot of that while they were filming there. Will the TV company cover it?’

Erling snorted impatiently. Erik Bohlin, the town’s young financial officer, was forever fussing about trivialities instead of looking at ‘the big picture’. What the hell did he know about finance anyway? He was barely thirty, and in his whole life he’d probably never dealt with as much money as Erling used to spend in a single day.

Fixing Bohlin with a withering stare, he said dismissively: ‘Compared to the increased tourist influx we’re expecting, a few broken windows are nothing to worry about. Besides, I’m sure the police will do their utmost to earn their salaries and keep on top of the situation.’

He let his gaze rest for a few seconds on each of the council members. One by one their eyes fell as they abandoned any notion of protest.

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Jörn Schuster.

For the life of him, Erling couldn’t understand why Jörn had chosen to remain on the council. Ignominiously voted out after fifteen years as town commissioner, he ought to have crept off with his tail between his legs. But if Jörn wanted to wallow in his humiliation, fine. There were certain benefits in having the old fox present, even though he was now both exhausted and toothless, figuratively speaking. He had his faithful supporters, and they would keep quiet as long as they saw that Jörn was still actively involved.

‘So, now it’s a matter of showing our enthusiasm. I’m going to welcome the team in person at one o’clock, and of course you’re all welcome to attend. Otherwise we’ll see one another at the regular meeting on Thursday.’ He stood up to indicate that the meeting was adjourned.

Uno was still muttering when he left, but Erling reckoned he’d done a pretty good job in mustering the troops. This venture reeked of success, he was sure of it.

Pleased, he went out onto the veranda and lit a victory cigar. In the dining room Viveca silently cleared the table.

‘Da da da da.’ Maja sat in her high chair prattling as she evaded with great skill the spoon that her mother was trying to stick in her mouth. After taking aim for a moment Erica finally managed to get a spoonful of porridge in, but her joy was short-lived when Maja chose that instant to demonstrate that she could make a noise like a car. ‘Brrrrr,’ she said with such feeling that the porridge sprayed all over her mother’s face.

‘Damn brat,’ said Erica, exhausted, but she regretted her choice of words at once.

‘Brrrrr,’ Maja said happily, managing to eject the remains of the porridge onto the table.

‘Amn brat,’ said Adrian, and his big sister Emma chided him at once.

‘You mustn’t swear, Adrian!’

‘But Ica just did.’

‘You still shouldn’t swear, isn’t that so, Aunt Erica?’ Emma planted her hands firmly on her hips and gave Erica an insistent look.

‘You’re absolutely right. It was very naughty of me to swear, Adrian.’

Pleased with this answer, Emma went back to eating her kefir. Erica gave her a loving but worried glance. The girl had been forced to grow up so fast. Sometimes she behaved more like a mamma than a big sister to Adrian. Anna didn’t seem to notice, but Erica saw it all too well. She knew all too well what it was like to shoulder that role at such a young age.

And now she was doing it again. Mamma to her sister. At the same time she was mamma to Maja and a sort of substitute mamma to Emma and Adrian, while she waited for Anna to snap out of her lethargy. Erica cast a glance at the ceiling as she began clearing the mess off the table. But there was no sound from upstairs. Anna seldom woke up before eleven, and Erica let her sleep. She didn’t know what else to do.

‘I don’t want to go to kindergarten today,’ Adrian announced, putting on an expression that clearly said ‘and try to make me if you can.’

‘Of course you’re going to kindergarten, Adrian,’ said Emma, again propping her hands on her hips. Erica intervened before the bickering erupted, at the same time as she tried to clean up her eight-month-old daughter as best she could.

‘Emma, go and put on your coat and boots. Adrian, I don’t have time for this discussion today. You’re going to kindergarten with Emma, and that’s non-negotiable.’

Adrian opened his mouth to protest, but something in his aunt’s face told him that on this particular morning he should probably obey her. Displaying uncharacteristic obedience he went out to the hall.

‘Okay, now try putting on your shoes.’ Erica set out Adrian’s trainers, but he just shook his head.

‘I can’t, you have to help me.’

‘You can so. You put your shoes on at kindergarten.’

‘No, I can’t. I’m little,’ he added for emphasis.

Erica sighed and put Maja down. The baby began crawling off even before her hands and knees touched the floor. She had started to crawl very early and was now a master in that event.

‘Maja, stay here, sweetie,’ said Erica as she tried to put Adrian’s shoes on him. But Maja chose to ignore the urgent plea and set off happily on a voyage of discovery. Erica could feel the sweat beginning to run down her back and under her arms.

‘I’ll fetch Maja,’ said Emma helpfully, taking Erica’s lack of an answer as a sign of assent. Puffing a bit, Emma came back carrying Maja, who was squirming in her arms like an intractable kitten. Erica saw that her daughter’s face had begun to assume the red colour that usually warned a wail was on its way, and she hurried to take the child. Then she hustled the older kids out the front door towards the car. Damn, how she hated mornings like these.

‘Get in the car, we’re in a hurry. We’re late again and you know what Miss Ewa thinks about that.’

‘She doesn’t like it,’ said Emma, shaking her head in concern.

‘No, she certainly doesn’t,’ said Erica, strapping Maja into the car seat.

‘I want to sit up front,’ Adrian announced, crossing his arms and preparing for battle. But now Erica’s patience was at an end.

‘Get in your chair,’ she yelled, feeling a certain satisfaction when she saw him practically fly into his car seat. Emma sat on her forward-facing cushion in the middle of the back seat and put on her seat belt herself. With great haste and still feeling annoyed Erica began belting Adrian in, but stopped when she felt a small hand on her cheek.

‘I lo-o-ove you, Ica,’ said Adrian, trying to look as sweet as he could. Undoubtedly an attempt to win her favour, but it worked every time. Erica felt her heart swell, and she leaned over and gave him a big kiss.

The last thing she did before she backed out of the driveway was to cast an uneasy glance at the window of Anna’s bedroom. But the shade was still pulled down.

Jonna pressed her forehead against the cool bus window and looked out at the countryside passing by. A tremendous apathy filled her. As always. She tugged at the sleeves of her jumper so they covered her hands. Over the years it had become a habit of hers. She wondered what she was doing here. How had she ended up in all this? Why was there such a fascination with following her everyday life? Jonna simply didn’t understand it. A broken and odd loner girl who fucking cut herself. But maybe that was precisely why she had been voted to stay on, week after week in the House. Because there were so many other girls like her all around the country. Girls who hungrily recognized themselves in her, when she constantly ended up in confrontation with the other participants, when she sat crying in the lavatory, slashing her forearms to shreds with razor blades, when she radiated so much helplessness and desperation that the others in the House avoided her as though she were infected with rabies. Maybe that was why.

‘Gawd, how exciting! Imagine if we were, like, given one more chance.’ Jonna heard the endless anticipation in Barbie’s voice but refused to respond. The girl’s name alone made her want to puke. But the tabloids loved it. BB-Barbie was doing great on the news placards. Her real name was Lillemor Persson. One of the evening newspapers had dug up that fact. They had also found old photos of her from the time when she was a skinny little brown-haired girl with oversized glasses. Nothing like the silicone-boobed blonde bombshell she was today. Jonna had a good laugh when she saw those pictures. They had got a copy of the paper for the House. But Barbie had cried. Then she’d burnt the newspaper.

‘Look what a crowd there is!’ Barbie pointed excitedly to a group of people at the square, where the bus seemed to be heading. ‘Don’t you understand, Jonna? They’re all here for us, don’t you get it?’ She could hardly sit still, and Jonna gave her a contemptuous look. Then she stuck in the earbuds of her MP3 player and closed her eyes.

Patrik walked slowly around the car. It had driven off a steep slope and finally stopped when it hit a tree. The front was bashed in, but the rest of the car was intact. It hadn’t been able to take the curve at such speed.

‘The driver seems to have slammed into the steering wheel. I’d guess that’s the cause of death,’ said Hanna, squatting down by the driver’s side.

‘We’ll leave that to the medical examiner, I think,’ said Patrik, hearing himself sound more critical than he intended. ‘I just mean –’

‘That’s okay,’ said Hanna with a dismissive wave. ‘It was a stupid remark. I’ll stick to observing from now on, not drawing conclusions – yet,’ she added.

Patrik finished his circuit round the car and was now squatting next to Hanna. The door on the driver’s side stood wide open, and the accident victim was still strapped into the seat, leaning forward against the steering wheel. Blood had run down from a head wound and collected on the floor.

They heard one of the techs snapping photos behind them to document the accident scene.

‘Are we in your way?’ Patrik asked, turning round.

‘No, we’ve already taken most of the shots we need. Thought we’d just straighten up the victim now and take some pictures. Is that all right? Have you seen what you need to for the time being?’

‘Have we, Hanna?’ Patrik was scrupulous about including his colleague. It couldn’t be easy to be the new person, and he intended to do his best to make her feel welcome.

‘Yes, I think so.’ They both stood up and moved away to give the tech more room. Carefully he grasped the victim’s shoulder and pressed the body back against the seat. Only now could they see that the victim was a woman. Short hair and unisex clothing had made them think at first that it was a man, but one look at the face told them that the victim was a woman in her forties.

‘It’s Marit,’ said Patrik.

‘Marit?’ Hanna queried.

‘She has a shop on Affärsvägen. Sells tea, coffee, chocolate and things like that.’

‘Does she have a family?’ Hanna’s voice sounded a bit strange when she asked the question, and Patrik glanced at her. But she looked the same as usual, so maybe he was imagining things.

‘I don’t really know. We’ll have to check that out.’

The technician was now done taking photos and stepped back. Patrik and Hanna moved in closer again.

‘Be careful not to touch anything,’ Patrik said out of reflex. Before Hanna could reply he went on, ‘Sorry, I keep forgetting that you may be new in our department, but you’re an experienced cop. You’ll have to cut me some slack,’ he said apologetically.

‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ his new colleague said with a laugh. ‘I don’t take offence that easily.’

Patrik laughed too, with relief. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to working with people he knew well, people whose work habits were familiar. It would probably be a good thing to have some new blood on the force. Besides, compared to Ernst, anything was an improvement. The fact that he finally got the boot after taking the law into his own hands, so to speak, last autumn was – well, nothing short of a miracle.

‘So, what do you see?’ asked Patrik, leaning in close to look at Marit’s face.

‘It’s not so much what I see but what I smell.’ Hanna took a couple of deep sniffs. ‘She stinks of booze. She must have been dead drunk when she drove off the road.’

‘It certainly seems so,’ said Patrik. He sounded a bit distracted. With a concerned frown he peered inside the car. There was nothing out of the ordinary. A wrapper from a chocolate bar on the floor, an empty plastic Coke bottle, a page that seemed to have been torn out of a book, and in the far corner, on the floor by the passenger seat, an empty vodka bottle.

‘This doesn’t seem too complicated. A single-car accident with a drunk driver.’ Hanna took a couple of steps back and seemed to be preparing to leave. The ambulance was ready to take the body, and there wasn’t much more they could do.

Patrik scrutinized the wounds on Marit’s face. Something didn’t add up.

‘Can I wipe off the blood?’ he asked one of the crime scene techs packing up his equipment.

‘That should be okay, we have plenty of documentation. Here, I’ve got a rag.’ The tech handed Patrik a piece of white cloth and Patrik nodded his thanks. Cautiously, almost tenderly, he wiped off the blood that had come primarily from a wound on her forehead. The victim’s eyes were open, and before he continued Patrik carefully closed them with his index fingers. Beneath the blood Marit’s face was a study of wounds and bruises. She had struck the steering wheel with great force; the car was an older model without an airbag.

‘Could you take some more pictures?’ he asked the man who had given him the rag. The tech nodded and grabbed his camera. He quickly took some more shots and then gave Patrik a quizzical look.

‘That’ll be fine,’ said Patrik, stepping over to Hanna, who looked puzzled.

‘What was it you saw?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure. There’s just something that … I don’t know.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘It’s probably nothing. Let’s go back to the station. The others can finish up the work here.’

They got in the police car and headed towards Tanumshede. They drove the whole way back in silence. And in that silence something was tugging at Patrik’s mind. He simply didn’t know what it was.

Bertil Mellberg felt strangely light-hearted. The way he usually felt only when he was spending time with Simon, the son whose existence he hadn’t known of for fifteen years. Unfortunately Simon didn’t come to see him very often, but at least he came, and they’d been able to form some sort of relationship. It wasn’t an exuberant sort of bond, nor was it visible from the outside; it lived a rather hidden existence. But it was there.

The feeling, difficult to describe, came from something odd that had happened to him last Saturday. After months of nagging and pressure from Sten, his good friend – or rather his only friend, and even he might be characterized as an acquaintance – Mellberg had agreed to go along to a barn dance in Munkedal. Even though he considered himself a good dancer, it had been many years since he’d frequented a dancing establishment. And a barn dance conjured up images of hicks cavorting to fiddle music. But Sten was a regular participant and had finally managed to persuade him that barn dances were excellent hunting grounds. ‘They just sit there in a row, waiting to be picked,’ as Sten had said. Mellberg couldn’t deny it sounded good; he hadn’t met many women in recent years, so he was certainly feeling a need to air out that little guy. But his scepticism was based on his expectation of what sort of women went to barn dances. Desperate old crows who were more interested in sinking their talons into an old guy with a good pension than having a roll in the hay. But if there was one thing he knew, it was how to protect himself from birds with marriage on their minds; so he finally decided to accompany Sten and try his luck.

Just in case, he had put on his best suit and splashed a little ‘smell-good’ here and there. And Sten had come over and they had fortified themselves with a few shots before they headed off. Sten had thought to call a cab, so they didn’t have to worry about how much they drank. Not that Mellberg often worried much about that, but it wouldn’t look good if he was caught driving under the influence. After the incident with Ernst, the higher-ups had their eye on him, so he had to be careful. Or at least make it look like he was being careful. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Despite all the preparations it was not with great anticipation that Mellberg stepped into the big hall, where the dancing was already in full swing. And his prejudices were confirmed. Only old women his own age everywhere he looked. On that subject he and Uffe Lundell were in complete agreement – who the hell wanted a wrinkled, flabby, middle-aged body next to him in bed when there was so much fine, solid, young flesh out there? Though Mellberg had to admit that Uffe had a bit more success on that front than he did. It was that whole rock-star thing that did it. Bloody unfair.

He was just about to go to the bar and fortify his courage when he heard someone speaking to him.

‘What a place. And here we stand feeling old.’

‘Well, I’m here under protest,’ Mellberg replied with a glance at the woman who had come up beside him.

‘Same here. It was Bodil that dragged me along,’ said the woman, pointing at one of the ladies already out on the dance floor working up a sweat.

‘Sten, in my case,’ said Mellberg, pointing him out on the dance floor.

‘My name is Rose-Marie,’ she said, holding out her hand.

‘Bertil,’ replied Mellberg.

The instant his palm met hers, his life was changed. During his sixty-three years he had experienced desire, randiness, and a compulsion to possess certain women he had met. But never before had he fallen in love. And so it struck him with even greater force. He regarded her in wonderment. Mellberg’s objective self registered a woman around sixty, about 5’3”, a bit plump, with her short hair dyed a spirited red colour, and a happy smile. But his subjective self saw only her eyes. They were blue and looked at him with curiosity and intensity; he felt himself drowning in those eyes, as it might be described in trashy paperback novels.

After that the evening passed much too rapidly. They danced and talked. He fetched drinks for her and pulled out her chair for her. Behaviour that was definitely not part of his normal repertoire. But nothing had been normal on that evening.

When they parted he felt at once awkward and empty. He simply had to see her again. So now he sat here at the office on a Monday morning, feeling like a schoolboy. Before him on the desk lay a piece of paper with her name and phone number.

He looked at the piece of paper, took a deep breath, and punched in the number.

They had quarrelled again. For the umpteenth time in a row. Far too many times the quarrels had turned into verbal boxing matches between them. And as usual, each of them had defended her own position. Kerstin wanted them to come out of the closet. Marit still wanted to keep it all secret.

‘Are you ashamed of me – of us?’ Kerstin had yelled. And Marit, like so many times before, had turned away and refused to look her in the eye. Because that was precisely where the problem lay. They loved each other, and Marit was ashamed of it.

