‘That’s right,’ said Backman.

  ‘Do you generally introduce yourself to the checkout staff when you go shopping?’

  ‘No,’ said Backman. ‘To be honest, I keep my name to myself.’

  ‘Same here,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘But Yolanda said he was very pleasant and polite, and seemed rather keen to chat. And then . . . well then she seemed to confirm it.’

  ‘Confirm what?’ asked Barbarotti.

  Backman rubbed at her hair and frowned. ‘She thinks he once said something along those lines. That he’d be coming in quite often, because he’d just moved to the area.’

  ‘Moved to the area?’ said Barbarotti. ‘He said that? Then there’s no doubt, is there?’

  ‘Er, well,’ said Backman, ‘she can’t remember if he actually said it in so many words. It was more, um, an impression she got. And when he started showing up a couple of times a week, the impression stuck.’

  ‘But she can’t remember if he actually said he’d got a place round there.’

  ‘No, she can’t swear to it. Could be she just assumed.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Well, this is certainly interesting. Anything else?’

  ‘Not much,’ sighed Backman. ‘Unfortunately. What do you think we ought to do next?’

  Barbarotti scratched his plaster and was silent for about ten seconds.

  ‘Think,’ he said. ‘Sit ourselves down and think hard about what the hell this means. And interview that witness of course . . . when did you say? Saturday?’

  ‘Saturday evening,’ confirmed Backman. ‘So we’ve got two full days for pure unadulterated thinking. Assuming that’s what we want. This is just some dry old stick who’s gone missing, after all.’

  Barbarotti nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand why I care so much about this piece of human furniture, either.’

  Eva Backman seemed to be searching for an answer, but clearly failed to find one, because she closed her notepad and gazed out of the window.

  ‘Looks like rain,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Anyway, I’m fiendishly good at pure unadulterated thinking. But I don’t need to tell you that.’

  Eva Backman rolled her eyes and then looked at the clock. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be off shopping with your beloved?’

  ‘Christ, yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Where are my crutches?’

  31

  That last thing he and Eva Backman had talked about on Thursday evening stayed with him.

  That is to say, what their fascination with Valdemar Roos was. The thought lingered, not only for the rest of Thursday evening but also on Friday, when there were no new developments in the case, on Saturday, when he had the day off and Brother-in-law Roger made good on his promise to go home – or at least as far as Bollnäs, where he reckoned he could stay over with someone he knew – and on Saturday night, when he and Marianne made love for the first time since his dive into the wheelbarrow twelve days previously.

  Of course the Valdemar Roos business wasn’t in his head the whole time – especially not during the rather complicated act of lovemaking – but it was aggravatingly tenacious.

  Disappearance of a dullard?

  A good title for a play, perhaps, but what about the actual and current content? What was it about this sad tale of a sixty-year-old man who leaves his job and family that lent it such a shimmer?

  Shimmer? thought Barbarotti, watching the display of the clock radio move from 02.59 to 03.00. Wherever did that word come from? If there ever was a word ill-matched to Ante Valdemar’s life and times, it was surely shimmer. No, there must be some other component.

  I feel sorry for him, Barbarotti hit on. It’s my most profound humanity that gives me this interest in the dismal destinies of such people. Nobody in the world gives a toss about Valdemar Roos, and that’s precisely why I do. I want to get to the bottom of this, regardless of Asunander and his graffiti; it’s my duty to one of the least of these my brothers.

  But this philanthropic approach didn’t really match reality, either; after a bit of self-scrutiny, he was forced to admit it. However much he wished it had been the case. Eva Backman was as curious about what had happened to Roos as he was, and perhaps she had put her finger on the spot on Friday, when she told him the whole thing could be some kind of universally human wet dream.

  Maybe a specifically male wet dream, she had added after a few moments’ thought. The idea of climbing out of your life as if it’s an item of clothing you’re bored with. Of changing your entire existence from one day to the next. Discarding everything dull and habitual – work, wife, home and family – and starting something fresh and new in a different place.

  Tempting? thought Barbarotti. Well certainly, for some people in some situations in life, but presumably also quite naive. The grass is not greener on the other side of that fence, and wherever you end up, you’ll always be bringing some baggage along with you.

  And was that really – when all was said and done – what lay behind this strange business?

  If so, it must have been a very odd plan Valdemar Roos had drawn up. If he really had wanted to leave his wife and daughters, why hadn’t he got on with it right away? A question they had asked themselves before. Why quit his job and then keep up appearances by pretending to go there every day? For a whole month. What was the point of such an arrangement? And why did he drive all the way to somewhere near Vreten? What had he got out there? A mistress?

  Good questions, perhaps. Or entirely the wrong questions? At any rate, Barbarotti had not come up with any sensible answers; he had found no answers for several days now, and that was quite possibly why the missing dullard would not leave him in peace.

  Because it was so bizarre.

  Because Inspector Barbarotti hadn’t the foggiest idea what had happened, and it was getting on his nerves.

  He talked to Marianne about it on Saturday evening, once the kids left them alone with the washing-up.

