He read the curt command on his call-up papers for the hundredth time.

  Location: ACNO. Army College for Non-Commissioned Officers. Dag Hammarskjölds väg 36, report to the duty guard.

  Time: Monday 9 June 1969 between 13.00 and 21.00.

  Duration of training: Fifteen months. Discharge date: 28 August 1970.

  When Rickard Berglund tried to imagine all this time, all these days of totally unknown content and unknown conditions, something started to constrict his throat. If he didn’t concentrate on fighting it down, he could very well give way – that was how it felt.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to stick it?

  Perhaps he would be sent home to Hova with an exemption warrant after a few weeks? How could you know if you’d be up to it?

  Or would he be transferred to some entirely different posting with some entirely different regiment somewhere else in the country? That would be even more ignominious. It said in the accompanying information he’d received that this could happen. This was the fate that awaited 10–15 per cent of those who’d been selected for General Staff training. What if he ended up in Boden? Or Karlsborg? Uppsala had been his winning ticket in the enlistment lottery, and it was vital not to squander it . . . He sighed, and realized these were just the kind of sombre strains he had promised himself not to heed.

  Because his plan was firmly in place. Fifteen months’ military service at the Staff and Liaison College, then four years studying theology, maybe five, he’d have to see how it went. Then ordination and out into Sweden to preach the Word.

  Simply that.

  And if you’d been able to get through eleven months at Lapidus Concrete Co. Ltd, you could probably cope with most things. It was his uncle Torsten who had arranged the job for him in the reinforcing-steel section, starting three days after his university matriculation exams, and you could say what you liked about education levels in the rest of Hova-Gullspång, but he was certainly the only one who read Hjalmar Bergman and Bunyan in the coffee breaks at Lapidus.

  It had earnt him a jibe or two, but that was all in the past now. He had left the concrete industry and his home on Fimbulgatan behind him. And the boyhood bedroom that had been his for as long as he could remember. His mother Ethel had done her best to fight back her tears in the kitchen that morning but hadn’t really succeeded.

  You’re leaving me alone, she had sobbed. But that’s how it has to be, and do remember there’s always a way back to home’s door.

  This was something she had thought out in advance, of course, and it had sounded like an old motto on an embroidered wall hanging above a rib-backed settee. She had started talking like that more and more, after the pastor’s death, and deep inside he felt ashamed of the feeling of freedom that bubbled up in him as soon as he was out of the door.

  A feeling of freedom when you were about to embark on your military service? That definitely wasn’t something you could say out loud, but it was exactly the sensation he was experiencing. Life started in earnest today, that was the truth. He had been looking forward to this date all spring, and as he sat watching those unfamiliar ducks and unfamiliar swans, and those unfamiliar people strolling along the footpath, he thought that he – whatever happened in his life, however his big plan turned out – would never forget this moment. Cafe Fågelsången in Uppsala in the middle of the day on 9 June 1969. It occurred to him that he could return to this spot on this date every year, just to sit and philosophize a little, think back and think forward and—

  But his train of thought was abruptly cut off by a shadow falling across the table, and its owner announcing his presence with a discreet cough.

  ‘Kierkegaard, eh? Not bad.’

  Rickard Berglund looked up. A tall young man in jeans, T-shirt and an open flannel shirt stood there watching him. A dark, uneven fringe of hair flopping over half his face, and a broad smile. He gestured to the empty chair by the wall.

  ‘Sorry. But there are a few things I can’t stop myself commenting on. OK if I sit down?’

  Rickard nodded and put away his call-up letter.

  ‘I saw that, too.’

  ‘What? My call-up . . .?’

  ‘Exactly. And I’m guessing you’re not on your way to S1?’

  He pulled out the chair and sat down, crossing one leg over the other before he took a packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘No, thanks. I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Sensible.’

  Rickard ventured a smile. ‘What made you guess I wouldn’t be going to S1.’

  His new acquaintance lit a cigarette with a Zippo lighter and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘You don’t look like a cable monkey.’

  ‘Cable monkey?’

  ‘That’s what they call them. The seventh company of S1. Cable layers. Not many Nobel Prize-winners there. No, I’m assuming you’re in for ACNO or Gen Staff?’

  ‘Gen Staff,’ said Rickard, and swallowed.

  ‘Same here. Oh, sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. Tomas Winckler.’

  He held out his hand across the table and Rickard took it.

  ‘Rickard Berglund.’

  ‘Good to meet you. I hope we end up together. I thrive on a bit of educated company.’

  He indicated the book and Rickard felt himself blush.

  ‘So you . . . I mean, are you reporting for military service today as well?’

  Tomas Winckler nodded. ‘Sure am. We can trot along there together if you like. Or maybe you’ve other plans?’

  Rickard nodded and shook his head in a single, confused movement. A waitress came up and put a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun in front of Tomas Winckler. He stubbed out his cigarette and laughed.

  ‘I saw you through the window when I was ordering,’ he explained. ‘And your book and call-up paper. And since they don’t read Danish philosophers in the seventh, I assumed we might well end up as comrades in arms. Where are you from? Not Uppsala, I take it?’