At first Kerstin had persuaded herself that it didn’t matter. The important thing was that they had found each other. That the two of them, after being thoroughly knocked about by life and by people who inflicted injuries on their souls, had actually found each other. What did a lover’s gender matter? Who cared what other people said or thought? But Marit hadn’t viewed it that way. She wasn’t ready to subject herself to the opinions and prejudices of people around her, and she wanted everything to remain as it had been for the past four years. They would continue to live together as lovers but outwardly pretend that they were just two friends who for financial reasons and the sake of convenience shared the same apartment.

‘Why do you care so much what people say?’ Kerstin had said when they quarrelled the previous evening. Marit had cried as she always did whenever they had a falling out. And as usual, that made Kerstin madder than ever. The tears were like fuel for the anger that had accumulated behind the wall created by their secret. She hated making Marit cry. Hated that circumstances and other people made her hurt the one she loved most of all.

‘Imagine how it would be for Sofie if it came out.’

‘Sofie is much tougher than you think. Don’t use her as an excuse for your own cowardice.’

‘How tough do you think someone can be when she’s fifteen and kids are taunting her because her mother is a dyke? Do you have any idea how much shit she would get at school? I can’t do that to her!’ Marit’s tears had distorted her face into an ugly mask.

‘Do you honestly think that Sofie hasn’t figured it all out, that we’re fooling her when you move into the guest room during the weeks she visits us and we go about acting out some sort of charade at home? Look, Sofie worked it out long ago. And if I were her I’d be more ashamed of a mum who’s prepared to live a lie just so “people” won’t talk. That’s what I’d be ashamed of!’

By this point Kerstin was yelling so loudly that she could hear her voice cracking. Marit had given her that wounded look that over the years Kerstin had learned to hate, and she also knew from experience what would come next. Sure enough, Marit had leapt up from the table and started putting on her jacket, sobbing.

‘Go ahead and run away. That’s what you always do. Go on! And this time don’t bother coming back!’

When the door slammed behind Marit, Kerstin sat down at the kitchen table. She was breathing hard, and she felt as if she’d been running. And in a way she had been. Running after the life she wanted for the two of them, but which Marit’s fear prevented them from having. And for the first time she had meant what she had said. Something inside her told her that soon she wouldn’t be able to take it any longer.

But now, the morning after, that feeling had been replaced by a deep, consuming worry. She had sat up all night. Waiting for the door to open, waiting to hear the familiar footsteps across the parquet floor, waiting to hug Marit and console her and beg her forgiveness. But she hadn’t come home. And the car keys were gone; Kerstin had checked on that during the night. Where the hell was she? Had something happened? Had she driven to the house of her ex-husband, Sofie’s pappa? Or could she have fled all the way to her mother’s place in Oslo?

With trembling fingers Kerstin picked up the phone to start calling around.

‘What do you think this is going to mean for the tourist trade in Tanum?’ The reporter from Bohusläningen stood ready with notepad and pen, waiting to jot down his reply.

‘Plenty. It’ll be huge. There will be a half-hour show broadcast from Tanumshede on television every day. This area has never seen such a gigantic marketing opportunity.’ Erling beamed. A big crowd had gathered outside the old community centre, waiting for the bus with the participants. It was mostly teenagers who had gathered and could hardly stand still in their eagerness to finally see their idols live.

‘But couldn’t it have the opposite effect? I mean, in previous seasons the show ended up dealing with quarrels, sex, and drunkenness, and that’s hardly what we’d want to present as a message to tourists, is it?’

Erling gave the reporter an annoyed look. Why were people always so damned negative? He’d had enough of that from his own town council, and now the local press was starting to harp on the same thing.

‘Surely you’ve heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”? And let’s face it Tanumshede does have a rather invisible image – nationally, that is. Now that’s all going to change with Sodding Tanum.’

‘Obviously,’ the reporter began, but was cut off by Erling who had lost all patience.

‘Unfortunately I don’t have time to comment further at the moment, I’m here as the welcoming committee.’ He turned on his heel and strode off towards the bus, which had just pulled up. The young people crowded round the door of the bus in anticipation, waiting with excited expressions for the door to open. The sight of the youthful crowd was enough to confirm Erling’s view that this was just what the town needed. Now Tanumshede was going to be put on the map.

When the bus doors swung open with a whooshing sound, it was a man in his forties who got out first. Disappointed murmurs from the teenagers indicated that he was not one of the cast. Erling hadn’t watched any of the many reality shows that had been broadcast, so he had no clue who or what to expect.

‘Erling W. Larson,’ he said, holding out his hand as he switched on his most winning smile. The cameras clicked.

‘Fredrik Rehn,’ said the man, shaking the proffered hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m the producer of this circus.’ Now they both smiled.

‘Well, let me welcome you to Tanumshede. On behalf of the community I’d like to say that we’re extremely happy and proud to have you here, and we look forward to a very exciting season.’

‘Thank you, thank you. Yes, we have high hopes for it. With two hit seasons behind us we’re feeling very optimistic; we know that this is a successful format, and we look forward to working with you. But let’s not keep the fans waiting any longer,’ said Fredrik with a broad smile, flashing his improbably white teeth at the anxious crowd. ‘Here they come. The cast of Sodding Tanum: Barbie from Big Brother, Jonna from Big Brother, Calle from Survivor, Tina from The Bar, Uffe from Survivor and, last but not least, Mehmet from The Farm.’

One by one the participants trooped off the bus, and widespread hysteria ensued. People were shouting and pointing and pushing forward to touch the participants or to ask for autographs. The cameramen had already set up and the filming was in full swing. Pleased but a bit bewildered, Erling watched the frenzied reaction triggered by the arrival of the cast. He couldn’t help wondering why today’s youth were so excited about all this. How could this bunch of snot-nosed kids arouse such hysteria? Well, he didn’t need to understand it – the main thing was to exploit as best he could the attention the programme would bring to Tanumshede.

‘Look, we’re going to have to break this up. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet the cast; after all, they’ll be living here for five weeks.’ Fredrik shooed off the fans still crowding around the bus. ‘Right now the cast needs a chance to get settled and rest a bit. But you’ll all turn on the TV next week, right? Monday at seven, that’s when it kicks off!’ He gave a thumbs-up with both hands and fired off one more phoney smile.

The young people drew back reluctantly, most of them heading for the school, but a small group seemed to regard this as an excellent opportunity to blow off the day’s classes and instead headed in the direction of Hedemyr’s.

‘Undeniably an auspicious start,’ said Fredrik, putting his arms around the shoulders of Barbie and Jonna. ‘What do you say, kids, are you ready to go?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Barbie, her eyes sparkling. As usual, all the commotion had given her an adrenaline kick, and she was bouncing up and down in place.

‘What about you, Jonna? How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘But it would be nice to have a chance to unpack and settle in.’

‘We’ll take care of that, babe,’ said Fredrik, giving her shoulders an extra squeeze. ‘The main thing is that you’re feeling good, you know that.’ He turned towards Erling. ‘Is everything ready with the accommodation?’

‘Sure thing.’ Erling pointed to a red house in the old style which stood only about fifty metres away. ‘They’ll be living in the community centre. We’ve put in beds and other furniture, and I think you’ll be quite comfortable there.’

‘Whatever – as long as there’s booze, I can sleep any-fucking-where.’ It was Mehmet from The Farm who spoke, and the comment was followed by giggles and nods of agreement from the others. Free booze was a prerequisite for their participation. That and all the opportunities for sex that came from their celebrity status.

‘Calm down, Mehmet,’ said Fredrik with a smile. ‘There’s a regular bar with anything you might want. Several cases of beer too, and there’ll be more when it’s all over. We’re going to take good care of you.’ He made a move to put his arms around the shoulders of Mehmet and Uffe, but they lithely slipped away. Early on they had pegged him as a flaming queen, and they had no desire to cuddle with a pillow-biter – they’d made that fucking clear. Though they were walking a thin line; they needed to get on well with the producer, as the cast of the previous season had advised them. The producer decided who got the most air-time and who got the least, and time on-screen was the only thing that mattered. Later, if you barfed or pissed on the floor or just in general acted like an arsehole, it wouldn’t mean a thing.

Erling didn’t have a clue about all this. He’d never heard about celebrity bartenders, or the hard work required, in the service of filth, to stay in the limelight as a reality show star. No, he was only interested in the boost that Tanum would get from the show. And his place in the spotlight as the man who made it all happen.

Erica had already eaten lunch by the time Anna came downstairs from the bedroom. But even though it was after one o’clock, she looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink. Anna had always been thin, but now she was so emaciated that Erica sometimes had to fight an impulse to flinch in alarm at the sight of her.

‘What time is it?’ Anna asked in a quavering voice. She sat down at the table and took the coffee cup that Erica held out to her.

‘Quarter past one.’

‘Da da,’ said Maja, waving delightedly at Anna in an attempt to get her attention. Anna didn’t even notice.

‘Shit, I slept till past one o’clock. Why didn’t you wake me?’ asked Anna, sipping the hot coffee.

‘Well, I didn’t know what you wanted me to do. You seem to need your sleep,’ Erica said cautiously, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Her relationship with Anna was such that for a long time now she’d had to watch her tongue, and it hadn’t improved after all that had happened with Lucas. The mere fact that she and Anna were living under the same roof again made them slip into the same old patterns that they had both fought to escape. Erica automatically fell into her usual maternal role towards her sister, while Anna seemed to vacillate between a desire to be taken care of and a need to rebel. The past few months the house had been filled with an oppressive atmosphere, with a lot of unspoken issues hovering in the air, waiting for the right time to be vented. But Anna was still in a state of shock and she didn’t seem to be able to pull herself out of it. So Erica tiptoed around her, deathly afraid to do or say the wrong thing.

‘What about the kids? Did they get off to kindergarten okay?’

‘Yes, it went fine,’ said Erica, choosing not to mention Adrian’s minor tantrum. Anna had so little patience with the children these days. Most of the practical matters fell to Erica, and whenever the kids began to fight, Anna would disappear and let Erica handle it. She was like a wrung-out rag; she shuffled listlessly about, as if trying to work out what had once kept her on her feet. Erica was deeply worried.

‘Anna, don’t get upset, but shouldn’t you go and talk to somebody? We got the name of a psychologist who’s supposed to be excellent, and I think it would –’

Anna cut her off abruptly. ‘I said no. I’ve got to work this out on my own. It’s my fault; I killed a human being. I can’t sit and complain to some total stranger. I have to work through this myself.’ Her hand holding the coffee cup squeezed the handle so hard that her knuckles turned white.

‘Anna, I know we’ve talked about this a thousand times, but I’ll say it again. You didn’t murder Lucas, you killed him in self-defence. And you weren’t only defending yourself, but the children too. No one has any doubt about that, and you were completely exonerated. He would have killed you, Anna. It was you or Lucas.’

Anna’s face twitched slightly as Erica talked, and Maja, sensing the tension in the air, began to whimper in her high chair.

‘I – just – can’t – talk – about – it,’ said Anna between clenched teeth. ‘I’m going back to bed. Will you pick up the kids?’ She got up and left Erica alone in the kitchen.

‘Yes, I’ll collect them,’ said Erica, feeling tears filling her eyes. Soon she wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore. Somebody had to do something.

Then she had an idea. She picked up the phone and dialled a number from memory. It was worth a try.

Hanna went straight to her new office and started getting settled. Patrik continued on to Martin Molin’s cubby-hole and knocked cautiously on the door.

‘Come in.’

Patrik stepped into the room and sat down on the chair in front of Martin’s desk. They often worked together and spent many hours occupying each other’s guest chairs.

‘I heard you drove out to investigate a car crash. Fatalities?’

‘Yes, the driver. Single-car accident. And I recognized her. It was Marit, the woman with the shop on Affärsvägen.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Martin with a sigh. ‘So fucking unnecessary. Did she swerve to avoid a deer or something?’

Patrik hesitated. ‘The techs were there, so their report and the post-mortem will probably give us the definitive answer. But it stank of booze in the car.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Martin for the second time. ‘Drunk driving, in other words. Although I don’t think she’s ever been stopped for that before. Could be the first time she drove drunk, or at least she’s never been in jail for it.’

‘Ye-e-es,’ Patrik drawled. ‘That could be.’

‘But?’ Martin prodded him, clasping his hands behind his head. His red hair shone against his white palms. ‘I can hear there’s something bothering you. I know you well enough by now that I can tell when something’s wrong.’

‘Jeez, I don’t know,’ said Patrik. ‘It’s nothing specific. There was just something that felt … wrong, something I can’t quite put my finger on.’

‘Your gut feelings are usually spot on,’ said Martin with concern, rocking back and forth in the chair. ‘But let’s wait and hear what the experts have to say. As soon as the crime scene techs and the pathologist have looked at everything, we’ll know more. Maybe they’ll come up with an explanation for why something feels strange.’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Patrik, scratching his head. ‘But … no, you’re right, there’s no sense in speculating before we know more. In the meantime we have to focus on what we can do. And unfortunately that means informing Marit’s next of kin. Do you know if she has any family here?’

Martin frowned. ‘She has a teenage daughter, I know, and she shares a flat with a female friend. There’s been some whispering about that arrangement, but I don’t know …’

Patrik sighed. ‘We’ll just have to drive over to her place and then work out what’s best.’

A few minutes later they were knocking on the door of Marit’s flat. They’d checked the telephone book and found that she lived in a high-rise a few hundred metres from the police station. Both Patrik and Martin were breathing hard. This was the most dreaded task in the police force. Only when they heard footsteps inside did they realize that they hadn’t been sure that someone would even be at home at this hour of the afternoon.

The woman who opened the door knew at once why they had come. Martin and Patrik could see it in the way her face blanched and her shoulders drooped in resignation.

‘It’s about Marit, isn’t it? Has something happened?’ Her voice quavered, but she stepped aside to let them into the hallway.

‘Yes, unfortunately we have bad news. Marit Kaspersen was involved in a single-car accident. She … died,’ said Patrik in a low voice. The woman before them stood completely still. As if she were frozen in position and couldn’t manage to send signals from her brain to her muscles. Instead, her brain was busy processing the information she had just heard.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ she said at last, heading robotically towards the kitchen without waiting for their reply.

‘Is there someone we should call?’ Martin asked. The woman looked to be in shock. Her brown hair was cut in a practical pageboy, and she kept tucking it behind her ears. She was very thin, dressed in jeans and a jumper knitted in typical Norwegian style with a lovely, intricate pattern and big elegant silver clasps.

Kerstin shook her head. ‘No, I don’t have anybody. Nobody except … Marit. And Sofie of course. But she’s with her pappa.’

‘Sofie – is that Marit’s daughter?’ asked Patrik, shaking his head when Kerstin held up a carton of milk after pouring coffee into three cups.

‘Yes, she’s fifteen. It’s Ola’s turn this week. Every other week she stays with Marit and me, and the other times with Ola in Fjällbacka.’

‘You were close friends, you and Marit?’ Patrik felt a bit uneasy at the way he asked the question, but he didn’t know how else to broach the subject. He took a sip of coffee as he waited for her answer. It was delicious. Strong, just the way he liked it.

A wry smile from Kerstin showed that she knew what he was asking. Her eyes filled with tears when she said, ‘We were friends the weeks when Sofie stayed here, but lovers when she was with Ola. That was what we …’ Her voice broke and tears started running down her cheeks.

She cried for a while. Then she made an effort to get her voice under control again and went on: ‘That was what we were arguing about last night. For the hundredth time. Marit wanted to stay in the closet, and I was suffocating and wanted to come out. She blamed Sofie, but that was just an excuse. Marit was the one who wasn’t ready to subject herself to gossip and stares. I tried to explain to her that she couldn’t escape it anyway. There was already plenty of gossip and staring. And even if initially people would talk if we made our relationship public, I was convinced it would die down after a while. But Marit refused to listen. She had lived a typical middle-class life for so many years, with a husband and child and a house and camping holidays in a trailer and all that. The idea that she might have feelings for a woman was something she hid deep inside. But when we met it was as if all the pieces suddenly fell into place. At least that’s how she described it to me. She accepted the consequences and left Ola and moved in with me. But she still didn’t dare admit it publicly. And that’s what we argued about last night.’ Kerstin reached for a paper napkin and blew her nose.

‘What time did she leave?’ Patrik asked.