  ‘It could be,’ he said, ‘that this business will only be interesting until we find out the truth. As soon as we know, the minute all the cards are on the table, it’s going to seem boring and banal.’

  ‘Yes, but the same applies to life in general, doesn’t it?’ Marianne replied after a moment. ‘It’s the questions and the unexplored areas that are the big things, not the answers and what’s obvious.’

  ‘And the search for the answers?’ he asked. ‘Is that chasing the wind, like we were saying?’

  ‘Not always,’ she said, but he could see she wasn’t happy with the answer.

  ‘God?’

  ‘God, yes? I don’t know, but I’m sure anyway that a god without questions and mysteries can never be more than an idol, a false god. We’re not meant to understand everything. Especially not Him.’

  She then kissed him at slightly greater length than the moment, the washing-up or the hereafter really required.

  Wonderful, thought Gunnar Barbarotti. It’s wonderful to be married to a woman who understands so much more about life than I do.

  But what must it be like for her to be married to me?

  On Sunday morning he rang Eva Backman.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘I know it’s Sunday and unihockey and all that, but were you able to get hold of that witness last night?’

  ‘How’s the pure unadulterated thinking going?’ replied Backman.

  ‘I haven’t really got where I want to be yet,’ admitted Barbarotti. ‘But I will. The witness?’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I spoke to her. But I’m afraid she wasn’t able to shed much light on the matter. I would have called you if she had.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s good to know,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘But she must have had something sensible to contribute?’

  ‘We’ve got a good description of the girl.’

  ‘Girl?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Yes,’ said Backman. ‘She chose the term herself. Barely more than twenty, she thought. Perhaps even younger.’

  ‘A teenager?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Good grief, Valdemar Roos is almost sixty.’

  ‘I know,’ said Backman. ‘Yes, the mistress theory is starting to seem more and more absurd. And the witness – her name’s Karin Wissman, did I say? – found the idea pretty incredible, too, when I pressed her. But she didn’t offer any credible alternatives, either. Valdemar Roos came out of a restaurant with a young girl just over two weeks ago and that’s basically all we can say for certain.’

  ‘And he disappears two days later when his wife tells him he’s been seen with said young girl.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Backman. ‘It’s pretty obvious the phone call must have been some kind of trigger. But beyond that . . . well, we’re at a loss.’

  ‘Sod it,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Yep,’ said Backman. ‘You could say that. But I didn’t think there was any point bothering you with it yesterday.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Though there is one other little thing.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Just an odd trivial detail, I expect, but I talked to another informant yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  Eva Backman hesitated for a second or two. ‘I’m sure it isn’t important. A woman who had chatted to Valdemar in a bar.’

  ‘In a bar?’

  ‘Yes. Prince, on Drottninggatan. This was two months ago, mind. Or one and a half, anyway, but she couldn’t remember the date. She recognized him from the photo in the paper, which was why she rang in.’

  ‘Oh. And?’

  ‘He was a bit drunk, apparently. He’d bought her a couple of drinks and they sat there talking for about an hour, she maintains.’

  ‘Prince on Drottninggatan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t have Valdemar Roos down as the sort who chats up ladies in bars.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I told you it was odd. She’s coming to the station tomorrow afternoon so we can talk to her properly.’

  ‘Good,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I think . . . well, I think this sounds pretty damn weird.’

  ‘What he said was evidently pretty weird as well.’

  ‘Pardon? Who said what?’

  ‘Valdemar Roos. This woman claims he went on and on about one thing the whole time. About walking in a forest with his father.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But that was what she said. That he said, I mean. Something about the sun shining on the spruce trees and it being the most important moment of his life . . .’

  ‘Walking in a forest with his father?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Eva Backman.

  Barbarotti was reduced to silence for a moment.

  ‘Do you think he’s a nut job?’ he said eventually. ‘Simple as that.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eva Backman. ‘We’ll hear a bit more from that witness tomorrow, as I say. But I agree it sounds distinctly peculiar.’

  ‘Peculiar doesn’t begin to cover it,’ said Barbarotti, and they hung up.

  But there was another phone conversation with Backman that cloudy autumn Sunday.

  She was the one who made the call, and it was half past ten in the evening.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she said. ‘I know it’s Sunday and leaf-raking and pure unadulterated thinking and all that,’ she began.

  ‘White woman speak with forked tongue,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘I think we’ve got a breakthrough.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘It could be, anyway,’ said Backman. ‘But I’m not sure.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to an Espen Lund.’

  ‘Espen Lund?’

  ‘Yes. He’s an estate agent and an old friend of Valdemar Roos’s. He’s been away, but he got back today and saw the picture in the paper about an hour ago. He says he sold Valdemar a house about a month ago. Out Vreten way. What do you say to that?’

  ‘What do I say to that?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘I say we put the estate agent in a car and take him out there right this minute. Fuck, what else would we do?’

  ‘I decided roughly the same thing,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But I decided to postpone it until tomorrow, seeing as it’s half past ten and Espen Lund says he’s jetlagged.’

