Tomas clenched his jaw audibly and she could see his knuckles turning white as they gripped the steering wheel.

  ‘Never again, Gunilla, I swear it. What a bunch of pricks.’

  ‘Ordinary people, Tomas,’ she said. ‘They’re just ordinary people.’

  When her mother rang a couple of weeks later to ask if she was planning to come home for Christmas, she said she wasn’t.

  No, she wasn’t planning to do that, and her mother didn’t ask for any explanation, either. She seemed to approve of the decision; the gulf that had opened up between them with Lennart’s death was too wide to bridge. For now, at least.

  She tried to find some kind of sound emotional logic in this paralysis of family relations, but the more she thought about it, the more barren and hopeless it seemed.

  It must have been like that all along, she thought. It just hasn’t been clearly visible until now. I knew it all along, but I preferred to close my eyes.

  She wasn’t sure if this was true or not, and she didn’t want to brood on it any longer.

  ‘It’s medieval,’ was Tomas’s opinion. ‘This way of thinking is totally out of place in the twentieth century. It’s barbaric!’

  Talking about her family sometimes made him furious, and she was secretly glad of his violent reaction.

  ‘You broke off an engagement, that’s all you did,’ he went on. ‘Is forced marriage the fucking norm in Värmland, then?’

  ‘Shall we go to your parents in Sundsvall for Christmas?’ she asked.

  ‘No way,’ answered Tomas. ‘We’ll spend it in Sibyllegatan in Uppsala. And on Christmas morning I shall get you pregnant.’

  And so it was.

  They spent a simple Christmas together in their little flat. Tomas had a whole week’s leave, and she thought no one could wish for better days than this. Two people who loved each other. Enclosed in a shell that protected them from the whole world, from everything old and tainted and unjust, that was how it felt – and from the persistent rain and slushy snow outside.

  Instead, candles and red wine and Leonard Cohen. Songs from a Room.

  And lovemaking. Lots and lots of lovemaking.

  When Gunilla got the confirmation in early February, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. With the baby expected at the end of September, the simplest thing was for her to arrange a break in her studies for the autumn term. Her degree would take six months longer than she’d planned, but it need cost no more than that.

  ‘You don’t think we could fit in another one before you go back?’ asked Tomas and she thought: well, yes, why not?

  Then she wondered if it wasn’t a bit presumptuous to plan your second child before the first one had even been born. But she found it hard to imagine anything could go seriously wrong.

  10

  ‘Germund Grooth,’ said Eva Backman, passing Barbarotti a cup of coffee. ‘Interesting name.’

  Gunnar Barbarotti, having been on the receiving end of roughly a hundred thousand queries about his own name over the years, made no comment. He took the coffee and started to scrutinize the list of those involved in 1975.

  On Sunday 28 September 1975, to be exact, when seven friends had gone out on a mushrooming expedition and only six had returned:

  Rickard Berglund

  b. 1949. Vicar of the parish of Rödåkra–Hemleby.

  Anna Berglund

  b. 1951. Wife of RB. Maiden name Jonsson. Journalist at the Swedish Church Times.

  Tomas Winckler

  b. 1948. Marketing expert at Handelsbanken in Gothen-burg.

  Gunilla Winckler-Rysth

  b. 1949. Wife of TW. Bachelor of Arts. Translator.

  Maria Winckler

  b. 1950, d. 1975. Sister of TW. Living with GG. Teacher of French and English at Kymlingevik School.

  Germund Grooth

  b. 1948. Living with MW. Teacher of physics and maths at Kymlingevik School.

  Elisabeth Martinsson

  b. 1947. Teacher of art at Kymlingevik School. Single.

  ‘Virtually the same age,’ he remarked once he had gone through the names. ‘You’re right. Only four years between the eldest and the youngest.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Backman. ‘They were all around twenty-five then. Now they’re around sixty. Who drew up the list? Sandlin?’

  Barbarotti nodded. ‘I assume so. There’s another one just the same in the folders, at any rate.’

  He added a cross and the year 2010 after Germund Grooth’s name. ‘Two out of the seven,’ he said. ‘What do we make of this?’

  Eva Backman didn’t answer.

  ‘If someone’s got a plan to kill them all,’ Barbarotti went on, ‘he doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry about it. If he gives himself thirty-five years between each one, he won’t be done for – well, what would it come to – a hundred and fifty years at least?’

  ‘They were a couple,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Who were?’ asked Barbarotti.

  ‘Germund Grooth and Maria Winckler. They were living together in 1975. They weren’t married, but being married was pretty much out of fashion in the 1970s.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Well, we’re dealing with three couples and one loose horse here. And both the other couples seem to have made it up the aisle.’

  ‘Or to the town hall,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Though one of them’s a clergyman, and I’m guessing they don’t go for registry office weddings.’

  ‘What does it matter if, and how, they got married?’ asked Barbarotti, tapping the list irritably with his pen. ‘Three couples and one single person, that’s the important part. And one of the couples no longer exists, because they died at precisely the same spot, thirty-five years apart. You still haven’t told me what you make of a story like that.’