‘Around eight. Quarter past, I think. I realized that something must have happened. She never would have stayed out all night on purpose. But I hesitated to call the police. I thought she might have driven over to a friend’s house, or else she was out walking all night, or … I’m not sure what I thought. When you arrived I was just thinking about ringing round to the hospitals, and if I didn’t find her there I was going to call you.’

The tears had started falling again, and she had to blow her nose once more. Patrik could see how sorrow, pain, and self-reproach were whirling round inside her, and he wished there were something he could say that would at least take away the blame. But instead he was forced to make the matter worse.

‘We …’ he hesitated, cleared his throat, and then went on: ‘we suspect that she was highly intoxicated when the accident occurred. Is that something she … had a problem with?’

He took another sip of his coffee and wished for a second that he was somewhere else, far away. Not here, not in this kitchen, with these questions and this grief. Kerstin gave him a surprised look.

‘Marit never drank. Not as long as I’ve known her, at least, and that’s more than four years. She didn’t like the taste. She didn’t even drink cider.’

Patrik gave Martin a significant look. Yet another odd detail to add to the elusive feeling he’d had ever since he saw the accident site a couple of hours earlier.

‘And you’re quite sure of this?’ It seemed a stupid question; she’d already answered it, but there was no room for ambiguities.

‘Yes, absolutely! I’ve never seen her drink wine or beer or anything like that. To think that she had got drunk and then got behind the wheel … no, that just can’t be. I don’t understand.’ Kerstin looked at Patrik and then at Martin with bewilderment. There was no rhyme or reason to what they had said. Marit didn’t drink, it was as simple as that.

‘Where can we get hold of her daughter? Do you have an address for Marit’s ex-husband?’ Martin asked, taking out a notebook and pen.

‘He lives in the Kullen area of Fjällbacka. I have the address here.’ She took down a note from the bulletin board and handed it to Martin. She still looked confused, but the inexplicable news had made her stop crying for a while.

‘So you don’t want us to ring anyone for you?’ asked Patrik as he got up from the table.

‘No. I … I think I’d like to be alone for now.’

‘Okay. But do call if there’s anything we can do.’ Patrik left her his card. He turned round just before pulling the front door closed behind him and Martin. Kerstin was still sitting at the kitchen table. She sat totally still.

‘Annika! Has the new girl showed up yet?’ Mellberg yelled the question out into the corridor.

‘Yes!’ Annika shouted back without bothering to leave the reception.

‘So where is she?’ Mellberg continued, still shouting.

‘Right here,’ said a female voice, and a second later Hanna popped into the corridor.

‘Ah yes, well, yes, if you’re not too busy perhaps you’d like to come in and introduce yourself,’ he said acidly. ‘It’s customary for a person to say hello to her new boss; usually that’s the first thing one does at a new job.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Hanna solemnly, approaching Mellberg with her hand extended. ‘As soon as I arrived Patrik Hedström took me out on a call, and we just got back. I was on my way to see you, naturally. First of all, allow me to say how much I’ve heard about the great work everyone is doing here. It’s certainly to your credit how you’ve handled the homicide investigations in recent years. And there’s a lot of talk about what superb leadership you must have here, to enable such a small station to resolve those cases in such an exemplary way.’

She took his hand in a firm grip, as Mellberg gave her a suspicious glance to see whether he would find any sort of irony in what she’d just said. But her gaze held no sign of mockery, and he quickly decided to swallow the flattery whole. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a woman in uniform after all. She was easy on the eyes too. A bit too thin for his taste, but not half bad, not half bad at all. Although after the conversation he’d had that morning, with such a fortunate result, he had to admit that he didn’t feel the same tingle in the pit of his stomach at the sight of this attractive woman. To his great surprise his thoughts turned instead to Rose-Marie’s warm voice and the joy with which she had accepted his invitation to dinner.

‘Well, let’s not stand out here in the corridor,’ he said after reluctantly dismissing his recollection of the pleasant telephone call. ‘Let’s take a seat in my office and have a chat.’

Hanna followed him into his office and sat down in the chair facing his desk.

‘So, I see that you’ve already managed to get your feet wet.’

‘Yes, Inspector Hedström took me along to investigate a vehicular accident. A single-car crash. With one fatality, unfortunately.’

‘Yes, that does happen from time to time.’

‘Our first assessment indicates that alcohol was involved as well. The driver reeked of it.’

‘Damn. Did Patrik say it was someone we’d brought in for driving under the influence before?’

‘No, apparently not. He even recognized the victim. Some woman who had a shop on Affärsvägen. Marit, I think he said.’

‘I’ll be damned,’ said Mellberg, contemplatively scratching his hair, which was coiled on top of his scalp. ‘Marit? I never would have believed it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I hope you didn’t have to inform the next of kin on your first day here.’

‘No,’ said Hanna, looking down at her shoes. ‘Patrik and a short, younger officer with red hair went off to do that.’

‘That’s Martin Molin,’ said Mellberg. ‘Didn’t Patrik introduce you two?’

‘No, he probably forgot. I suspect he must have been thinking about the task at hand.’

‘Hmm,’ said Mellberg. There was a long silence. Then he cleared his throat.

‘Well then. Welcome to Tanumshede police station. I hope you’ll enjoy it here. What sort of living arrangements have you made, by the way?’

‘We’re renting a house, that is, my husband and I are, in the area across from the church. We actually moved in a week ago and have been spending the time getting settled. We’re renting the house furnished, but we want to make it as cosy as possible.’

‘And your husband? What does he do? Did he find a job here too?’

‘Not yet,’ said Hanna, lowering her eyes again. Her hands moved restlessly in her lap.

Mellberg was silently sneering to himself. So, she was married to that sort of man. An out-of-work shit who let himself be supported by his wife. Well, some people could get away with it.

‘Lars is a psychologist,’ said Hanna, as if she could hear what Mellberg was thinking. ‘He’s been looking, but there aren’t many job opportunities around here. So until he finds something, he’s working on a book. A non-fiction book. And he’ll also be working several hours a week as a psychologist for the participants in Sodding Tanum.’

‘I see,’ said Mellberg in a tone that showed he’d already lost interest in what her husband did. ‘Well, once again, welcome to the station.’ He got up to indicate that she could leave now that the formalities had been concluded.

‘Thank you,’ said Hanna.

‘Please close the door after you,’ said Mellberg. For a brief moment he thought he saw an amused smile on her lips. But he was probably mistaken. She seemed to have great respect for him and his work. She had said as much, more or less, and given his deep insight into human behaviour, he could always tell when someone was being honest or not. And Hanna was definitely honest.

‘How’d it go?’ said Annika in a whisper when she entered Hanna’s office a few seconds later.

‘Well now,’ said Hanna, giving her the amused smile that Mellberg imagined he hadn’t seen. ‘A real character, that one,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Character. Yes, I suppose you could call him that,’ said Annika with a laugh. ‘In any case it looks like you can handle him. Don’t take any shit, that’s my advice. If he thinks he can mess with you, you’re done for.’

‘I’ve encountered a few other Mellbergs in my day, so I know how to handle him,’ said Hanna. And Annika had no doubt that she meant what she said. ‘Flatter him a bit, pretend you’re doing exactly what he says, but then do whatever you think is best. As long as it turns out okay in the end, he’ll pretend it was all his idea from the start – am I right?’

‘Exactly. That’s precisely how to succeed when Bertil Mellberg is your boss,’ said Annika, laughing as she returned to her desk in the reception area. She didn’t have to worry about the new girl. A mind of her own, smart and tough as nails. It was going to be a pleasure to watch her take on Mellberg.

Dejected, Dan began picking up the things scattered around the girls’ room. As usual they had left it looking as though a small bomb had gone off. He knew that he should be stricter about making them pick up after themselves, but his time with them was so precious. Every other weekend he had the girls stay over, and he wanted to extract all he could from their time together, not waste it on nagging and quarrels. He knew it was wrong; he ought to assume his parental responsibility and not dump it all on Pernilla, but the weekend went so fast, and the years also seemed to be passing with frightening speed. Belinda had already turned sixteen and was practically an adult. Malin at ten and Lisen at seven were growing so fast that sometimes it felt as though he couldn’t keep up.

Three years after the divorce the guilt still sat like a block of stone on his chest. If he hadn’t made that fateful mistake he might not be standing here picking up the girls’ clothes and toys in a house that echoed with emptiness. Maybe it had also been a mistake to keep living in the Falkeliden house. Pernilla had moved to Munkedal to be close to her family. But he hadn’t wanted the girls to lose the home they remembered. So he worked, saved, and scrimped so that the girls could feel at home every other weekend when they came to visit. But soon it would no longer be possible. The cost of paying for the house was crushing him. Before six months were over he’d be forced to make a decision. He sat down heavily on Malin’s bed and rested his head in his hands.

The ringing of the telephone roused him from his brooding. He reached for the phone by Malin’s bed.

‘Dan here.

‘Oh, hello, Erica.

‘I’m feeling a bit down. The girls left last night.

‘Yes, I know, and they’ll be back soon. It just feels like a long time in between. So, what’s on your mind?’

He listened intently. The worried furrow that marred his brow even before he answered the phone grew deeper.

‘Are things that bad? If there’s anything I can do, just say the word.’

He listened again as Erica spoke.

‘Well, I could certainly do that. Absolutely. If you think it’ll help.’ Another pause. ‘Okay, I’ll be right over.’

Dan hung up and sat there a moment, deep in thought. He didn’t know if he could really be of any help, but since it was Erica who had asked him, he wouldn’t hesitate to try. Once long ago they had been a couple, but in the years since then they had become close friends. She had helped him when he was getting divorced from Pernilla, and he would do anything for her. Patrik had also become a close friend, and Dan was a frequent guest at their home.

He put on his coat and backed the car out of the driveway. It took him only a few minutes to reach Erica’s house.

She opened the door at the first knock. ‘Hi, come on in,’ she said, giving him a hug.

‘Hi, where’s Maja?’ He looked about eagerly for the little girl who was swiftly becoming his favourite baby. He wanted to think that Maja was fond of him as well.

‘She’s asleep. Sorry.’ Erica laughed. She knew that her charming daughter had far outpaced her when it came to winning Dan’s affection.

‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to try and get along without her, but I’ll miss snuffling her sweet little neck.’

‘Don’t worry, she’ll wake up in a minute. Why don’t you come in? Anna is upstairs sleeping.’ Erica pointed to the ceiling.

‘Do you think this is a good idea?’ said Dan with concern. ‘Maybe she doesn’t feel like it. Maybe she’ll even get mad.’

‘Don’t tell me that a big strong guy like you gets weak at the knees at the mere threat of a woman’s anger,’ Erica teased him, looking up at Dan, who made an imposing sight. ‘And just because I said it once, I don’t want to hear any more about how Maria thought you looked like Dolph Lundgren. Considering how inaccurate she is about most things, I wouldn’t quote her voluntarily if I were you.’

‘But I do look a lot like him, don’t I?’ Dan struck a pose but then laughed. ‘No, you’re probably right. And my hunk days are definitely over. I just had to get it out of my system.’

‘Yeah, both Patrik and I look forward to the day when you find a girlfriend we can actually have a conversation with.’

‘You mean, in view of the high intellectual tone in this house? How’s it going with Paradise Hotel, by the way? Are your favourites still on the show? Who’s going to be in the finals? You’re such a loyal viewer. I’m sure you could bring me up to date on what’s happening on that highly cultural programme that challenges your brain, so hungry for knowledge. And Patrik – he can tell me all about the rankings in the All-Swedish tournaments, can’t he? That’s mathematics on a high level.’

‘Ha ha ha. Point taken.’ Erica punched him in the arm. ‘Now go on upstairs and make yourself useful.’

‘Are you sure that Patrik knows what he’s getting himself into? I think I’ll have a few words with him about how smart it is for him to walk down the aisle with you.’ Dan was already halfway up the stairs.

‘Fantastic idea. Now get on up there!’

Dan’s laugh stuck in his throat as he ascended the last couple of steps. He had scarcely seen Anna during the time she and the kids had been staying with Erica and Patrik. Like everyone else in Sweden he had followed the story of the tragedy in the newspapers, but every time he visited Erica, Anna had stayed out of sight. From what Erica told him, she spent most of her time in the bedroom.

He knocked cautiously on the door. No answer. He knocked again.

‘Anna? Hello? It’s Dan. May I come in?’ Still no answer. He stood there bewildered. He didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the situation, but he’d promised Erica to try and help, so now he had to make the best of it. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Anna lay on the bed; he saw that she was awake. She was staring blankly at the ceiling with her hands clasped over her stomach. She didn’t even glance in his direction when he came in.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Still no reaction.

‘How are things? How are you feeling?’

‘How does it look like I’m feeling?’ said Anna without taking her eyes from the ceiling.

‘Erica’s worried about you.’

‘Erica is always worried about me.’

Dan smiled. ‘You have a point there. She’s a bit of a mother hen, isn’t she?’

‘That’s for sure,’ said Anna, turning her gaze to Dan.

‘But she means well. And she’s probably more worried than usual just now.’

‘Yeah, I get it.’ Anna sighed. A long, deep sigh that seemed to release much more than air from her body. ‘I just don’t know how to snap out of this. It’s as if all my energy is gone. And I don’t feel a thing. Absolutely nothing. I’m not remorseful, and I’m not happy. I feel nothing at all.’

‘Have you talked to anyone about it?’

‘A psychologist or somebody like that, you mean? Erica keeps nagging me about that. But I can’t get myself together to do it. I can’t picture myself sitting there and talking to a complete stranger. About Lucas. About myself. I just can’t face it.’

‘Would you …’ Dan hesitated, squirming as he sat there on the bed. ‘Could you picture yourself talking to me? We don’t know each other that well, but at least I’m not a total stranger.’ He paused and waited tensely for her reply. He hoped that she would say yes. Suddenly he felt a great protective instinct when he saw her body that was much too thin and the haunted expression in her eyes. She was so much like Erica, yet not the same. A more frightened and fragile version of Erica.

‘I … I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say. Where to begin.’

‘We could start by going for a walk. And if you want to talk, then we’ll talk. If you don’t want to, then … we’ll just walk for a while. How does that sound?’ He could hear how anxious he sounded.

Anna sat up carefully. She sat with her back to him for a moment, then got up from the bed. ‘Okay, let’s go for a walk. But just a walk.’

‘Okay,’ said Dan and nodded. He led the way down the stairs and cast a look into the kitchen where he heard Erica clattering about. ‘We’re going out for a walk,’ he called to her, and from the corner of his eye he could see Erica trying to pretend it was no big deal.

‘It’s cold out, so you’d better put on a jacket,’ he said to Anna, who took his advice and slipped on a beige duffel coat, wrapping a big white scarf round her neck.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked, aware of the multiple meanings in that question.

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Anna quietly, and she followed him out into the spring sunshine.

‘So, do you think anyone ever gets used to it?’ asked Martin in the car on the way to Fjällbacka.

‘No,’ Patrik said. ‘At least I hope not. Otherwise it’d be time to switch professions.’ He took the curve at Långsjö much too fast, and Martin clutched the handle above the window as usual. He made a mental note to warn the new officer against riding with Patrik. Although it was probably too late. She had ridden in the car with him to that accident scene this morning, so she’d probably already had her first near-death experience.

‘How does she seem?’ Martin asked.

‘Who?’ Patrik seemed more distracted than normal.

‘The new officer. Hanna Kruse.’

‘She seems all right,’ said Patrik.

‘But?’

‘What do you mean, “but”?’ Patrik turned to look at his colleague, which made Martin grip the handle even harder.

‘Jesus, would you please watch the road? I meant, it seemed like you wanted to say more.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ To Martin’s relief he was now keeping his eyes on the road. ‘I’m just not used to people who are so … ambitious.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’ Martin said with a laugh, unable to hide the fact that he felt a bit insulted.

‘Hey, don’t take it the wrong way. I didn’t mean that you lacked ambition, but Hanna, she’s, how shall I put it – super-ambitious.’

‘Super-ambitious,’ Martin said sceptically. ‘You have reservations about her because she’s super-ambitious? Could you be a bit more specific? And what’s wrong with super-ambitious women, anyway? You’re not somebody who thinks women have no place on the force, are you?’

Now Patrik looked away from the road again and gave Martin an incredulous look.

‘How well do you know me, anyway? Do you think I’m some sort of male chauvinist pig? A chauvinist pig whose fiancée makes twice as much as he does, by the way. I just mean … oh, never mind, you’ll just have to see for yourself.’

