‘Eh?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean she’s doing exactly the right thing, of course,’ answered Marianne. ‘If she’d left it another couple of years it could have been too late.’

  ‘You’ve only met her once, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marianne. ‘But sometimes once is enough.’

  ‘I didn’t think there was any serious problem with him.’

  ‘There isn’t any serious problem with a glass of water, either.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti pondered this.

  ‘She’s left it quite a long time, as it is,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Marianne. ‘So do you think she needs some help?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. Of course she wants to talk about it . . . I told her she could come here if she wanted, but she thought the couch at work would be the best place to spend the night.’

  ‘Tonight?’ said Marianne with a glance at her watch.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when did she tell him?’

  ‘This evening. By phone. And then she was planning to bed down at the police station, as I say.’

  Marianne sat bolt upright. ‘Gunnar, presumably you told her we had loads of room here?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘And said how much I like her?’

  ‘Yes, I said all of that, but she insisted . . . I suppose she wants to be on her own. So she can . . .’

  ‘So she can what?’

  ‘Test out what it feels like and so on. I called her mid-evening and she said everything was OK.’

  ‘Hm.’

  Marianne was quiet for a long time, twirling her glass in her hand. ‘Yes, maybe that’s sensible,’ she said finally. ‘No point applying a sticking plaster until it really starts bleeding. Do you know what?’

  ‘What?’ said Gunnar Barbarotti.

  ‘I think we’re in a state of grace, you and I, being able to sit here like this. We must never start thinking we’ve earned it. A state of supreme grace, do you hear that?’

  ‘You mean the house and garden and lake?’ asked Barbarotti.

  ‘No, you idiot,’ said Marianne. ‘I mean you and me and the children. The house and garden and lake are lovely, too, but that’s not the important part.’

  ‘I get you,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Are you quite sure of that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Barbarotti. ‘And we can’t ask for nights like these, either. It must be twenty degrees, don’t you think? In mid-October. You don’t . . . you don’t feel like going down to the jetty for a while?’

  ‘The jetty?’ said Marianne.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Marianne.

  He gave Eva Backman another call as soon as he woke up.

  She assured him everything was under control, she’d slept for at least five hours and after work she was going to see her family to discuss the future. This would require them to miss an important unihockey training session, but after a certain amount of negotiation, all parties had agreed to the arrangement.

  ‘You’re joking?’ asked Barbarotti.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied. ‘And it doesn’t surprise me. In fact, I’m just glad they’re all making time to come.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ said Inspector Backman firmly. ‘I shall be staying with my brother for a few days, starting tonight, and then we’ll have to see.’

  ‘I explained the situation to Marianne last night,’ he said. ‘She thinks, as I do, that you should come to us.’

  ‘I appreciate it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I might take you up on that in due course, but we don’t need to decide anything now, do we?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Talking of your brother, by the way, I had a thought.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Doesn’t he live pretty close to Lograna?’

  ‘Er, yes. Why are you asking?’

  ‘Well, I just wondered if we ought to ask them about . . . they might have heard and seen things. I don’t mean the actual murder, of course, but they might have come across Valdemar or the girl, earlier on?’

  ‘I’ve already checked that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’m afraid none of them saw anything.’

  ‘OK,’ said Barbarotti. ‘It was just a thought. And no news from Germany?’

  ‘I know I’m in the building,’ said Eva Backman, ‘but I’m not on duty yet.’

  ‘I’ll be there in an hour,’ promised Barbarotti. ‘I expect you to be on duty by then, at any rate. We’re going to find that damn Valdemar Roos today, I’ve got this feeling.’

  ‘We’ll put our faith in your male intuition then,’ said Eva Backman, and ended the call.

  46

  Suddenly it was the voices, not the pictures, which were jostling for position in her head. Sometimes she could identify them, work out who was talking, but sometimes she couldn’t.

  Lie absolutely still, if you move you’re a goner! for example. Who was saying that? It was a man, there was no doubt about that, she could hear it, an abrasive sort of voice that seemed a long way off, and it didn’t sound as bad as it had first seemed. It was more like advice he was trying to give her: she was to stay put, or something along those lines.

  I’m so tired, Anna, you’ll have to take Marek to nursery today, I’ve been throwing up all night! That was her mum, of course. Come on, hurry up, they’re going on an outing today, he’s got to be there in fifteen minutes! And after a short pause for her to light a cigarette: I know I’ve had a bit too much to drink, Anna, but we’ve got to sit down and talk. Your father isn’t a good person, I hate having to say it, but it’s a fact. Keep away from him.

  Yes, there was a lot her mother had to say to her and she was perpetually on that fine knife-edge between pleading and threatening. No, not threatening, that was something else, it was more that you never really knew who was the one that needed looking after.

  And you knew it would all end badly, you could absolutely depend on that. It was just a matter of time.