  ‘No.’

  As ever, Rickard found it hard to admit he’d lived all his life in Hova, but he realized this was no time for easily uncovered lies. ‘Hova, if you know where that is. And Mariestad. I was at upper secondary in Mariestad.’

  Tomas Winckler nodded. ‘I’d have guessed as much from your accent. And where would you place me in our long, thin country?’

  Rickard considered this. ‘Somewhere up north?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But not way, way up?’

  ‘Depends how you look at it.’

  ‘Sundsvall?’

  ‘Bloody hell. Now I’m impressed. There I am, trying out my best standard Swedish, and you pin me down to exactly the right spot. Bloody hell, like I said.’

  Rickard laughed and gave an apologetic shrug.

  ‘Just luck,’ he assured him. ‘Have you been to Uppsala before?’

  ‘A few times. My family has a flat here in town. And you?’

  ‘No,’ Rickard admitted. ‘I set foot here for the very first time today in fact. But I expect I shall stay on for the university . . . afterwards. It’s a good place, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ confirmed Tomas Winckler, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. ‘At least it is as long as you’re still under thirty. Which we definitely are. What are you hoping to study?’

  ‘Haven’t decided.’

  ‘Is that right? Well, nor have I, really. But I’m sure I’ll be here for a good few more years.’

  My God, thought Rickard with a sudden flash of insight. Here I am, chatting to someone I shall know for the rest of my life. Though I barely say ‘Hi’ to my schoolmates any more, only a year after we finished.

  Tomas Winckler picked up the book and studied the blurb on the back. ‘I’ve only read excerpts from his work,’ he declared, ‘but he’s pretty damn sharp, this Dane.’

  ‘I’ve just started it,’ admitted Rickard. ‘What are you reading at the moment?’

  Tomas Winckler avoided the question. He leant back in his seat instead, re-lighting his half-smoked cigarette. ‘If I asked you to describe yourself in just one sentence,’ he said, ‘what would you say?’

  ‘One sentence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rickard Berglund thought for a second. ‘I’m a young man with an aversion to Tuesdays,’ he said.

  Tomas Winckler gave him a look of surprise. And they both burst out laughing.

  2

  Damn dog, thought Elis Bengtsson.

  Then he cupped his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and shouted at the top of his voice:

  ‘Luther!’

  He repeated the operation. To all four points of the compass.

  Then he sat down on a tree stump and waited. No point wandering about looking for that wretched cur, he thought. Better to sit still and let the cur do the looking.

  He had learnt that over the years. Dogs have a sharper sense of smell than humans and, if they want to, they can always find their way back to their master.

  Luther was his ninth dog, no more and no less, and he had named them all after famous people: Galileo, Napoleon, Madame Curie, Stalin, Voltaire, Dr Crippen, Nebuchadnezzar and all-round champion sportsman Putte Kock.

  And now Luther. Four years old, half German pointer, half scent hound and normally a very intelligent creature. But he had clearly picked up a trail, even though Elis Bengtsson had never used him for hunting. Sometimes even the best training didn’t work, that was the plain fact of the matter.

  He had run off somewhere in the boggy bit at Alkärret and now, half an hour later, up on the crag at Gåsaklinten where they usually stopped for a breather and a little treat, there was still no sign of him.

  Elis Bengtsson checked his watch. Five to two. He’d promised to be home by half past two to drive Märta to the health centre.

  Damn woman, he thought. Why couldn’t she take the car herself?

  But, on second thoughts, it would be much safer for her not to get behind the wheel. She’d passed her test back in 1955, but hadn’t driven any kind of motor vehicle since 1969, when she backed into a litter bin in Nora torg square in Kymlinge town centre. Elis himself had been between the bin and the rear bumper until the very last instant and he’d made sure she didn’t forget it in a hurry.

  For his own part, he had fifty-seven years behind him without a single point on his licence and, health permitting, he planned to carry on driving until his own funeral.

  There was no reason to fear that his own health wouldn’t permit it, either; Märta was the one with multiple ailments, not him. Osteoporosis, angina, dizzy spells and Lord knows what else. He had already forgotten what today’s appointment at the doctor’s was about. If he’d ever known, that was.

  He sighed, hauled himself up from the tree stump and tried to focus. He went a little way up the slope before he called out again.

  ‘Luther!’

  Round the four points of the compass again, that was the plan, but he had only reached the second when he heard barking from down in Gåsaklyftan.

  He called in that direction once more, and again received an answer.

  Gåsaklyftan, he thought. What the hell is going on?

  Talking about it afterwards – with Märta, with nosy, one-legged Olle Märdback from the house next door and with the police – he was keen to claim he’d had a premonition.

  He said that as soon as he’d heard Luther barking the first time, he’d realized what was waiting for him down at the bottom of the sheer drop.

  Gåsaklyftan – Goose Gorge. He wasn’t even sure it was really called that, but it was the name they’d given it last time. Goose Hill and Goose Drop were well-established local names, but Goose Gorge? He didn’t know.

  Last time. How many years ago was it? 1975.