Martin was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘Are you serious? Does Erica make twice as much as you do?’

Patrik laughed. ‘I knew that would shut you up. Although to be entirely honest, that’s before taxes. Most of it goes to the government. Lucky thing, too. It would have been too depressing to be rich.’

Martin joined in the laughter. ‘Yeah, what a fate. That’s not something you’d want to deal with.’

‘You can say that again.’ Patrik smiled but soon turned serious. They turned into the Kullen neighbourhood, where the blocks of flats stood close together, and parked the car. Then they sat there for a moment before getting out.

‘Well, here we go again.’

‘Yep,’ said Martin. The knot in his stomach was growing by the minute. But there was no turning back. Might as well get it done.

‘Lars?’ Hanna put down her bag inside the front door, hung up her jacket, and placed her shoes on the shoe rack. No one answered. ‘Hello? Lars? Are you here?’ She could hear the anxiety begin creeping into her voice. ‘Lars?’ She went through the house. Everything was quiet. Dust motes scattered in her path, clearly visible in the springtime sun shining through the windows. The landlord hadn’t done much of a cleaning job before he rented the place. But she couldn’t face doing it now. Her unease was pushing everything else away. ‘LARS?’ Now she was shouting, but she heard only her own voice echoing off the walls.

Hanna continued looking through the house. There was nobody downstairs, so she ran upstairs to the top floor. The door to the bedroom was closed. She opened it cautiously. ‘Lars?’ she said softly. He was lying on the bed on his side, his back to her. He was on top of the covers, fully dressed, and she could see from his even breathing that he was asleep. She crept over to the bed and lay down beside him, their bodies like two spoons. She listened to his breathing and could feel the regular rhythm begin to rock her softly to sleep. And sleep took away her worry.

‘What a fucking dump,’ said Uffe, flopping down on one of the beds that stood ready in the big room.

‘I think it’s going to be fun,’ said Barbie, bouncing on the bed.

‘Did I say it wouldn’t be fun?’ said Uffe with a laugh. ‘I just said it’s a dump. But we’re going to get things moving, aren’t we? Just look at the supplies.’ He sat up, pointing at the well-stocked bar. ‘What do you say? Shall we start to party?’

‘Yeah!’ Everyone except Jonna cheered. Nobody looked at the cameras whirring all around them. They were much too used to them to make such a beginner’s mistake.

‘So skål then, for fuck’s sake,’ said Uffe, grabbing the first beer.

‘Skål,’ said all the others, raising their bottles high. All except Jonna. She was still sitting on her bed, looking at the five others and not moving.

‘What’s your problem?’ Uffe snapped in her direction. ‘Aren’t you going to have a beer with us? Aren’t we good enough to drink with you, or what?’ They all looked expectantly at Jonna. They were all acutely aware that conflicts made for great TV, and if there was anything they all wanted, it was for Sodding Tanum to be great TV.

‘I just don’t feel like it,’ said Jonna. She avoided Uffe’s gaze.

‘“I just don’t feel like it,”’ Uffe mocked her, his voice a shrill falsetto. He looked around to make sure that he had the others’ support, and when he saw anticipation in their eyes he went on. ‘What the fuck, are you some kind of fucking teetotaller? I thought we were here to PAR-TAY!’ He raised his bottle and took a big swig.

‘She’s not a teetotaller,’ Barbie ventured to say. A sharp look from Uffe shut her up.

‘Just leave me alone,’ said Jonna, swinging her legs down from the bed in annoyance. ‘I’m going out for a while,’ she said, pulling on her big shapeless military jacket that was hanging on a nearby chair.

‘Go ahead,’ Uffe yelled after her. ‘Fuck off, loser!’ He gave a big laugh and opened another beer. Then he looked round again. ‘What are you sitting around for, it’s a PARTY! Skål!’

After a few seconds of awkward silence a nervous laughter began to spread. Then the others raised their bottles and plunged into the fray. The cameras kept whirring, inciting their intoxication. It was great to be on TV again.

‘Pappa, the doorbell is ringing!’ Sofie yelled and then returned to her phone call. She sighed.

‘Pappa is so slow. I can’t stand just sitting here. I’m counting the days until I can go back home to Mamma and Kerstin. Typical – I have to stay in the flat when they start shooting Sodding Tanum today. Everyone else is going down to watch, and I’m missing it all. So bloody typical,’ she groused. ‘Pappa, you have to get it, there’s someone at the door!’ she yelled. ‘I’m too old to be shuttling back and forth between those two like some kid from a broken home. But they still can’t get along, so neither of them will listen to me. They act like such babies.’

The doorbell sounded loudly through the flat again, and Sofie jumped up. ‘I suppose, I’ll have to open it MYSELF then!’ she screamed, adding more softly into the phone, ‘Look, I’ll have to call you back, the old man is probably listening to his disgusting dance band music with the headphones on. Kiss kiss, sweetie.’ Sofie sighed and headed for the front door.

‘All right, all right, I’m coming!’ She tore open the door but was a bit shocked to see two strangers in police uniform standing there.

‘Hello?’

‘Are you Sofie?’

‘Yes, what is it?’ Sofie feverishly searched her memory for what she might have done to bring the police to her door. She couldn’t imagine what it could have been. Okay, she might have smuggled a couple of alcopops into the last school dance, and she had probably ridden on the back of Olle’s souped-up moped a few times, but she found it hard to believe that the police would care about such trivial offences.

‘Is your father at home?’ asked the older officer.

‘Yeah,’ said Sofie, and now her thoughts were really running wild. What could Pappa have done?

‘We’d like to talk with both of you, together,’ said the red-haired, slightly younger officer. Sofie couldn’t help reflecting that he wasn’t bad-looking. Neither was the other one, for that matter. But he was so old. He must be thirty-five at least.

‘Come in.’ She stepped aside and let them into the hall. As they were taking off their shoes she went through to the living room. Sure enough, Pappa was sitting there with the enormous headphones clamped to his ears. No doubt he was listening to something horrible by Wizex or the Vikings or Thorleifs. She gesticulated to him to take off the earphones. He just lifted them and gave her a quizzical look.

‘Pappa, there are some cops here who want to talk to us.’

‘Police? What? Who?’ Sofie could see his mind whirling as he tried to work out what she could have got herself into to make the police want to pay a visit. She anticipated him. ‘I didn’t do anything. Honest. I promise.’

He gave her a suspicious glance but took off the headphones, got up, and went out to find out what was going on. Sofie followed at his heels.

‘What’s this about?’ asked Ola Kaspersen, looking a bit afraid of hearing an unwanted reply to that question. His intonation revealed his Norwegian origins, but it was so slight that Patrik guessed it had been many years since he’d left the land of his birth.

‘Could we go in and sit down? My name is Patrik Hedström, by the way, and this is my colleague Martin Molin.’

‘Of course. By all means,’ said Ola, shaking their hands. He still sounded puzzled. ‘Yes, come with me.’ He showed Martin and Patrik into the kitchen, as nine people out of ten would have done. For some reason the kitchen always seemed to be the safest place when the police came to call.

‘So, how can we help you?’ Ola was sitting next to Sofie, while the two police officers took seats facing them. Ola at once began straightening the fringe of the tablecloth. Sofie gave him an annoyed glance. Couldn’t he stop his damn fidgeting even now?

‘We …’ The one who’d introduced himself as Patrik Hedström sounded hesitant, and Sofie began to get a strange feeling in her stomach. She had an urge to cover her ears and hum, the way she did when she was little and Mamma and Pappa were arguing, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. She wasn’t little anymore.

‘I’m afraid we have bad news. Marit Kaspersen was killed in a traffic accident last night. We’re very sorry.’ Hedström cleared his throat again but didn’t look away. The sinking feeling in Sofie’s stomach got worse, and she fought to avoid taking in what she’d just heard. It couldn’t be true! There must be some mistake. Mamma couldn’t be dead. It just wasn’t possible. They were supposed to go shopping in Uddevalla next weekend. They’d made a date. Just the two of them. One of those mother-daughter things that Mamma had been nagging her about for ages, and which Sofie always pretended to dislike but actually enjoyed. Imagine that Mamma had never known that. That she looked forward to their shopping trips together. Sofie’s head was spinning, and next to her she heard her father gasping for air.

‘This must be a mistake.’ Ola’s words were like an echo of Sofie’s thoughts. ‘Marit can’t be dead!’ He was panting as though he’d been running.

‘Unfortunately there’s no doubt about it.’ Patrik paused, then said, ‘I … I identified her myself. I recognized her from the shop.’

‘But, but …’ Ola searched for words, but they seemed to escape him. Sofie regarded him with surprise. For as long as she could remember, her parents had been at each other’s throats. She never would have imagined that there was some part of her father that still cared.

‘What … what happened?’ Ola stammered.

‘A single-car accident, just north of Sannäs.’

‘Single-car accident? What do you mean?’ said Sofie. Her hands were clutching the edge of the table as though that was the only thing anchoring her to reality. ‘Did she swerve to miss a deer, or something? Mamma only drove a car about twice a year. Why was she out driving last night?’ She looked at the officers sitting across from her and felt her heart pounding. It was clear from the way they looked down at the table that there was something they weren’t telling. What could it be? She waited quietly for an answer.

‘We think that there was alcohol involved. She could have been driving under the influence. But we don’t know for sure; the results of the investigation will tell us more.’ Hedström looked straight at Sofie. She couldn’t believe her ears. She looked at her father and then back at Patrik.

‘Are you kidding me? There has to be some mistake. Mamma never drank. Not a drop. I’ve never even seen her have a glass of wine. She was totally against alcohol. Tell them!’ Sofie felt a wild hope surge inside her. It couldn’t be Mamma! She gave her father a hopeful look. He cleared his throat.

‘Yes, that’s true. Marit never drank. Not in all the time we were married, and as far as I know, not afterwards either.’

Sofie sought out his eyes to ascertain that he now felt the same hope that she did, but he avoided looking at her. He said what she knew he had to say, what in her eyes confirmed that the whole thing must be a mistake, and yet something felt … wrong. Then she shook off that feeling and turned to Patrik and Martin.

‘You hear that? You must have made a mistake. It couldn’t be Mamma! Did you check with Kerstin? Is she at home?’

The officers exchanged glances. It was the red-haired one who now spoke. ‘We’ve been to see Kerstin. She and Marit apparently had some sort of argument last night. Your mother stormed out and took the keys to the car. No one has seen Marit since then. And …’ Martin looked at his colleague.

‘And I’m quite sure that it’s Marit,’ Patrik said. ‘I’ve seen her at the shop, and I recognized her straight away. However, we don’t know for certain whether she had drunk anything. We got that impression only because we smelled alcohol on the driver’s seat. But we’re not sure. So it’s possible that there’s some other explanation. But there’s no doubt that it was your mother. I’m very sorry.’

The unpleasant feeling in Sofie’s stomach came back. It grew and grew until it made gall rise up in her throat. Now the tears came too. She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder but shook it off. All those years of quarrelling lay between them. All the arguments, both before and after her parents’ divorce, all the bullshit, all the backbiting, all the hate. All that now solidified into a single hard knot in the midst of the grief. She couldn’t bring herself to listen anymore. With three pair of eyes watching, she ran out the door.

Outside the kitchen window Erica heard two happy voices. Scattered laughter was muffled by the front door until it was opened and the sound spread through the house. Erica couldn’t believe her eyes. Anna was smiling, not in a forced or dutiful way as she did in front of the children in an attempt to calm them, but with a genuine smile that went from ear to ear. She and Dan were talking to each other in high spirits, and their cheeks were rosy from a brisk walk in the lovely springtime weather.

‘Hi, did you have a good time?’ Erica asked cautiously, putting the pot in the coffeemaker.

‘Yes, it was beautiful outside,’ said Anna with a smile at Dan. ‘It felt so good to stretch my legs for a change. We went all the way up to Bräcke and back. The weather was so clear and sunny that some of the trees are already putting out buds, and …’ She had to stop to catch her breath after the walk.

‘And we simply had a terrifically good time,’ Dan put in, taking off his jacket. ‘So, is there going to be coffee, or are you saving it for some other guests?’

‘Don’t be silly, I thought all three of us could have a cup. If you feel up to it,’ said Erica with a glance at Anna. She still felt as though she were walking on very thin ice when she spoke to her sister, afraid she would prick the bubble of joy that had suddenly enveloped Anna.

‘Sure. I haven’t felt this invigorated in a long time,’ Anna said, sitting down at the kitchen table. She took the cup Erica handed her, poured in some milk, and then warmed her hands around the cup. ‘This is just what the doctor ordered.’ The red roses on her cheeks made her face light up. Erica’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of Anna smiling. It had been so long since she’d seen her like this. So long since Anna’d had anything but that mournful, downcast look in her eyes. She glanced at Dan in gratitude. She hadn’t been quite sure she was doing the right thing when she asked Dan to come over and talk to Anna, but she’d had a sneaking feeling that he’d be able to reach her if anyone could. Erica had been trying for months, but finally realized that she wasn’t the right person to snap her sister out of her dismal mood.

‘Dan asked how the wedding plans were coming along, but I had to admit I had no idea. You probably told me, but I haven’t been too receptive lately. So how much have you got done? Is everything booked and ready?’ Anna took a sip of coffee and gave Erica a questioning glance.

All of a sudden she looked so young, so carefree. The way she was before she met Lucas. Erica forced her thoughts away from the subject. She had no desire to ruin this moment by thinking of that arsehole.

‘Well, when it comes to all the things that have to be booked and ordered, we’re up to speed. The church is reserved, we put a deposit down at Stora Hotellet, and, well, that’s about all that’s done.’

‘But, Erica, the wedding is only six weeks away! What sort of gown do you have? What are the kids going to wear? What sort of bridal bouquet will you have? Did you talk to Stora Hotellet about the menu? Did you book rooms for the guests? And is the seating chart done?’

With a laugh Erica held up her hand. Maja was watching them happily from her high chair, unaware of where all this merriment was coming from.

‘Calm down. If you keep up that way, I’m going to regret that Dan managed to get you out of your bed.’ She smiled and winked to show that she was joking.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Anna. ‘I won’t say another word. No, there’s one more thing – did you arrange for the music yet?’

‘No, no, and no again is probably the answer to all your questions, unfortunately,’ Erica sighed. ‘I haven’t … got around to it.’

Anna turned serious at once. ‘You haven’t got around to it because you’ve been taking care of three kids. Forgive me, Erica, it can’t have been that easy for you these past months. I wish I –’ she broke off and Erica saw tears welling up in her sister’s eyes.

‘Hush now, it’s okay. Adrian and Emma have been angels, and they’re at kindergarten all day, so it hasn’t been all that much of a burden. But they’ve missed their mamma.’

Anna gave her a sad smile. Dan was playing with Maja and trying to stay out of the conversation. This was between Erica and Anna.

‘Oh my God, kindergarten!’ Erica jumped out of her chair and looked at the big clock on the wall. ‘I’m super late. I’ve got to collect them. Ewa will be beside herself if I don’t hurry.’

‘I’ll go fetch them today,’ said Anna, getting up. ‘Give me the car keys.’

‘Are you sure?

‘Yes, I’m sure. You’ve been collecting them every single day, so today it’s my turn.’

‘They’ll be overjoyed,’ said Erica, sitting back down at the table.

‘Yes, they will,’ said Anna with a smile, taking the car keys from the worktop. In the hall she turned round.

‘Dan … thank you. I needed this. It was great to have a chance to talk it out.’

‘Hey, no problem. I enjoyed it. We could take a walk tomorrow too if the weather holds. I’m working till quarter to three, so what do you say to an hour’s walk before you have to fetch the kids?’

‘Sounds great. But now I have to hurry, or Ewa will be furious, or whatever it was you said.’ One last smile and she vanished out of the front door.

Erica turned to Dan. ‘What the hell did you do on that walk, anyway? Smoke hash together?’

Dan laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. Anna just needed someone to talk to, and it was as if a cork popped out of her somehow. When she finally started to talk, she was impossible to stop.’

‘I’ve been trying to talk to her for months,’ Erica said. She couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt.

‘You know how it is with you two, Erica,’ said Dan calmly. ‘You have a lot of old baggage between you. Maybe it’s not so easy for Anna to talk to you. You’re too close to each other, in both good and bad ways. But when we were out walking she told me she’s incredibly grateful that you and Patrik were so willing to help, and above all that you’ve been so fantastic with the kids.’