  ‘My spontaneous guess?’ said Eva Backman. ‘Is that what you’re angling for?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Based on . . . on your twenty years of experience as a successful police officer, with a clear-up rate way above the national average percentage.’

  ‘Nineteen,’ said Backman. ‘Years, I mean, not per cent. You’re forgetting I had all those kids as well. But since you keep badgering, I suppose I’ll let you have my suggestion. She slipped and he jumped.’

  ‘What?’ said Barbarotti. ‘Hang on, let me think.’

  He tried his coffee. Pulled a face and changed the subject. ‘Does this foul brew really come from the new machine? It tastes even worse than it used to.’

  ‘It’s still running in,’ Eva Backman informed him. ‘Give it five or six months and it’ll taste divine.’

  ‘Great,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I’ll look forward to that. But what did you mean when you said one slipped and one jumped?’

  Eva Backman gave a shrug. ‘Just a possibility,’ she said. ‘But pretty plausible, as far as I can see. If Maria Winckler, for instance, accidentally fell to her death in 1975, it could well happen that the man – this Germund, that is – wanted to be united with her in some way. If he’d decided to take his own life . . . for some reason.’

  ‘United with a woman who died thirty-five years ago?’ said Barbarotti.

  ‘Inscrutable are the ways of the human mind,’ said Eva Backman.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Barbarotti, staring down into his coffee cup. ‘And they can be simpler than we think sometimes, too, don’t forget. We’ve got three variants to play with, to be precise . . . times two, that is.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ sighed Backman. ‘The same old thing. Accident, suicide, murder . . . the last of which also includes manslaughter. Times two, as you say, Inspector. So, what’s your own view of the matter?’

  ‘I haven’t got one,’ said Gunnar Barbarotti. ‘But I know which double I wouldn’t bet on.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Double accident. The idea that he would go and lose his footing in exactly the same place as his partner did, all that time ago – completely unintentionally – no, it just wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘Presumably not,’ said Backman, picking up the list of names. ‘Do we know which of the rest are still alive? All five or . . .?’

  ‘We don’t know a darned thing,’ Inspector Barbarotti said. ‘But it’s time to rectify that ignorance now. Asunander wants a detailed report in’ – he checked the time – ‘almost exactly twenty-four hours from now.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Backman. ‘Where do we start?’

  ‘In different places,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I suggest I take the past. I do have slightly more experience, after all, and I’ve already appropriated Sandlin’s files. You can poke around in the present. Find out where—’

  ‘Where the five of them are today,’ Backman interrupted. ‘Yes, despite my youth, I agree with you. I imagine a few interviews will be required in due course. How long had Mr Grooth been lying there when Elis Bengtsson found him, by the way? Do we know that at least?’

  ‘Not precisely,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But we should get the report this evening. I heard something about two days and nights. Or more than one, at any event.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Bengtsson have found him on Saturday in that case?’ queried Backman. ‘Rather than Sunday? I thought he did that circuit every day?’

  ‘Maybe he’s got other walks as well,’ said Barbarotti. ‘We’ll have to check that.’

  ‘I’ll do it now,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’ll go back to my room and start ringing round. See you tomorrow then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barbarotti. ‘I’m off home now.’

  Eva Backman looked at her watch. ‘It’s half past three.’

  ‘I know what the time is,’ Barbarotti told her, ‘but I left those files on my bedside table.’

  ‘Absent-mindedness and old age go hand-in-hand,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Regards to Marianne.’

  A good hour’s work later, she had compiled a new list. A feeling of gloom had gradually descended on her. There was something about this jump forward in time; a group of twenty-somethings so suddenly transformed into sixty-year-olds – of course they had lived for many years in the meantime, had children and built houses perhaps, entered into new relationships, seen foreign continents and carved out careers, but the two isolated incidents out at Gåsaklyftan had an unpleasant shrinking effect on the time interval.

  As if thirty-five years were no more than an hour, in fact. The hour it had taken her to chart the circumstances of each one of them on this very day: 27 September 2010.

  And, of course, the sensation applied to her, too. Today twenty-five, tomorrow sixty. Or, worse still, what was the title of that old crime novel? Today Red, Tomorrow Dead.

  She had four years to go to her fiftieth birthday. Barbarotti only had a few months, and didn’t seem particularly bothered by the prospect. This, naturally, was of no particular relevance to the current investigation, but it wasn’t always easy to separate work and private life in your head. Thoughts tended to wander, especially in the afternoons when your blood-sugar levels were hovering just above zero.

  She sighed and went to the kitchenette to fetch a cup of the dubious coffee. She returned to her room and sat down to attempt a broad-brush analysis of the current state of play.

  For those who had not plunged down into Gåsaklyftan, that was. If you wanted to be a bit dystopian about it.

  So, there were five of them. None had had their lives cut short in the period between September 1975 and September 2010, it turned out, and all five still lived in the kingdom of Sweden.