  But Valdemar’s voice was there, too. Little Anna, how nice you’ve made it look. Where did you learn to play so beautifully? Haste is a concept God didn’t see fit to create, let’s have a nap. With Valdemar it sounded more like an old radio play. He was playing the good dad, or even granddad, while she took the role of . . . well, she never heard her own voice, but maybe she was just the good, silent daughter, or maybe she wasn’t even in the play but just listening to the radio.

  And Steffo. She wanted to put her hands over her ears whenever Steffo started up, and she assumed she actually did, too, trying to press her head into the pillow and make herself deaf, but it didn’t help because the voices came from within her, not from outside.

  You’re mine, he said, Steffo. No one else’s. Now get your clothes off and show me that tattoo, it’s your birthday present and I paid for it.

  Yes, Steffo was as distinct as he was evil, but who was it she could hear saying: You’ve given away your heart, Anna, and anyone who gives away their heart is lost?

  And: We have weighed you on these scales, but the needle registers nothing. How do you explain that?

  She didn’t know. Even though exactly the same voices and exactly the same words kept coming back, over and over again. But gradually it all got messier, the voices jumbled together, talking over each other, squabbling and jockeying to have their say. Even though none of them actually shouted out their message, they somehow upped the tempo, spoke ever faster and ever more insistently as if they were not only competing for her attention but also demanding some sort of answer from her, and even Valdemar sounded irritable. In the end, someone shouted: My name’s not Hitler, my name’s not Hitler, I’m a good person! and that was probably what woke her up.

  But the boundary between dream and waking felt blurred and viscous. She opened her eyes and stared at a bedside table with a clock radio and a window with the blinds down, but the voices didn’t fade away entirely as she did so. They were still there, murmuring away quietly at the back of her head, and when it dawned on her that she was awake and dreaming at the same time, she was scared. Hearing voices? A sort of ice-cold, goosebumpy fear came over her because she realized, of course, that it was Death making his presence felt again, but this time he wasn’t gentle and kindly, but ominous and terrifying.

  But where was she to find the strength to resist him? For he had to be resisted, there was no question of doing anything else. Her head was aching as usual – a dull, nagging ache – and her right arm was numb, also as usual. A vague queasiness was starting to develop and suddenly there was another voice that didn’t sound at all like the others; it was located somewhere deep inside her chest and after a while it dawned on her that it was her own.

  Find a way out of this room, it said. You have to get to a hospital. You are dying. And it wouldn’t shut up. Find a way out of this room. You have to get to a hospital. You are . . .

  She decided to obey it – almost instantly she decided that, but it wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Even just easing herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed took quite a while. When she tried to stand up she almost fainted, and covering the few metres of floor between her and the door felt like running a marathon. Her exhaustion was like a multi-ton weight, it was a rucksack packed full of paving slabs and horror and lead and anxiety, and she had to shout orders at her legs to get them to move at all.

  She had hoped to emerge into a corridor or something like that, to the extent she had hoped anything at all . . . at least a room in which there were people, but instead it was a parking area. The wind seized hold of her and she staggered before she realized with gritted teeth that she had to go on a bit further. She had to. She stood there with her hand still gripping the cold door handle, as if trying to draw strength from it in some absurd way, and looked at the cars lined up with their muzzles pointing in her direction, like hungry animals – one blue, one red, another red one and a kind of camper van – and beyond the cars a big road – she could hear the traffic roaring past – and beyond that, improbably, a greenish-yellow strip of forest and some birds flying around beneath a windswept sky. Where am I? she thought. How did I get here? Are these the heron mirages taking flight again? Which way should I go?

  But then the voice resumed inside her chest. You have to get to a hospital. You are dying.

  Well then, she thought, taking as much air into her lungs as she possibly could. Well then . . .

  She let go of the handle and took a step forwards.

  By the time she opened the door to the hotel reception area – a low little room just a few square metres in size with a counter, two glaringly red plastic chairs and a small display rack for leaflets – her strength was all gone. She fell diagonally forwards, hit her head on the display rack, started to bleed from a gash above her right eyebrow and landed between the chairs like quarry that had just taken a bullet.

  The one-eyed woman behind the counter rose halfway to her feet, put her hand to her mouth and stubbed out her cigarette.

  Then she picked up the phone and rang for an ambulance.

  47

  ‘How are you feeling?’ asked Barbarotti.

  ‘As I deserve to,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But we haven’t got time to discuss our private lives, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ said Barbarotti.

  She gave a sort of shrug and looked at the clock.

  ‘We have a date with Asunander in five minutes.’

  ‘With Asunander? Again? Has anything happened?’

  ‘You could say that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘The son called in half an hour ago.’

  ‘The son?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Do you think you could clarify just slightly?’

  ‘Sure thing,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Greger Roos called us, here, this morning. It was Toivonen who took the call, but he passed it to me after a minute. Our man’s down there, evidently.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Barbarotti. ‘You’re saying that Greger Roos, who I assume to be Valdemar Roos’s son, rang here? Remind me where he lives again?’

  ‘Maardam,’ said Backman. ‘He’s lived in Maardam for fifteen years, works at a bank or something.’