‘She said that?’ Erica could hear how starved for appreciation she sounded. She was so used to taking care of Anna, and she did it gladly, but no matter how selfish it might sound, she wanted Anna to acknowledge the help received.

‘That’s what she said,’ Dan said, putting his hand on hers. It felt familiar and nice.

‘But all that about the wedding sounded a bit worrisome,’ Dan went on. ‘Do you think you can manage to take care of everything in six weeks? Just say the word if you want my help.’ He made funny faces at Maja, who whooped with laughter.

‘What would you do to help?’ Erica snorted, pouring more coffee. ‘Pick out a bridal gown for me, or what?’

Dan laughed. ‘Oh yeah, that would be a big success. No, but I could provide some beds at my house for your guests, for instance. If you need it. I have plenty of room.’ He turned serious, and Erica knew exactly what was preying on his mind.

‘You know, it’ll all work out. It’ll get better.’

‘You think so?’ he said morosely, taking a sip of coffee. ‘God only knows. I miss them so damn much. Sometimes it feels like I’m going to fall to pieces.’

‘Is it the kids, or Pernilla and the kids, that you miss?’

‘I don’t know. Both, I suppose, although I’ve accepted that Pernilla has moved on. But I feel like I’m dying inside because I can’t see the girls every day. Not being there when they wake up, when they go to school, not being able to eat dinner with them and hear how their day was. All of that. Instead I sit all week in that house. It’s so empty that it echoes. I wanted to keep the place so that they wouldn’t lose their childhood home too, but now I don’t know if I can afford it much longer. I may have to sell it within the next six months.’

‘Believe me, I’ve been there, done that,’ said Erica, referring to how close they had come to having Lucas put their house up for sale; the house where they were now sitting, the home where she and Anna had grown up.

‘I just don’t know what to do with my life,’ said Dan, running his hands through his short blond hair.

‘Who are these cheerful people in the kitchen?’ Patrik’s voice from the hallway interrupted them.

‘We’re just talking about what Dan should do with his house,’ Erica said, getting up to kiss her future spouse. Maja had also noticed that the man in her life had come in the door, and now she was waving her arms frantically to be picked up.

Dan looked at her and histrionically threw his arms wide. ‘What’s up with that? I thought we had something going here, you and I. And then you throw me over for the first guy who comes in the door. Kids today, I swear. They don’t know real quality when they see it.’

‘Hey, Dan,’ said Patrik, patting him on the shoulder with a laugh. Then he picked up Maja. ‘Yeah, Pappa is at the top of the list with this little girl,’ he said, giving Maja a kiss and rubbing his stubbly beard against her neck, which made her squeal with delight.

‘By the way, Erica, don’t you have to collect the kids?’

Erica paused for effect. Then she said with a big smile, ‘Anna’s picking them up.’

‘What did you say? Anna’s picking them up?’ Patrik looked amazed, but also pleased.

‘Yes, this hero here took Anna for a walk, and then they smoked a little hash, and –’

‘We did not, stop it!’ laughed Dan, turning to Patrik. ‘This is how it was. Erica rang and asked whether I could try to coax Anna out for a walk so she could get some exercise. And Anna agreed to come along, and we took a lovely long walk. It seemed to do her a lot of good to get out of the house.’

‘That’s a real understatement,’ said Erica, ruffling Dan’s hair. ‘What do you say to basking in the glow of our gratitude for a while longer, and stay for dinner?’

‘Depends. What are you having?’

‘You’re certainly spoiled,’ Erica said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, it’s chicken stew with avocado and jasmine rice.’

‘Okay, it’s a deal.’

‘Nice to hear that we come up to your high standards, Mr Gourmet.’

‘We’ll see about that after I’ve tasted it.’

‘Oh, come off it,’ said Erica, and got up to start making dinner.

She felt warm inside. This had been a good day. A very good day. She turned to ask Patrik how his had been.

2

The good had outweighed the evil. Or had it? Sometimes, in the night when he tossed and turned with the nightmares, he wasn’t so sure. But now, in the daylight, he was utterly certain that the good had prevailed. He felt the evil only as shadows lurking in the corners, not daring to show its ugly face. And that suited him fine.

They had both loved her. So incredibly much. But perhaps he was the one who loved her more. And perhaps she had loved him more. They’d had something special. Nothing could ever come between them. What was ugly and filthy slid off them without sticking.

His sister had regarded them without jealousy. She knew that she was seeing something unique. Something that she couldn’t possibly compete with. And they included her. Swept her into their love, let her take part in it too. There was no reason to feel jealous. Being allowed into that kind of love was something granted only to a few.

It was because she loved them so boundlessly that she restricted their world. And they gratefully let themselves be restricted. Why would they need anyone else? Why should they be burdened with all the nastiness that they knew existed out there? He wouldn’t be able to cope out there. That’s what she said. He was so accident-prone. He regularly dropped things, knocked things over, broke things to bits. If she let them go out in the world, terrible things would happen. Someone who was such a klutz would never be able to manage. But she always said it so lovingly. ‘My klutz,’ she said. ‘My little klutz.’

Her love was enough for him. And it was enough for his sister. Most of the time, at least.

This whole set-up sucked. Jonna listlessly lifted the goods onto the conveyor belt so that she could read off the code. Big Brother had been a regular Hultsfred Music Festival compared to this. This sucked! Although she really couldn’t complain. She had seen earlier seasons of the show, so she knew that they would have to live and work in this dump they’d ended up in. But sitting at the checkout in a fucking ICA supermarket! She hadn’t expected that. Her only consolation was that Barbie had ended up there too. She was at the register behind Jonna’s, with her silicone boobs squeezed into the red apron. And all morning Jonna had been forced to listen to her stupid chatter and to all the customers, from immature teens with squeaky voices to disgusting old men who tried to chat up Barbie. Didn’t they get it that they didn’t have to talk to a girl like Barbie? Just buy her a couple of drinks and then it was full speed ahead. Idiots.

‘Oh, it’s going to be such fun to see you on TV. And our little town, of course. I never would have imagined that we’d be nationwide celebrities here in Tanumshede.’ The silly old woman stood preening herself in front of the checkout, occasionally giving an enchanted smile at the camera fastened to the ceiling. She was so stupid that she didn’t realize that it was the best way to ensure that she wouldn’t be used in any of the segments. Looking straight at the camera was an absolute no-no.

‘That’ll be three hundred and fifty kronor and fifty öre,’ said Jonna wearily, staring at the old lady.

‘All right, I see, yes, here’s my card,’ said the TV-obsessed woman, sliding her VISA card through the scanner. ‘And, now I have to punch in the code,’ she chirped.

Jonna sighed. She wondered whether she could get away with starting to play hooky today. The producers usually loved arguments with the casting directors and stuff like that, but maybe it was a bit early for that. She should probably just grit her teeth for a week. After that she might be able to get away with a few shenanigans.

She wondered whether Mamma and Pappa would be sitting on the sofa watching the TV on Monday. Probably not. They never had time for such trivial pastimes as watching TV. They were doctors, so their time was more valuable than everyone else’s. The time that they spent watching Survivor, or being with her for that matter, was time that could otherwise be spent doing a bypass operation or a kidney transplant. Jonna was just being selfish for not understanding that. Pappa had even taken her along to the hospital so she could watch open-heart surgery on a ten-year-old child. He wanted her to understand why their jobs were so important, he said; why they couldn’t spend as much time with her as they would like. He and Mamma had a gift, the gift of being able to help other people, and it was their obligation to put it to good use.

What a fucking load of crap. Why did they even have kids if they didn’t have time for them? Why didn’t they say to hell with kids, so that they could spend twenty-four hours a day with their hands inside somebody else’s chest?

The day after the visit to the hospital she had started cutting herself. It had been so fucking cool. As soon as the knife made the first cut in her skin, she had felt the anxiety recede. It felt like it ran out of the wound on her arm. Disappeared along with the blood that slowly trickled out, red and hot. She loved the sight of her own blood. Loved the feeling of the knife, or a razor blade or whatever the fuck else she could find within reach that would cut away the anxiety that sat so firmly anchored in her chest.

She also discovered that this was the only time they noticed her. The blood made them turn their attention to her and really see her. But the kick had proven to be less intense each time. With each wound, each scar, the effect on her anxiety diminished. And instead of looking at her with concern, as they had done at first, now her parents just looked at her with resignation. They had lost their grip on her, and decided to help those they could save instead. People with damaged hearts and internal organs that had stopped functioning and needed to be replaced. She had nothing of the sort to offer. It was her soul that was broken, and that was not something they could fix with a scalpel. So they stopped trying.

The only love now available to her was from the cameras, and the people who sat night after night in front of their television sets watching her. Seeing the real Jonna.

Behind her she heard a guy asking Barbie if he could touch her silicone implants. The viewers would love it. Jonna deliberately raised her arms so the scars were visible. It was the only way she could compete.

‘Martin, can I come in for a minute? We have to talk.’

‘Of course, come on in, I’m just finishing up some reports.’ He waved Patrik inside. ‘What is it? You look worried.’

‘Well, I’m not quite sure what to think about this. We received the autopsy report on Marit Kaspersen this morning, and I must say there’s something that seems very odd.’

‘What’s that?’ Martin leaned forward with interest. He remembered that Patrik had muttered something along those lines on the day the accident occurred, but then he’d honestly forgotten about it. Patrik hadn’t mentioned it since then either.

‘Well, Pedersen wrote down everything he found, and I talked with him on the phone too, but there’s something we simply can’t explain.’

‘Tell me.’ Martin’s curiosity was mounting by the second.

‘First of all, Marit didn’t die in the car crash. She was already dead when it happened.’

‘Already dead? How? What was it, a heart attack or something?’

‘No, not exactly.’ Patrik scratched his head as he studied the report. ‘She died of alcohol poisoning. She had a point six-one blood alcohol level.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding. Point six-one is enough to kill a horse!’

‘Exactly. According to Pedersen she must have drunk a whole bottle of vodka. In a very short time.’

‘And those who knew her said that she never drank.’

‘Precisely. There was no sign of alcohol abuse in her body either, which probably means that she had built up absolutely no tolerance. According to Pedersen she would have reacted very rapidly.’

‘So she got herself plastered for some reason. It’s tragic, of course, but unfortunately something that happens from time to time,’ Martin said, puzzled by Patrik’s obvious concern.

‘Yes, that’s what it looks like. But Pedersen found something else that makes the whole thing a bit more complicated.’ Patrik crossed his legs and skimmed through the report to find the place. ‘Here it is. I’ll try to translate it into layman’s terms. Everything Pedersen writes is so cryptic. It seems she had an odd bruise around her mouth. There are also signs of trauma inside her mouth and throat.’

‘So, what are you getting at?’

‘I don’t know.’ Patrik sighed. ‘There wasn’t enough for Pedersen to make any definitive conclusions. He can’t say for sure that she didn’t guzzle a whole bottle of booze in the car, die of alcohol poisoning, and then veer off the road.’

‘But she must have been totally pissed before the accident happened. Do we have any reports of anyone driving erratically last Sunday evening?’

‘Not that I can find. Which just adds to the fact that the whole thing seems rather strange. On the other hand, there’s not much traffic at that time of night, so maybe the other drivers were simply lucky not to get in her way,’ Patrik said pensively. ‘But Pedersen could find no reason for the trauma in and around her mouth, so I think there’s sufficient reason for us to take a closer look at the whole thing. It might be an ordinary case of driving drunk, but maybe not. What do you think?’

Martin paused for a moment. ‘You said from the start that you had a funny feeling about this one. You think Mellberg will go along with it?’

Patrik gave him a look, and Martin laughed.

‘It all depends on how I present it, don’t you think?’ Patrik said.

‘Too right. It all depends on the presentation.’

Patrik laughed along with him and stood up. Then he turned serious again.

‘Do you think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill? Pedersen didn’t actually find anything concrete to indicate that it wasn’t an accident. But …’ he said, waving the faxed autopsy report, ‘at the same time there’s something about this that rings a bell. For the life of me I can’t …’ Patrik ran his hand through his hair again.

‘Let’s do this,’ said Martin. ‘We’ll start asking around and gather some more details to see where it leads. Maybe that will trigger your memory of whatever it is that’s bugging you.’

‘Okay, good. I’ll talk to Mellberg first though. Why don’t we drive out and have another chat with Marit’s partner later?’

‘Fine by me,’ said Martin, returning to the reports he was writing. ‘Come and get me when you’re ready.’

‘Okay.’ Patrik was already on his way out the door when Martin stopped him.

‘Wait a sec,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you how it’s going at home. With your sister-in-law and everything.’

Patrik smiled as he stood in the doorway. ‘We’re starting to be a bit more hopeful, actually. Anna seems to have begun to climb out of the abyss. Thanks to Dan.’

‘Dan?’ Martin said in surprise. ‘Erica’s Dan?’

‘Excuse me, what do you mean by “Erica’s Dan”? He’s our Dan now.’

‘All right, all right,’ Martin said with a laugh. ‘Your Dan. But what’s he got to do with it?’

‘Well, on Monday Erica had the bright idea to ask him to come over and talk to Anna. And it worked. They’ve started taking long walks together, just to talk, and that seems to be exactly what Anna needed. She’s turned into a whole different woman in just a couple of days. The kids are delighted.’

‘That’s fantastic,’ Martin said sincerely.

‘Yeah, you can say that again,’ said Patrik with a slap on the door jamb. ‘Look, I’ll go in and see Mellberg now to get it over with. We can talk more later.’

‘Okay,’ said Martin, returning to his paperwork; another aspect of the profession he could have done without.

The days dragged by. It felt as if Friday and his date for dinner would never come. It was strange to be thinking in these terms at his age. But even if it wasn’t a real date, it was still a dinner invitation. When Mellberg rang Rose-Marie he hadn’t had any plan worked out, so he surprised himself by suggesting they have dinner at the Gestgifveri. His wallet was going to be even more surprised. He simply couldn’t understand what was happening to him. Previously, the thought of going out to eat at such an expensive restaurant as Gestgifveri would never have crossed his mind. The fact that he was now prepared to pay for two – no, that was not at all like him. And yet he wasn’t bothered by it. To tell the truth, he was looking forward to gazing at Rose-Marie’s face in the candlelight as delicious dishes were set before them.

Mellberg shook his head in bewilderment, and his nest of hair slipped down over one ear. What had got into him? Could he be sick? He folded his hair back up on his pate and felt his forehead, but no, it was cool and showed no sign of fever. But something was going on. Maybe a little sugar would help.

His hand was already reaching for one of the coconut balls in his bottom desk drawer when he heard a knock on the door.

‘Yes?’ he called, annoyed.

Patrik stepped into his office. ‘Pardon me, am I interrupting anything?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mellberg with a sigh, taking one last look at the desk drawer. ‘Come on in.’

Mellberg had mixed emotions about this detective, who was much too young in his view, for all that he was pushing forty. True, he had conducted himself well during the recent homicide investigations, and he never showed any lack of respect for his boss, but Mellberg couldn’t shake off the sense that Hedström considered himself superior.

‘We got the report from Monday’s accident.’

‘Yes?’ Mellberg said, sounding bored. Traffic accidents were part of the routine.

‘Well, there seem to be some things that need clarifying.’

‘Clarifying?’ Now Mellberg’s interest was aroused.

‘Yes,’ said Patrik, again casting a glance at the papers he was holding. ‘The victim has some injuries that cannot be traced to the accident itself. In addition, Marit was actually dead before the crash. Alcohol poisoning. She had a level of point six-one in her blood.’

‘Point six-one – are you joking?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘And the injuries?’ said Mellberg, leaning forward.

Patrik paused. ‘There are signs of trauma in and around her mouth.’

‘Around her mouth?’ Mellberg said sceptically.

‘I know it’s not much to go on, but taken together with the fact that everyone said she never drank, and that she had an abnormally high blood alcohol level, it seems fishy.’

‘Fishy? Are you asking me to start an investigation because you think something seems “fishy”?’ Mellberg raised an eyebrow. This was all much too vague for his liking. On the other hand, Patrik’s hunches had panned out before, so he couldn’t afford not to pay attention. He thought about it for a whole minute as Patrik watched him tensely.

‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Spend a couple of hours on it. If the two of you – I assume you’ll take Molin with you – find anything to indicate that things are not as they should be, then keep going. But if you don’t find anything, then I don’t want you wasting anymore time on it. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Patrik with obvious relief.

‘Okay, get to work,’ Mellberg said with a wave of his right hand. His left was already on its way to the bottom drawer of his desk.

Sofie stepped cautiously inside. ‘Hello? Kerstin, are you home?’

The flat was quiet. She had checked, and Kerstin wasn’t at her job at Extra Film; she had called in sick. Not surprisingly, given the circumstances, Sofie had been allowed time off from school. But where could Kerstin be? Sofie walked through the flat. She was suddenly overwhelmed by tears. She dropped her rucksack on the floor and sat down in the middle of the living-room rug. She closed her eyes to lock out all the sensory impressions that had flooded over her. There were reminders of Marit everywhere. The curtains she had sewn, the painting they’d bought when Marit moved into the flat, the cushions that Sofie never fluffed up after lying on them, something that Marit always complained about. All those trivial, everyday, sad things that now echoed with emptiness. Sofie had always been so annoyed by her mother and yelled at her because Marit made demands and laid down rules. But she had secretly been pleased. The constant arguing and squabbling at home had made Sofie long for stability and clear rules. And despite all her teenage rebelliousness, she had always felt secure in the knowledge that her mother was there. Mamma. Marit. Now only Pappa was left.

A hand on her shoulder made Sofie jump. She turned her head and looked up.

‘Kerstin. Were you home?’

‘Yes, I was taking a nap,’ Kerstin said, squatting down next to Sofie. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Oh, Kerstin,’ was all Sofie could say, burying her face in her shoulder. Kerstin embraced her awkwardly. They weren’t used to having much physical contact; Sofie had passed the hugging stage by the time Marit moved in with Kerstin. But this time the awkwardness quickly disappeared. Sofie hungrily inhaled the smell of Kerstin’s jumper, which was one of her mother’s favourites. The scent of her perfume still lingered in the wool. The familiar smell made her sob even harder, and she felt her nose running all over Kerstin’s shoulder. She pulled away.

‘Sorry, I’m getting snot all over you.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Kerstin, wiping away Sofie’s tears with her thumbs. ‘Cry as much as you like. It … it’s your mamma’s jumper.’

‘I know,’ said Sofie with a laugh. ‘And she would have murdered me if she saw I’d got mascara on it.’

‘Lamb’s wool can’t be washed in water hotter than thirty degrees C,’ they both blurted out at once, which made them both laugh.

‘Come on, let’s sit at the kitchen table,’ said Kerstin, helping Sofie up. Only now did Sofie see that Kerstin’s face looked all caved in and was several shades paler than usual.

‘How are you doing yourself?’ Sofie said with concern. Kerstin had always been so … together. It scared her to see Kerstin’s hands trembling as she filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

‘Okay, I suppose,’ said Kerstin, unable to stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. She had cried so much the past few days that she was astonished she had any tears left. Then she made a decision.

‘You see, Sofie, your mother and I … There’s something that –’ She stopped, unsure how to continue. Unsure of whether she should continue at all. But to her astonishment she saw Sofie start to laugh.

‘Come on, Kerstin, I hope you’re not going to tell me about your relationship with Mamma, as if it were some big news flash.’

‘What about our relationship?’ said Kerstin expectantly.

‘That you were a couple and stuff. Who did you think you were fooling?’ She laughed again. ‘Mamma moving her things back and forth depending on whether I was staying here or not, and you two secretly holding hands when you thought I wasn’t looking. My God, how ridiculous. I mean, everybody’s homo or bi these days. It’s so in.’

Kerstin looked at her in total perplexity. ‘But why didn’t you say anything? Since you already knew?’

‘Because it was so cool. Just watching the two of you playing your roles. Fantastic entertainment.’

‘You little–’ said Kerstin with a hearty laugh. After the past few days of grief and weeping, it was a relief to laugh so loud it echoed in the kitchen. ‘Marit would have wrung your neck if she’d found out that you knew all along but never let on.’

‘Yeah, she probably would have,’ said Sofie, joining in the laughter. ‘You should have seen yourselves. Sneaking out to the kitchen to kiss, putting stuff back in place as soon as I went to Pappa’s house. Didn’t you realize what a farce it was?’

‘I know what you mean. But that’s the way Marit wanted it.’ Kerstin turned serious. The kettle whistled, and she gratefully used that as an excuse to get up and turn her back to Sofie. She took out two cups, put tea leaves in two tea strainers, and poured the hot water.

‘The water should cool off a bit first,’ said Sofie, and Kerstin had to laugh again.

‘I was thinking the exact same thing. She trained us well, your mother.’

Sofie smiled. ‘Yes, she certainly did. Although she probably wished she could have trained me a little better.’ Her smile was sad, testifying to all the promises she would now never be able to keep, all the expectations she would never have a chance to live up to.

‘You know, Marit was very proud of you.’ Kerstin sat down again and handed one of the teacups to Sofie. ‘You should have heard her bragging about you. Even when the two of you had a real fight she would say, “She’s got real spirit, that kid.”’

‘She said that? Are you serious? She was proud of me? But I was always so contrary.’

‘Oh, Marit said you were just doing your job. It was your job to break loose from her. And …’ she paused, ‘considering everything that went on between her and Ola, she thought it was extra important for you to stand on your own two feet.’ Kerstin took a sip of tea but burnt her tongue. It would have to cool off a bit first. ‘She was worried about that, you know. She thought the divorce and all the crap afterwards might have … wounded you somehow. Most of all she was worried that you wouldn’t understand why she was forced to end the marriage. It was just as much for your sake as for her own.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t understand that before, but now that I’m older I get it.’

‘Since you turned fifteen, you mean,’ Kerstin teased her. ‘At fifteen you get the manual with all the answers, everything about life, death, and eternity, right? Could I borrow it sometime?’

‘Come on,’ Sofie laughed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that maybe I’ve started to look at Mamma and Pappa more as people rather than parents. And I’m probably not Pappa’s little girl anymore either,’ she added sadly.

For a moment Kerstin considered whether to tell Sofie about all the rest of it, all the stuff they had tried to spare her. But the moment came and went and she let it pass.

Instead they drank their tea and talked about Marit. Laughed and cried. But above all they talked about the woman they had both loved, each in her own way.

‘Hello, girls, what’s it going to be today? A little Uffe baguette, perhaps?’

Charmed giggles from the girls who’d crammed into the bakery revealed that his comment had had the desired effect. This encouraged Uffe to go the whole hog, and he took one of the bakery’s baguettes and tried to show what he had to offer by swinging it in front of him at hip height. The giggling turned to shrieks of scandalized joy, which made Uffe start thrusting his hips in their direction.

Mehmet sighed. Uffe was so bloody tiresome. He’d got a raw deal when he was assigned to work with Uffe at the bakery. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with the job. He loved cooking and looked forward to learning more about baking, but he simply couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to stand five weeks with Uffe.

‘Hey, Mehmet, why don’t you show them your baguette? I think the girls would like to see a real greaseball baguette.’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ said Mehmet, who went on laying out battenberg cakes next to a tray of macaroons.

‘I thought you were a real ladies’ man. And I’m sure they’ve never seen a greaseball here. Have you, girls? Have you seen a greaseball before?’ Uffe held out his hands dramatically towards Mehmet as if presenting him onstage.

Mehmet was starting to get seriously pissed off. He could feel rather than see the cameras fastened to the ceiling zooming in on him, ready to capture his reaction. Every nuance would be whisked by cable straight into people’s living rooms. No reaction meant no viewers. Having made it all the way to the final on The Farm, he knew how the game was played. So why had he agreed to take part in this? For five weeks he would be allowed to live in a sort of protected environment. No responsibilities, no demands to do anything more than be himself, and to react. No slaving away at some shitty job, bored to death, just to make the rent on a dismal fucking flat. No daily obligations that stole his life day after day with nothing ever happening. No disappointment because he wasn’t living up to what was expected of him. That was the main thing he was running from. The disappointment he saw constantly in his parents’ eyes. They’d pinned so many of their hopes on him. Education, education, education. That was the mantra he’d heard his whole childhood. ‘Mehmet, you have to get yourself an education. You have to seize the opportunities in this excellent country. In Sweden anyone can go to university. You have to study.’ And Mehmet had tried, but he just wasn’t the studying type. The letters and numbers wouldn’t stick. He was supposed to become a teacher. Or an engineer. Or in the worst case get a degree in business administration. His parents had been utterly set on that. His four older sisters had entered all three of those professions. Two of them were doctors, one was an engineer, and one was in business. But he was the youngest child, and somehow he ended up being the black sheep of the family. And neither The Farm or Sodding Tanum had raised his stock in the family at all. Not that he’d thought it would. Getting drunk on TV was not something that had even been mentioned as an alternative to becoming a doctor.

‘Show us your greaseball baguette, show us your greaseball baguette,’ Uffe kept on nagging, trying to get his giggling pubescent public to join in. Mehmet felt his anger about to boil over. He stopped what he was doing and stepped over to Uffe.

‘I said cut it out, Uffe.’

Simon came out from the inner recesses of the bakery carrying a big tray of freshly baked buns. Uffe gave him an obstinate look and considered whether to obey or not. Simon held the tray out to him. ‘Here, give the girls some freshly baked buns instead.’

Uffe hesitated but finally took the tray. A twitch at the corner of his mouth showed that his hands weren’t as used to handling hot trays as Simon’s were, but he had no other choice but to grit his teeth and hold the tray out to the girls.

‘Well, you heard the man. Uffe is offering free buns. Maybe you could thank him with a little kiss?’

Simon rolled his eyes at Mehmet, who smiled back in gratitude. He liked Simon. He was the owner of the bakery, and they had clicked at once, from his first day on the job. There was something special about Simon. A rapport that made it possible for them just to look at each other to understand what the other meant. It was pretty amazing, actually.

Mehmet watched Simon as he went back to his dough and his cake-baking.

The green emerging on the branch outside the window aroused a painful longing in Gösta. Each bud bore with it a promise of eighteen holes and Big Bertha. Soon nothing would be able to come between a man and his golf clubs.

‘Have you managed to get past the fifth hole yet?’ A female voice came from the doorway, and Gösta quickly and guiltily shut down the computer game. Damn, he could usually hear when somebody was approaching. He always had his ears pricked up when he played, which unfortunately was somewhat detrimental to his concentration.

‘I … I was just taking a break,’ Gösta stammered in embarrassment. He knew that his co-workers no longer put much faith in his capacity to work, but he liked Hanna and had hoped to enjoy her confidence for at least a short while yet.

‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ Hanna laughed, sitting down next to him. ‘I love that golf game. My husband Lars does too, and sometimes we have to fight over the computer. But that fifth hole is a bitch – have you got past it yet? If not, I can show you the trick. It took me hours to work it out.’ Without waiting for an answer she moved her chair closer to his.

Gösta hardly dared believe his ears. ‘I’ve been struggling with the fifth hole since last week. No matter what I do, I either hook or slice the ball. I can’t see what I’m doing wrong.’

‘Here, I’ll show you,’ said Hanna, taking the mouse from him. She clicked expertly forward to the right place, did some manoeuvres on the computer, and the ball moved forward and landed on the green in perfect position for him to sink the ball with his next stroke.

‘Wow, so that’s how it’s done! Thanks!’ Gösta was deeply impressed.

‘Yep, it’s no kid stuff, this game,’ Hanna laughed, pushing back the chair so that she ended up a bit further from him.

‘Do you and your husband play real golf too?’ Gösta asked with newfound enthusiasm. ‘Maybe we should play a round together.’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Hanna with a regretful expression. ‘But we’ve thought about starting. We just never seem to find the time.’

Gösta liked her more with each minute that passed. Like Mellberg, he had been sceptical when he heard that their new colleague would be of the opposite sex. There was something about the combination of breasts and a police uniform that felt, well, a bit odd, to say the least. But Hanna Kruse had wiped out all his prejudices. She seemed to be a good down-to-earth woman, and he hoped that Mellberg would realize that and not make her life here too difficult.

‘What does your husband do?’ Gösta asked. ‘Has he managed to find a job locally?’

‘Yes and no,’ said Hanna, picking some invisible lint from her uniform blouse. ‘He was lucky enough to get a temporary job here at least, so we’ll have to see how it goes.’

Gösta raised his eyebrows quizzically. Hanna laughed. ‘He’s a psychologist. And yes, you guessed it. He’s going to work with the participants for the duration of the shoot. Of Sodding Tanum, that is.’

Gösta shook his head. ‘Some of us are probably too old to see the appeal of all that jumping into bed with each other, staggering around drunk and making asses of themselves in front of the whole country. And of their own free will. No, I don’t get the point of that sort of thing. In my day we watched good shows like Hyland’s Corner and Nils Poppe’s theatre productions.’

‘Nils who?’ said Hanna, which made Gösta look gloomy. He sighed.

‘Nils Poppe,’ he said. ‘He did theatrical pieces that –’ He stopped when he saw that Hanna was laughing.

‘Gösta, I know who Nils Poppe is. And Lennart Hyland too. You don’t have to look so distressed.’

‘Thanks for that,’ said Gösta. ‘For a minute there I felt a hundred years old. A regular relic.’

‘Gösta, you’re as far from a relic as anybody could be,’ Hanna laughed, getting up. ‘Just keep playing now that I’ve shown you how to get past the fifth hole. You deserve to take it easy for a while.’

He gave her a warm and grateful smile. What a woman.

Then he went back to trying to master the sixth hole. A par 3. Nothing to it.

‘Erica, did you talk to the hotel about the menu? When are we going to have a tasting?’ Anna was holding Maja on her knee, bouncing her up and down. She gave Erica an urgent look.

‘Shit, I forgot.’ Erica slapped her forehead.

‘What about the dress? Do you intend to get married in your jogging outfit, or what? And maybe Patrik could wear his graduation suit to the wedding. If so, he’d probably need to put some extra material in the sides, and elastic between the buttons of his suit coat.’ Anna laughed heartily.

‘Ha ha, very funny,’ said Erica, but she couldn’t help feeling pleased when she looked at her sister. Anna was like a new woman. She talked, she laughed, she had a good appetite, and yes, she even teased her big sister. ‘When am I going to find time to deal with everything?’

‘Hello you happen to be at Fjällbacka’s babysitter número uno! Emma and Adrian are at kindergarten all day, so it’s no problem for me to babysit this little lady.’

‘Hmm, you’ve got a point,’ said Erica, feeling awkward. ‘I just didn’t think that –’ She cut herself off.

‘Don’t worry. I understand. You haven’t been able to count on me for a while, but now I’m back in the game. The puck has been dropped. I’ve come in from the penalty box.’

‘I can hear that somebody’s been spending way too much time with Dan.’ Erica laughed heartily and realized that this was just what Anna had intended. No doubt the events of these past few months had affected Erica as well. The stress had made her go about with her shoulders up around her ears, and only now did she feel as if she could begin to relax. The only problem was that she was feeling a growing sense of dread because the wedding was less than six weeks away. And she and Patrik were hopelessly behind in the planning.

‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do,’ said Anna firmly, setting Maja down on the floor. ‘We’ll make a list of what has to be done. Then we’ll divide up the tasks between you and me and Patrik. Maybe Kristina could help out with something too.’ Anna gave Erica a questioning glance, but when she saw her appalled expression she added, ‘Or maybe not.’

‘No, for God’s sake, keep Mother-in-law out of it as much as possible. If it was left up to her, she’d treat this wedding like it was her own private party. If you only knew all the ideas she’s already put forward, “with the best of intentions”, as she puts it. You know what she said when we first told her about the wedding?’

‘No, what?’ asked Anna.

‘She didn’t even start by saying “how lovely, congratulations” or anything like that. She reeled off five things that she thought were wrong with the wedding.’

Anna laughed. ‘That sounds just like Kristina. So, what were her complaints?’

Erica went over and picked up Maja, who had resolutely begun to climb the stairs. They still hadn’t got around to buying a gate. ‘Well,’ said Erica, ‘first of all it was much too soon; we were going to need at least a year to plan it. Then she didn’t like the fact that we wanted a very small wedding, because then Aunt Agda and Aunt Berta and Aunt Ruth, or whatever all their names are, wouldn’t be able to come. And bear in mind that these aren’t Patrik’s aunts but Kristina’s! Patrik has probably met them once when he was about five years old. Then she got upset because I didn’t want to wear her bridal gown. As if! I’ve seen Lars and Kristina’s wedding photos: it’s one of those typical sixties dresses, a crotcheted thing that stops just below her backside. I wouldn’t dream of wearing it, any more than Patrik would want to turn up sporting his father’s bushy sideburns and moustache from the same photo.’