  Thirty-five years, in other words. A generation, you might say.

  But he probably hadn’t had a premonition, not really. It wasn’t until he was up on the hill at the edge of the drop, staring down at Luther and at the body lying there – both of them a good twenty-five metres below him – that the previous experience resurfaced.

  But once it did, Elis Bengtsson’s mind was in a whirl. I must be dreaming, he thought. It’s just not possible for the same thing to happen again.

  He felt suddenly light-headed, and it was a good job there was a little birch sapling growing right on the edge, because if Elis Bengtsson hadn’t been able to grab hold of that, he could easily have ended his days in Gåsaklyftan, too.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, you’ve got to ring the police. There’s a dead body in Gåsaklyftan.’

  ‘Another one?’ said Märta.

  ‘Another one,’ said Elis. ‘But the other time was thirty-five years ago.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Märta.

  ‘Ring the police and get them out here,’ said Elis. ‘And hurry up. Luther and I will stay here and stand guard. You’ll have to forget the medical centre for today.’

  ‘But, Elis, my appointment’s tomorrow. It’s Sunday today.’

  ‘Sunday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t bloody matter what day it is. Do as I say, for once, and ring the police.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Märta. ‘But tell me one thing: if it’s so urgent, why didn’t you ring the police yourself?’

  ‘Because I’ve only got this mobile phone,’ said Elis angrily. ‘You can’t talk to the police on a mobile phone.’

  ‘Oh. I see,’ said Märta, and then he cut her off.

  Women, he thought.

  ‘Shut up, Luther!’ he shouted the next moment. ‘I’m coming down.’

  And, for whatever reason, the dog stopped barking.

  3

  Once she had covered the first twenty kilometres on the E18 between Örebro and Karlstad, Gunilla Rysth pulled into a parking area and sat there behind the wheel for a long time. It was absolutely necessary.

  If she had gone on, it would have ended in disaster; it simply wasn’t possible to drive and be convulsed with tears at the same time.

  Not unless you wanted to crash the car and kill yourself, and she didn’t actually want to go that far.

  In spite of everything.

  Though until she found this little lay-by – just short of Kristinehamn, it was – she had been toying with the thought, she couldn’t deny it. But only toying, in some sort of desperate effort to escape her conscience and the dreadful sense of guilt that comes from crushing another human being.

  For Lennart had been crushed – there was no other way of describing it. In the last five minutes of their conversation he hadn’t uttered a word, just sat there looking at her with an expression in his eyes that put her in mind of a dying animal. An animal she had just shot, which, as its life bled into the ground, stared at its executioner with an unspoken Why? in its gaze.

  That was the way he’d looked, wasn’t it? she thought. Yes, exactly like that.

  Why? What harm have I done you?

  I love you, you know that. We love each other. We two were going to live together.

  Just over four years. They had been together for almost exactly fifty months; for the first twenty – or was it thirty? – he had given her a rose to mark each month. They had started in the second year of upper secondary, so that was one-fifth of her life, and one-fifth of his.

  He was the first one she had kissed, the first one she had been to bed with. But not the only one. And she was the first and only he had kissed and loved. There was no doubt about that. No doubt at all.

  He’s going to kill himself.

  That was the thought thudding away beneath all those tears. He’s not going to get through this.

  He’ll opt for death.

  And there she sat in the parking place outside Kristinehamn, crying and crying.

  She’d been putting off the decision for three months.

  Ever since Easter. That was when she’d met Tomas, at that fateful choir camp in Östersund. Blithely unsuspecting, she had gone up there with her friend Kristina, whom she’d known since childhood. By the evening of the second day Tomas had kissed her and said they had no choice. They were made for each other. It was written in stone and he had never been as sure of anything in all his life.

  It was like some cheesy story. If she’d come across it in Women’s Weekly or Teen Dreams, instead of in real life, she would have snorted with derision, turned the page and not read another line.

  The following night they’d broken into a summer cottage nearby and made love for four hours.

  What’s happening to me? she’d thought.

  What the hell is happening?

  That was just like a teen magazine, too. I’m behaving like a total featherbrain, she’d told herself. An infatuated bimbo. In the first days after getting back from the camp, she hoped it would prove to be just a fling with a charming bastard. Hoped he wouldn’t call, and she’d be able to bury what had happened deep in her heart and go back to Lennart. Safety and Lennart. Friday-evening beer and pizza at The Stork with the rest of the gang. Kids and a nice little property in Sommarvägen in three years’ time.

  But she only had a couple of days’ grace. He rang on the third evening, just as he’d said he would. She lay in bed in her pathetic rented room and they talked half the night; a romantic, whispering rain pattered its constant accompaniment on the windowpanes and sill, and by the time she put down the receiver in the light of the early dawn, she knew. Goodbye, Lennart Martinsson, she thought. Thanks for the four years.

  Then she had put it off and put it off, until today. How cowardly can anyone be? How cruel? How much hurt can they inflict on another person?

  She emerged from the parking area twenty minutes later. The well of tears was not bottomless after all, but although her weeping had abated, she felt no better. Not a bit.