  ‘I didn’t think they were in touch with each other,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But never mind that, what did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to tell us he’d had a visit from his father.’

  ‘His father?’ said Barbarotti. ‘So . . . so we’ve got him, then.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Backman. ‘He apparently just dropped by and then went away again.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Did he have the girl with him?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But he left a letter.’

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what does it say?’

  ‘We don’t know. His son hasn’t opened it. But it’s addressed to us, it seems.’

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’ said Barbarotti, and groaned. ‘Valdemar Roos went to see his son down in Maardam, left a letter for us and pushed off?’

  ‘Correct on every point,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Shall we go in to Asunander now? We might as well continue with this in there.’

  ‘Pass me my crutches,’ said Barbarotti.

  Asunander looked like the cat who, even if he hadn’t quite eaten the canary yet, had bitten off its wings and trapped it in a corner.

  Not entirely displeased, in other words.

  And we are the canary, thought Barbarotti. They sat down and Inspector Backman opened her notepad.

  ‘How is it,’ said the chief inspector with studied slowness, ‘how is it that we haven’t looked into this aspect any sooner?’

  ‘Er, I’m sure we—’ ventured Gunnar Barbarotti, but Asunander held up his hand and cut off what might have followed. Just as well, thought Barbarotti. Seeing as I hadn’t anything to finish the sentence with.

  ‘You,’ said Asunander, ‘are a graffiti investigator. I would prefer to hear DI Backman’s account of this.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Eva Backman, and cleared her throat before continuing. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Chief Inspector. I contacted Greger Roos the day after we found the body out at Lograna. My note of the conversation is included in the report I wrote the same day. I have it here, if you’d like to refresh your memory.’

  That woman, thought Barbarotti, biting the inside of his cheek so as not to smile.

  ‘What?’ demanded Asunander. ‘I mean . . . really? Well then, why didn’t we follow it up?’

  ‘Because there was no need,’ explained Eva Backman. ‘Valdemar Roos has no contact at all with his son. The last time they saw each other was at a funeral, ten years ago.’

  ‘Whose funeral?’ asked Asunander.

  ‘Valdemar’s first wife. The boy’s mother. It was in Berlin, and father and son only spent four hours together, all told.’

  ‘That wasn’t long,’ said Asunander.

  ‘The bare minimum, if you ask me,’ said Backman. ‘So, as I say, there was no reason to expect Greger Roos was going to have any involvement in this. But he promised to call if he thought of even the slightest bit of information to pass on. And now he has.’

  DCI Asunander leant back in his chair and let this sink in for five seconds.

  ‘Three questions,’ he said.

  ‘Shoot,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘First: where is Valdemar Roos as we speak? Second: where’s the girl? And third: what the hell does that letter say?’

  ‘Those are precisely the questions I’ve got written on my notepad,’ declared DI Backman. ‘Plus one more: shall we call him and ask him to read it out to us?’

  Asunander frowned as he pondered. ‘God knows,’ he said. ‘Obviously that would be the quickest way . . . but just to be clear, we haven’t had confirmation yet that they were the ones behind the petrol station business, have we?’

  ‘No,’ said Backman. ‘We haven’t. And there’s no news on the condition of the police officer, either. I think the doctors are keeping him in a medically induced coma – you’d expect that in these circumstances. It’s to do with swelling round the brain, from what I understand.’

  ‘I’m aware of similar cases’, Asunander concurred. ‘But be that as it may, we need to decide whether—’

  He was interrupted by the ringing of one of the telephones on his desk. He scowled at it, but lifted the receiver and answered. A few seconds later his eyebrows rocketed upwards, but he made no clear comment on what was being said at the other end. He just mumbled the occasional ‘yes’, a ‘no’ or two and then a ‘really?’ shortly before he hung up.

  He clasped his hands in front of him and his eyes moved back and forth between Barbarotti and Backman.

  ‘We can cross out question number two,’ he said. ‘The girl has been found. She’s in the Gemejnte Hospital in Maardam.’

  ‘What?’ said Backman.

  ‘What?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ muttered the chief inspector. ‘She was admitted yesterday afternoon, apparently. She’s in quite a bad way.’

  ‘A bad way?’ said Barbarotti. ‘What does that mean, in a bad way?’

  ‘I didn’t get any details,’ said Asunander. ‘But I’ve just decided how we’re going to find out.’

  ‘How?’ said Backman.

  ‘You two,’ said Asunander, leaning forward over his desk. ‘You’re to fly down pronto and look into this. Not just the girl. The letter and this damned Roos as well. I want his head on a plate; don’t come home without him.’

  ‘Right . . .’ said Barbarotti. ‘But—’

  ‘Is there anything you’re not clear about?’ asked Asunander.

  ‘No, nothing,’ declared DI Backman. ‘It’s all as clear as a bell.’

  In the car on the way to Gothenburg’s Landvetter airport, she thought of yet another question.

  ‘How come he let you tag along?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were on special graffiti duties? He’s gone on about nothing else lately.’