‘She’s absolutely nuts,’ Anna gasped between fits of laughter.

‘And that’s not all,’ said Erica. ‘She demanded that her nephew be in charge of the entertainment.’

‘And? What’s wrong with that?’

Erica paused for effect. ‘He plays the hurdy-gurdy.’

‘No-o-o, you’ve got to be kidding. Oh, I can just picture it. A gigantic wedding with all of Kristina’s aunts with their rolling walkers, you in a crocheted miniskirt, Patrik in his graduation suit with sideburns, and all to the tune of the hurdy-gurdy. God, how fantastic. I’d pay any price just to see it.’

‘Go ahead and laugh,’ said Erica. ‘But the way things look now, there’s not going to be a wedding. We’re so far behind with the arrangements it’s not true.’

‘Okay, listen,’ Anna said resolutely, sitting down at the kitchen table with pen and paper poised. ‘We’re going to make a list, and then we’ll get moving. And don’t let Patrik even think about getting out of doing his part. Are you the only one getting married, or is it the two of you?’

‘Yeah, well, it’s probably the latter,’ said Erica, sceptical of freeing Patrik of his delusion that she was both the project leader and foot soldier when it came to pulling off this wedding. He seemed to think that after proposing, all his practical duties were done; the only thing he had left to do was show up on time at the church.

‘Hire a band for the reception, hmm, let’s see … Patrik,’ Anna decided with glee. She wrote his name down with great resolve, and Erica was enjoying not being in the driver’s seat for once.

‘Book time to taste the wedding menu … Patrik.’

‘Look, this isn’t going to …’ Erica began, but Anna pretended not to hear her.

‘Bridal gown – well, that’s probably going to be you, Erica. You’ve got to start making an effort. What do you say we three girls drive down to Uddevalla tomorrow and see what they’ve got?’

‘Well,’ Erica said hesitantly. Trying on clothes was the last thing she was up for at the moment. The extra weight she’d put on during her pregnancy with Maja simply wouldn’t budge, and she’d even added a few more pounds since then. The stress in recent months had made it impossible for her to think about what she was stuffing into her mouth. She stopped her hand with the bun that she was just about to wolf down and put it back on the tray. Anna looked up from her list.

‘You know, if you stop eating carbs until the wedding, all that weight will just melt away.’

‘Anna, the pounds have never dropped off me with any great speed before,’ Erica said morosely. It was one thing to have this thought herself, but something else entirely when somebody else pointed out that she needed to lose some weight. But she had to do something if she wanted to feel beautiful on her wedding day. ‘Okay, I’ll try. No buns and cakes, no sweets, no bread, no pasta made with white flour, none of that.’

‘You’ll still have to get started on finding a dress now. If necessary, we can get it altered just before the wedding.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ Erica said dully. ‘But let’s go to Uddevalla tomorrow morning as soon as we’ve dropped off Emma and Adrian. Then we’ll see. Otherwise I really will have to get married in my jogging suit,’ she said, imagining herself with a gloomy expression. ‘Anything else?’ She nodded at Anna’s list. Her sister kept writing down tasks and dividing them up. Erica all of a sudden felt very, very tired. This was never going to work.

They were in no hurry as they crossed the street. It was only four days ago that Patrik and Martin had taken the same route, and they were unsure of what they would now find. For four days Kerstin had lived with the news that her partner was gone. Four days that surely must have seemed like an eternity.

Patrik glanced at Martin and rang the doorbell. As if they’d coordinated it, they both took a deep breath and then exhaled some of the tension that had built up inside them. In a way it felt selfish to be so distressed about seeing people in the depths of grief. Selfish to feel the slightest discomfort, when things were immeasurably easier for them than for the person who was mourning the loss of a loved one. But the discomfort was based on a fear of saying something wrong, taking a false step and possibly making matters worse. But common sense told them that nothing they could say or do would worsen the pain that was already almost beyond endurance.

They heard steps approaching, and the door opened. Inside stood not Kerstin, as they had expected, but Sofie.

‘Hello,’ she said softly, and they could see definite traces of several days of tears. She didn’t move, and Patrik cleared his throat.

‘Hello, Sofie. You remember us, don’t you? Patrik Hedström and Martin Molin.’ He looked at Martin but then turned back to Sofie. ‘Is … is Kerstin at home? We’d like to talk with her a bit.’

Sofie stepped aside. She went into the flat to call Kerstin, while Patrik and Martin waited in the hall. ‘Kerstin, the police are here. They want to talk to you.’

Kerstin appeared, and her face was red from crying as well. She stopped a short distance from them without saying a word, and neither Patrik nor Martin knew how to broach the subject they had come to discuss with her. Finally she said, ‘Won’t you come in?’

They nodded, took off their shoes, and followed her into the kitchen. Sofie seemed to want to follow, but Kerstin seemed instinctively to sense that what they were going to discuss wasn’t suitable for her ears, because she shook her head almost imperceptibly. For a second Sofie looked as though she were going to ignore the dismissal, but then she shrugged and went to her room and closed the door. In time she would be told all about it, but for now Patrik and Martin wanted to speak with Kerstin in private.

Patrik got straight to the point as soon as they had all sat down.

‘We’ve found a number of … irregularities surrounding Marit’s accident.’

‘Irregularities?’ said Kerstin, looking from one officer to the other.

‘Yes,’ said Martin. ‘There are certain … injuries that may not be attributable to the accident.’

‘May not?’ Kerstin said. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘No, we’re not positive yet,’ Patrik admitted. ‘We’ll know more when the medical examiner’s final report comes in. But there are enough questions to make us want to have another talk with you. To hear whether there’s any reason to believe that someone might have wanted to harm Marit.’ Patrik saw Kerstin flinch. He sensed a thought fly through her mind, a thought that she rejected at once. But he had to find out what it was, he couldn’t ignore it.

‘If you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm Marit, you have to tell us. If nothing else so that we can exclude that person from suspicion.’ Patrik and Martin watched her tensely. She seemed to be wrestling with something, so they sat quietly, giving her time to formulate what she wanted to say.

‘We’ve received some letters.’ The words came slowly and reluctantly.

‘Letters?’ said Martin, wanting to hear more.

‘Ye-e-es.’ Kerstin fidgeted with the gold ring she wore on her left ring finger. ‘We’ve been getting letters for four years.’

‘What were the letters about?’

‘Threats, filth, things about my relationship with Marit.’

‘Someone who wrote because of …’ Patrik paused, not knowing how to phrase it, ‘because of the nature of your relationship?’

‘Yes,’ Kerstin admitted. ‘Somebody who understood or suspected that we were more than just friends and who was …’ Now it was her turn to search for words. She decided on ‘offended’.

‘What sort of threats were they? How blatant?’ Martin was now writing everything down.

‘They were quite blatant. Saying that people like us were disgusting, that we went against nature. That people like us should die.’

‘How often did you get these letters?’

Kerstin thought about it. She kept twisting her ring nervously round and round. ‘We got maybe three or four a year. Sometimes more, sometimes less. There didn’t seem to be any real pattern. It was more as if somebody sent one when the mood came over them, if you know what I mean.’

‘Why didn’t you ever file a police report?’ Martin looked up from his notebook.

Kerstin gave him a crooked smile. ‘Marit didn’t want to. She was afraid that it would make matters worse. That it would turn into a big deal and our … relationship would become public knowledge.’

‘And she didn’t want that to happen?’ asked Patrik, then remembered that was precisely what Kerstin and Marit had argued about before Marit drove off that evening. The evening when she didn’t come back.

‘No, she didn’t,’ Kerstin said tonelessly. ‘But we saved the letters. Just in case.’ She got up.

Patrik and Martin stared at each other in astonishment. They hadn’t even thought to ask about something like this. It was more than they’d dared hope. Now maybe they would find some physical evidence that might lead them to the person who wrote the letters.

Kerstin came back with a thick bundle of letters in a plastic bag. She dumped them out on the table. Patrik was afraid to destroy any more evidence. Enough damage had already been done through handling in the post and by Kerstin and Marit. So he poked cautiously through the letters with his pen. They were still in their envelopes, and he felt his heart quicken at the thought that there might be additional DNA evidence under the licked stamps.

‘May we take these with us?’ Martin asked, also regarding the pile of letters with anticipation.

‘Yes, take them,’ Kerstin said wearily. ‘Take them and burn them when you’re done.’

‘But you never received any threats besides the letters?’

Kerstin sat back down and thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the phone would ring, but when we picked up the receiver the person wouldn’t say anything, just sat there in silence until we hung up. We actually tried to have the call traced once, but it turned out to be a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. So it was impossible to find out who it was.’

‘And when did you last get such a call?’ Martin waited tensely with his pen poised over his notebook.

‘Well, let me see,’ said Kerstin. ‘Two weeks ago, maybe?’ She was fiddling with her ring again.

‘But there was nothing besides this? Nobody who may have wanted to harm Marit? How was her relationship with her ex-husband, for example?’

Kerstin took her time answering. After first glancing into the hall to make sure that Sofie’s door was closed, she said at last, ‘He used to bother us in the beginning, for quite a while, actually. But the past year it’s been calmer.’

‘What exactly do you mean by bother you?’ asked Patrik as Martin took notes.

‘He couldn’t accept that Marit had left him. They’d been together ever since they were very young. But according to Marit it hadn’t been a good relationship for many years, if ever. To tell the truth, she was rather surprised at how strongly Ola reacted when she said she was moving out. But Ola …’ she hesitated, ‘Ola is a real control freak. Everything has to be neat and in order, and when Marit left him that order was disrupted. That was probably the thing that bothered him most, not the fact that he’d lost her.’

‘Did it ever turn physical?’

‘Not as such,’ Kerstin said hesitantly. Once again she cast a nervous glance at Sofie’s door. ‘I suppose it depends how you define physical. I don’t think he ever hit her, but I know that he dragged her by the arm and shoved her a few times, stuff like that.’

‘And what was their arrangement regarding Sofie?’

‘Well, that was one of the things there was a lot of trouble about at first. Marit moved in with me straight away, and even though the sort of relationship we had was not explicit, he probably had his suspicions. He was staunchly opposed to Sofie being here. He tried to sabotage things when she stayed with us, coming to fetch her much earlier than agreed on and things like that.’

‘But things settled down later?’ asked Martin.

‘Yes, thank goodness. Marit was adamant on that matter, and he finally realized that it was fruitless. She threatened to call in the authorities and all sorts of things, and then Ola relented. But he’s never been happy that Sofie comes here.’

‘And did Marit ever tell him what sort of relationship you had?’

‘No.’ Kerstin shook her head vigorously. ‘She was so stubborn on that point. She said it was nobody’s business. She wouldn’t even tell Sofie.’ Kerstin smiled and shook her head again, but with less vehemence. ‘Although Sofie just told me that she wasn’t fooled for a minute by our moving our stuff back and forth from the spare bedroom and trying to kiss discreetly in the kitchen like a couple of teenagers.’ She laughed and Patrik was amazed how the laughter softened her face. Then she turned serious again.

‘But I still find it hard to believe that Ola would have anything to do with Marit’s death. It’s been a while since their worst arguments and, well, I don’t know. It just seems unbelievable.’

‘And the person who wrote the letters and phoned you? You have no idea who that might be? Did Marit ever talk about any customer in the shop who may have behaved strangely or anything like that?’

Kerstin thought about it long and hard, but then shook her head. ‘No, I can’t think of anyone. But maybe you’ll have better luck.’ She nodded at the pile of letters.

‘Yes, let’s hope so,’ said Patrik, sweeping the letters back into the bag. He and Martin got to their feet. ‘Are you sure it’s okay for us to take these letters?’

‘Yes, of course. I never want to set eyes on them again.’ Kerstin followed them to the door and then shook hands in farewell. ‘Will you let me know when you find out something definite about …’ She left the sentence unfinished.

Patrik nodded. ‘Yes, I promise to get in touch with you as soon as we know anything more. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us at this … difficult time.’

She just nodded and closed the door behind them. Patrik looked at the bag he had in his hand. ‘What do you say we send a little package to the National Crime Lab today?’

‘Sounds like an excellent idea,’ said Martin, setting off in the direction of the station. Now at least they had somewhere to begin.

‘Yes, we have great hopes for this project. Is it Monday you begin broadcasting?’

‘Yes indeed, it’s all set,’ said Fredrik, giving Erling a big smile.

They were sitting in the spacious office of the town council, in the section where some easy chairs were placed around a table. That had been one of the first things on Erling’s list of changes: replacing the boring municipal furniture with something a bit more upmarket. It had been no problem to sneak that invoice into the bookkeeping; they always needed office furniture.

The leather squeaked a bit as Fredrik shifted position in the easy chair and went on: ‘We’re very pleased with the footage we’ve shot so far. Not so much action, perhaps, but good material to introduce the participants, set the tone, if you know what I mean. Then it’s up to us to make sure that intrigues develop so we get some great lines out of it. I hear there’s some sort of evening entertainment here tomorrow, and that might be a good place to start. If I know my cast members, they’ll certainly liven up the party.’

‘Well, we do want Tanum to impress the media at least as much as Åmål and Töreboda did.’ Erling puffed on his cigar and gazed at the producer through the smoke. ‘Sure you won’t have a cigar?’ He nodded towards the box sitting on the table. The ‘humidor’, as he always called it, putting the stress on the ‘o’. That was important. It was only amateurs who kept their cigars in a bloody box. Real connoisseurs had a humidor.

Fredrik Rehn shook his head. ‘No thanks, I’ll stick with my regular coffin nails.’ He pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and lit a cigarette. Thick smoke was starting to hover over the table.

‘I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that we make a big splash in the coming weeks.’ Erling took another puff. ‘Åmål was in the headlines at least once a week while they were shooting, and Töreboda wasn’t far behind. I’m expecting at least the same coverage for us.’ He was using the cigar as a pointer.

The producer wasn’t intimidated; he was used to handling self-important TV bosses and wasn’t afraid of some has-been who had set himself up as mini-pope in this Lilliput.

‘The headlines will come, trust me. If it’s sluggish to begin with, we’ll just have to heat things up a bit. Believe me, we know exactly which buttons to push when it comes to these people. They aren’t that sophisticated.’ He laughed and Erling joined in. Fredrik went on: ‘It’s dead simple: we put together a group of thick, media-mad youngsters, supply booze on tap, and set up cameras that film non-stop. They get too little sleep, eat poorly, and the whole time feel the pressure to perform and be seen by the TV viewers. If they don’t succeed with that they can cruise local bar tours, go to the head of the queue at night clubs, pick up plenty of babes, or make money posing for centrefolds. Believe me, they’re motivated to create headlines and increase viewer numbers, and we have the tools to help them channel that energy.’

‘Well, it certainly seems that you know what you’re doing.’ Erling leaned forward and flicked off a long column of ash into the ashtray. ‘Although I must say, I much prefer the sort of programmes that were done in the old days. Now that was quality television. This Is Your Life, that charades game show, the Hagge Geigert talk show. They just don’t have hosts like Lasse Holmqvist and Hagge Geigert anymore.’

Fredrik stifled an impulse to roll his eyes. These old farts always had to go on about how much better the old TV shows used to be. But if you sat them down in front of a segment with Hagge what’s-his-name, they’d be nodding off within ten seconds. But he just smiled at the old fart, as if he agreed with him completely. It was important to cultivate Erling’s cooperation.

‘But naturally we don’t want anyone to get hurt,’ Erling went on with a frown of concern.

‘Of course not,’ said the producer, also making an effort to look concerned and anxious. ‘We’ll keep a close eye on how the cast members are feeling, and we’ve also arranged for them to have professional counselling during their time here.’

‘Who have you hired?’ asked Erling, putting down the stub of his cigar.

‘We were fortunate enough to make contact with a psychologist who has just moved here to Tanum. His wife was recently hired at the police station. He has a very solid professional background, so we’re glad we found him. He’s going to talk with the cast members both individually and in group sessions a couple of times a week.’

‘Good, good,’ said Erling, nodding. ‘We’re very keen that everyone be in good health.’ He gave Fredrik a fatherly smile.