  ‘All right,’ said Barbarotti. ‘We’ll say tomorrow. What time?’

  ‘He’s coming to the station at nine,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Why do you keep swearing?’

  ‘Because I’ve got a hospital appointment for this leg tomorrow. I shall have to—’

  ‘That’s what happens when you land in the wrong wheelbarrow,’ said Eva Backman, and another profanity almost escaped Barbarotti’s lips.

  ‘I’ll put it off,’ he decided. ‘My follow-up appointment, that is. Have you spoken to Mrs Roos about this latest development?’

  ‘No,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I thought it best to wait until we’d been there to make an inspection.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti thought for a moment, and then agreed this was the right decision in the circumstances.

  THREE

  32

  He came down to the beach just after six, and the sun had still not risen.

  But it was not far off. The rosy flush of dawn suffused half the sky to the east, birds described their extended ellipses inland over the meadows and the sea lay in expectation, absolutely calm and still.

  Expectation? he thought. Was there any better state of being?

  He decided to walk south. After a few hundred metres he stopped and took off his shoes. He left them there on the sand in the lee of an upturned wooden boat with peeling paint, abandoned a good way above the shoreline. His socks were stuffed inside, one in each shoe. He didn’t think anyone would bother helping themselves to such a tatty old pair of loafers but if they did get taken, it would be no problem going back into the boarding house barefoot.

  He had a pair of sandals in reserve. He had bought them in Malmö when he went out to stock up on provisions before they crossed the Sound; she said they suited him but he was on no account to wear them with socks, and he hadn’t tried a proper walk in them yet.

  The name of the boarding house was Paradise; they had spent four nights there now and last night was the first time he hadn’t been able to sleep. He didn’t know why; he had dropped off around midnight after doing a few crosswords, but had woken up again at three and found it impossible to get back to sleep. He got up quietly at quarter to five, took a long shower and then dressed and crept out. The boarding house was in the middle of the little town, a two-storey wooden house, painted pink and nestled amongst lilacs and fruit trees, but it only took five minutes to get down to the sea.

  And Anna was asleep when he left. She lay there in her usual way, curled up with her hands between her knees and the pillow over her head. He paused in the doorway for a few seconds, watching her. It’s so strange, he thought, how fast she’s become the centre of my life. I almost can’t imagine us ever having been apart.

  Her image was still before his eyes as he slowly moved south, along the never-ending beach. As far as he knew, it extended right down to the German border and probably further still. Yes, the world is boundless, he thought all at once. It really is. Our lives and our opportunities are boundless; it’s just a matter of discovering that and taking it in.

  And every day is a gift.

  Fourteen of them had passed. Two weeks and one night since that Sunday evening when life switched onto a completely new and unpremeditated track. Ante Valdemar Roos knew that this time with Anna – regardless of what lay ahead of them, regardless of whether it all ended in a major or a minor key – was the most momentous thing he had ever experienced. Maybe, he had begun to think, maybe this had been the point of it all. His birth, his development to adulthood, his passage through the vale of tears. So he could live for a while with this remarkable girl.

  He had carried on writing his aphorisms in the black notebook, one a day. Sometimes they were quotations, sometimes he was able to put the words together for himself. Twice it was something Anna said. Yesterday’s source was once again the Romanian:

  He still cherished the illusion that he walked there alone, that he was moving and not the world beneath his feet, that he could go in any direction at all, that the furrow he ploughed – his own, unique life – was only visible behind him, in the tracks left by his laborious steps. He had not yet understood that the same furrow ran as deeply and pitilessly ahead of him.

  That’s how it was before, thought Ante Valdemar Roos. That was how I used to visualize my life. As deep incisions or inscriptions on a gravestone that was already standing. As if . . . as if that gravestone – and the interminably slow reading of its inscriptions – was the aim and purpose in itself.

  He was not sure if that was precisely what Cǎrtǎrescu was driving at, but he didn’t care, he thought in a sudden burst of cheerfulness as he kicked a deflating red beach ball, sending it a good way out into the water. He didn’t care and it didn’t matter! Once upon a time he had played inside right for Future Stars boys’ football club and the clip was still there in his right foot. It’s the feeling and the road taken that make it worth the trouble, not the words and the potential solution of the equation.

  Yesterday evening she had sung for him, just the two songs because the fatigue had come over her again. One was ‘Colours’, an old Donovan song – he thought it was amazing that she had picked up so much from the distant sixties – and the other she had composed herself, and it was about him. ‘Valdemar the Penguin’. He didn’t realize until afterwards that he had been crying as he listened.

  And he had felt gratitude. A deep gratitude that they had not succumbed to panic and fear after that grotesque turn of events at Lograna – but gave themselves time to think and pack a few things in the car. Her guitar, for example. Most of her possessions, too, the idea being to expunge all trace of her from the house, but when they had been on the road for a few hours that night, she remembered she had left a plastic bag of dirty washing under the worktop in the kitchen.