‘On that point we are in total agreement.’ The producer smiled back, though with not quite the same fatherly expression.

Calle Stjernfelt regarded the scraps of food left on the plates with distaste. At a loss, he stood with his microphone in one hand and a plate in the other. ‘This is disgusting,’ he said, unable to tear his eyes away from the pieces of potato, gravy and meat that were mixed together in an unrecognizable hodgepodge. ‘Hey, Tina, when are we supposed to trade places?’ He glowered at her as she swept past carrying two plates of nicely arranged food from the kitchen.

‘Never, if I have anything to say about it,’ she snapped, pushing open the swing door with her hip.

‘Shit, I hate this,’ Calle shouted, flinging the plate down into the sink. A voice behind him made him jump.

‘Hey, if you break anything it’s coming out of your pay-cheque.’ Günther, the head chef at Tanumshede Gestgifveri restaurant, gave him a sharp look.

‘If you think I’m here for the money, you’ve got another think coming,’ Calle snarled. ‘Just so you know, back in Stockholm I make more in one night than you do in a month.’ He demonstratively picked up another plate and dropped it into the sink. The plate shattered, and his defiant look dared Günther to do something about it. For a second the head chef seemed about to open his mouth to yell at him, but then he glanced at the cameras and walked off muttering, deciding instead to stir some of the food simmering in the steam table.

Calle sneered. Things were the same everywhere. Tanumshede or Stureplan in Stockholm. There was no fucking difference. Money talked. He’d grown up with this world order, and he’d learned to live with it and even appreciate it. Why not? The whole thing was to his advantage, after all. The only time he’d come across a world where money didn’t rule was on the island. A shadow passed over his face at the thought.

Calle had auditioned for Survivor with high expectations. He was used to winning. And look at the opposition: a bunch of labourers, hairdressers, unemployed tossers. He’d thought it would be a cinch. But the reality had come as a shock. Without being able to pull out his wallet or show off, other things had turned out to be important. When the food ran out and the dirt and sand-fleas took over, he’d quickly been reduced to a zero, a nobody. He’d been the fifth person voted off the island, not even making it to the merger. Suddenly he’d been forced to realize that people didn’t like him. Not that he was the best-liked guy in Stockholm either, but there at least people showed him some respect and admiration. And they liked to suck up to him too, so they could hang with him when the champagne was flowing and the babes flocked around. On the island that world had seemed far away, and some fucking zero from Småland had won. Some stupid carpenter that everybody swooned over because he was so genuine, so honest, so folksy. Fucking idiots. No, the island was an experience he wanted to forget as soon as possible.

But this was going to be different. Here he was more in his element. Well, not exactly as a dishwasher, but he had a chance to show that he was somebody. His Östermalm dialect and his classic slicked-back hair and expensive designer clothes meant something here. He didn’t need to run about half-naked like a bloody savage and try to rely on some shitty ‘personality’. Here he could dominate. Reluctantly he took a dirty plate from the tray and began rinsing it off. He was going to talk to production about maybe trading with Tina. This job just didn’t fit with his image.

As if in answer to his thought, Tina came back in through the swing door. She leaned against the wall, took off her shoes, and lit a cigarette.

‘You want one?’ She handed him the pack.

‘Shit yeah,’ he said, leaning against the wall too.

‘We’re not allowed to smoke here, right?’ she said, blowing a smoke ring.

‘Nope,’ said Calle, puffing out a ring to chase hers.

‘What are you going to do tonight?’ She looked at him.

‘The disco, or whatever the fuck they call it. You?’

‘Sure, sounds good.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ve been to a “disco” since I was a kid.’ She wiggled her toes, which were sore from being stuffed into a pair of high heels for a couple of hours.

‘It’ll be cool, no sweat. We own this town. People will come just to see us. How cool is that?’

‘Well, I thought I’d ask Fredrik if he could fix it so I get to sing.’

Calle laughed. ‘Are you serious?’

Tina gave him a hurt look. ‘You think I’m doing this just because it’s so fucking cool? I’ve got to make the most of this opportunity. I’ve been taking voice lessons for months, and there was a shitload of interest from the record companies after The Bar.’

‘So you already have a record deal?’ Calle teased her, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.

‘No … It all fell apart somehow. But it was only the timing that was wrong, my manager says. And we have to find a song that fits my image. He’s going to try and fix it so that Bingo Rimér does my publicity shoot too.’

‘You?’ Calle gave a raw laugh. ‘Barbie’s got a better chance. You just don’t have the …’ he let his eyes wander over her body, ‘assets.’

‘What do you mean? My bod is at least as sexy as that fucking bimbo. A bit smaller boobs, that’s all.’ Tina dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it out with her heel. ‘And I’m saving up for some new ones,’ she added, giving Calle a defiant look. ‘Ten thousand kronor more and I can get me some fine fucking D-cups.’

‘Right. Lots of luck,’ said Calle crushing his cigarette on the floor.

Just then Günther came back. His face took on an even deeper shade of red than he had from the steam coming off the frying pans. ‘Are you smoking in here? It’s forbidden, totally forbidden, absolutely forbidden!’ He waved his arms excitedly, and Tina and Calle looked at each other and hooted. He was just a joke. Reluctantly they went back to their jobs. The cameras had caught it all.

3

The best times were when they sat close, very close to each other. The times when she took out the book. The rustle of the pages as she carefully turned them, the scent of her perfume, the touch of the soft fabric of her blouse against his cheek. That was when the shadows kept their distance. Everything outside, both frightening and tempting, became unimportant. Her voice rose and fell in gentle waves. Sometimes, if they were tired, one of them, or sometimes both, would fall asleep with their heads in her lap. The last thing they remembered before sleep took them was the story, the voice, the rustle of paper, and her fingers caressing their hair.

They had heard the story so many times. They knew it by heart. And yet it felt new each time. Sometimes he watched his sister as she listened. Her mouth half open, her eyes fixed on the book pages, her hair cascading down the back of her nightgown. He used to brush her hair every night. That was his job.

When she read to them, all desire to go out of the locked door vanished. Then there was only a colourful world of adventure, full of dragons, princes and princesses. Not a locked door. Not two locked doors.

He vaguely recalled that he’d been scared at first. But not anymore. Not when she smelled so good and felt so soft and when her voice rose and fell so rhythmically. Not when he knew that she was protecting him. Not when he knew that he was a jinx.

Patrik and Martin had been busy with other tasks at the station for a couple of hours, waiting for Ola to come home from work. They had considered driving over and having the conversation with him there, but decided to wait until five o’clock when his workday at Inventing ended. There was no reason to subject him to a lot of questions from his co-workers. Not yet, anyway. Kerstin hadn’t believed that Ola had anything to do with the anonymous letters and phone calls. Patrik wasn’t so sure. The stack of letters had been sent off to the National Crime Lab that afternoon, and he had also included a request for access to the telephone records of callers to Kerstin and Marit during the period they had received the anonymous calls.

Ola looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower when he opened the door. He’d thrown on some clothes, but his hair was still wet. ‘Yes?’ he said impatiently, and now they saw no trace of the grief from Monday when they’d told him of his ex-wife’s death. At least the effect was not as obvious as it had been with Kerstin.

‘We have a few more questions we’d like to ask you.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Ola, still impatient.

‘Yes, there are a few things that have come to our attention with regard to Marit’s death,’ said Patrik, giving him an insistent look.

Ola obviously read the signals, for he stepped aside and motioned for them to come in.

‘Well, it’s just as well that you came, because I’ve been thinking of ringing you.’

‘Is that so?’ said Patrik, sitting down on the sofa. This time Ola had not shown them into the kitchen, but instead led the way to the sofa group in the living room.

‘Yes, I’d like to hear whether it’s possible to get a restraining order issued.’ Ola sat down in a big leather easy chair and crossed his legs.

‘A restraining order against whom?’ said Martin with a searching look at Patrik.

Ola’s eyes flashed. ‘Against Kerstin. For Sofie.’

Neither of the officers showed any surprise. ‘And why is that?’ Patrik’s tone was deceptively calm.

‘There’s no reason for Sofie to have to visit that … that … person now!’ he said so fiercely that he sprayed saliva. Ola leaned forward and went on, with his elbows on his thighs: ‘She went over there today. Her knapsack was gone when I got home for lunch, and I’ve phoned around her friends. She must have gone to see that … lesbo. Can’t you do something to stop it? I mean, naturally I’m going to have a serious talk with Sofie when she comes home, but there must be some way to prevent such things legally, isn’t there?’

‘Well, that might be difficult,’ said Patrik, whose suspicions were now being confirmed. What they wanted to talk to Ola about now seemed highly appropriate. ‘A restraining order is rather an extreme measure, and I don’t think it’s applicable in this case.’ He looked at Ola, who was clearly getting agitated.

‘But, but …’ he stammered. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do? Sofie’s fifteen, and I can’t lock her in the house if she refuses to obey, and that damned …’ he swallowed the words with difficulty, ‘she’s surely not going to cooperate. When Marit was alive I was forced to go along with … all that, but to continue to put up with this crap now, no, damn it!’ He pounded his fist on the glass coffee table so that both Patrik and Martin jumped.

‘So you don’t approve of your ex-wife’s choice of lifestyle?’

‘Choice? Lifestyle?’ Ola snorted. ‘If it hadn’t been for that slut putting all those ideas into Marit’s head, none of this would have happened. Then Marit and Sofie and I could have been together. But instead Marit not only destroyed her family, and betrayed both Sofie and me, but she made all of us laughing stocks!’ He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.

‘Did you show your disapproval in any way?’ Patrik said slyly.

Ola gave him a suspicious look. ‘What are you getting at? It’s true, I never hid what I thought about Marit leaving us, but I made a point of not discussing her reasons. It’s not something you’d want to bandy about, that your wife has gone over to the other side. Left for a female, that’s nothing you’d want to brag about.’ He attempted a laugh, but the bitterness in his voice made it sound more ominous.

‘So you didn’t do anything to upset your ex-wife and Kerstin?’

‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at,’ said Ola, narrowing his eyes.

‘We’re talking about letters and phone calls,’ said Martin. ‘Threatening ones.’

‘You think I would do something like that?’ Ola’s eyes opened wide. It was hard to tell whether his surprise was genuine or just play-acting. ‘What sort of relevance does that have now? I mean, Marit’s death was an accident, after all.’

Patrik ignored the remark for the moment. He didn’t want to reveal everything they knew at once, preferring to do so bit by bit.

‘Somebody sent anonymous letters and made anonymous phone calls to Kerstin and Marit.’

‘Well, that’s not surprising, is it?’ said Ola with a smile. ‘Women like that tend to attract that sort of attention. It’s possible that such things are tolerated in the big cities, but not out here in the country.’

Patrik was almost suffocated by all the prejudice radiating from the man sitting in the easy chair. With difficulty he resisted the urge to grab him by the shirt and tell him a few home truths. The only consolation was that Ola was digging himself deeper and deeper into the muck with each sentence he uttered.

‘So you weren’t the one who wrote the letters and kept ringing them?’ said Martin with the same barely concealed expression of distaste.

‘No, I would never stoop to anything like that.’ Ola gave them a supercilious smile. He was so sure of himself, and his home was so spotless and tidy and well-kept. Patrik yearned to shake up his orderly world a little.

‘So you have no objection to letting us take your fingerprints? And compare them with the prints that the crime lab finds on the envelopes?’

‘Fingerprints?’ His smile was suddenly gone. ‘I don’t understand. Why stir up all this now?’ The anxiety was evident on his face. Patrik chuckled to himself; a glance at Martin showed him that his colleague felt the same way.

‘Answer the question first. Can I assume that you will gladly give us your fingerprints so that we can exclude you from the investigation?’

Now Ola was squirming in his leather chair. His eyes shifted from one spot to another and he started to fidget with the things on the glass table. To Patrik and Martin it looked as though the objects already stood in rows as straight as an arrow, but apparently Ola didn’t share their view; he kept moving them a few millimetres in different directions until they were sufficiently aligned to calm his nerves.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Okay, I suppose I’m going to have to confess.’ His smile had returned. He leaned back and seemed to have regained his equilibrium, which for a moment seemed to have been lost. ‘I might as well tell the truth. I did send some letters and even rang Kerstin and Marit a few times. It was stupid, of course, but I hoped that Marit would realize that their relationship wasn’t going to last. I hoped that she would listen to reason. We had such a good life together. And we could again. If only she gave up those stupid ideas and stopped making a fool of herself. And me. It was even worse for Sofie. Imagine having something like that to carry around at her age. It would make her a real outcast at school. Marit had to realize that. It just wasn’t going to work.’

‘But it had been working for four years, so it didn’t seem that she was in a big hurry to come back to you.’ Patrik kept his expression deceptively neutral.

‘It was just a matter of time.’ Ola was fiddling with the things on the table again. Suddenly he turned to the police officers on the sofa. ‘But I don’t understand what importance all this has now! Marit is gone, and if Sofie and I can just get rid of that person, then we can move on. Why stir up all this now?’

‘Because there are several things indicating that Marit’s death was not an accident.’

A shocked silence descended on the small living room. Ola stared at them. ‘Not an accident?’ He looked from Patrik to Martin. ‘What do you mean? Did someone …?’ He let the sentence die out. If his astonishment was not genuine, he was a damn good actor. Patrik would have given a lot to know exactly what was going on inside Ola’s head at that moment.

‘Yes, we believe that someone else could have been involved in Marit’s death. We’ll know more in a while. But for the time being you … are our prime candidate.’

‘Me?’ said Ola incredulously. ‘But I would never do anything to hurt Marit! I loved her! I just wanted us to be a family again!’

‘So it was this great love that made you threaten her and her girlfriend?’ Patrik’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Ola’s face twitched at the word ‘girlfriend’.

‘But she didn’t understand! She must have been having some sort of mid-life crisis when she turned forty, and her hormones changed and affected her brain somehow. That must be why she threw everything away. We’d been together for twenty years, can you comprehend that? We met in Norway when we were sixteen, and I thought we’d always be together. We went through a lot of …’ he paused, ‘shit together when we were young, but we finally had everything we wanted. And then …’ Ola had raised his voice. Now he threw out his hands in a gesture that told them he still hadn’t grasped what it was that had happened to his marriage four years earlier.

‘Where were you last Sunday evening?’ Patrik gave him a stern look and waited for an answer.

Ola met his gaze with incredulity. ‘Are you asking me for an alibi? Is that what you’re doing? You want my fucking alibi for Sunday evening? Is that what you mean?’

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Patrik replied calmly.

Ola looked close to losing his self-control but managed to restrain himself. ‘I was at home all evening. Alone. Sofie was sleeping over at a friend’s house, so there’s nobody to confirm I was here. But it’s the truth.’ His eyes were defiant.

‘Nobody you talked to on the phone? No neighbour who dropped by?’ asked Martin.

‘No,’ said Ola.

‘Well, that doesn’t sound so good,’ said Patrik laconically. ‘That means you will remain a suspect, should it turn out that Marit’s death was no accident.’

Ola gave a bitter laugh. ‘So you’re not really sure. Yet you come here and demand an alibi from me.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re both fucking nuts.’ He stood up. ‘And now I think you should go.’

Patrik and Martin got up too. ‘We were finished here anyway. But we may be back.’

Ola laughed again. ‘Yes, I’m sure you will be.’ He went out to the kitchen without bothering to say goodbye.

Patrik and Martin let themselves out. Closing the front door behind them, they paused for a moment.

‘Well, what do you think?’ said Martin, zipping his jacket all the way up. The real warmth of spring had not yet arrived, and the wind was still chilly.

‘I don’t know,’ Patrik sighed. ‘If we were sure that this was a homicide investigation it would have been easier, but now …’ He sighed again. ‘If only I could remember why this scenario feels so familiar. There’s something that …’ He fell silent and shook his head with a grim expression. ‘No, I can’t think what it is. Maybe the techs have managed to find something from her car.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Martin.

‘You know, I think I’ll walk home,’ said Patrik as they headed towards the car.

‘But how will you get in to work tomorrow?’

‘I’ll work it out somehow. Maybe I can ask Erica to give me a lift in Anna’s car.’

‘Well, okay then,’ Martin said. ‘I’ll take the car and go home too. Pia wasn’t feeling well, so I need to go home and pamper her a bit tonight.’

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