  That was a good start. It meant she could get hold of them. Each and every one would be interviewed, if it were thought necessary. Eva Backman was pretty sure it would be thought necessary, nor did she disagree with that conclusion herself.

  Both the married couples were still married. That had to be seen as unusual, she thought; if you married young in the early seventies, the chances that you would be celebrating, say, your silver wedding were pretty slim. She remembered she’d read an article on the subject, a while back. A decade later the odds were rather better, but still demonstrably below 50 per cent. Both she and Barbarotti fell into the latter category, as it happened, and neither of them had been able (or had wanted?) to keep their families together until the children had at least grown up. Things were as they were, and they did nothing to chase away the feeling of gloom. Life certainly did suck.

  But Rickard and Anna Berglund were still married. So were Tomas Winckler and Gunilla Winckler-Rysth. The vicar and his wife (though Rickard Berglund didn’t work in the church any more) lived in Kymlinge; they had left the vicarage out at Rödåkra and, since 2005, had lived at an address in Rosengatan. He had a job at Linderholm’s, the funeral directors, and his wife had been too ill to work for some time. Before that she was a freelance journalist. Predominantly for the Swedish Church Times.

  The Wincklers lived in Lindås, outside Gothenburg. They were both registered as self-employed, he in the travel business, she running some kind of consultancy.

  Elisabeth Martinsson – the loose horse, as Barbarotti had put it – was now living in Strömstad and was an illustrator by profession. She was still a loose horse, but had been married for a while (seven years) in the eighties, and had a daughter, born in 1983.

  The Berglunds had no children. The Wincklers had three.

  The children were of no significance for her purposes, thought Eva Backman, pushing away her notes. But that was the sort of extra information you found yourself with, when you engaged in this kind of ferreting.

  None of them had a criminal record, anyway. They all seemed financially stable, in the case of the Wincklers more than stable, but whether they still met socially at all, or whether there was – or had been – any unfinished business between them, was not something any of the databases could tell her.

  But that was always the way, thought Eva Backman. If you wanted to put any meat on people’s bones – or find the skeletons in their cupboards – you had to meet them face-to-face.

  If not to interview them formally, then at least for a little chat.

  About Gåsaklinten, for instance. Then and now.

  That was what detective work was about, or an important part of it, at any rate. Asking people questions and weighing their answers wisely. That was what it basically came down to. Quite simple, really.

  As regards Germund Grooth, who had shuffled off this mortal coil in Gåsaklyftan a few days earlier, Inspector Sorrysen had already dug out the basic details. She sorted through her sheets of paper to find the relevant one and studied it for a few minutes.

  He was registered as living in Lund, where he also worked. Had worked. Senior lecturer in theoretical physics, awarded a doctorate in 1983. Gradient Fragmentation Processes within Density Functional Theory. He’d have been thirty-five at the time, she calculated. Well, she guessed that was quite a standard age for completing a PhD. He was single, had never been married, and had lived at the same address in Prennegatan for the past twenty years. He had published various other things in his area of expertise; he’d presumably made his mark in academic circles.

  But no professorship, she noted. Ah well, not everyone could be a professor; it was pretty common knowledge that a lot of intrigue and scheming went on in the university world.

  As for what could have brought a solitary senior lecturer in physics to the forests around Kymlinge on a weekend in September, she would leave that for tomorrow.

  Unless it really was as simple as she had suggested to Barbarotti. That Germund Grooth wanted to end his days in the same place as his partner had done, three and a half decades earlier.

  Like hell he did, muttered DI Backman to herself. Then she yawned and realized the time had reached five.

  Sufficient unto the day, she thought. She switched off her desk lamp, left her room and started thinking about what she might make for dinner.

  Dinner for one. It felt like a contradiction in terms, somehow.

  11

  Maria the sparrow here.

  A week ago it was my twentieth birthday. I spent it very quietly.

  Mum and Dad wanted to come down but I put them off. I told them I was going to the Stockholm archipelago with some friends.

  The archipelago? In March? Mum queried, and I said they were stinking rich and the house was well insulated. They fell for it, especially Mum.

  Tomas and Gunilla wanted to organize a birthday dinner at their flat, but I told them the same lie.

  Friends? He must have thought. Have you got friends, little sparrow sister?

  But he didn’t say it. And he didn’t ask the friends’ names or which island their house was on.

  When I say I spent my twentieth birthday very quietly, it’s not the whole truth. I spent the evening with Germund in his flat in Tunabackar. We drank vodka and made love. He’s the best lover I’ve ever had and, before we fell asleep that night, I told him it had been my birthday. He took it exactly the way I would have done. Said it was a good thing I hadn’t said anything in advance, because buying presents had never really been his thing.

  We must have fucked for four hours; I never get tired of him, even though it’s one orgasm after another. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t go all ecstatic like other boys do.

  Ecstatic and weak. I don’t like that. Germund keeps his cool. He says the only things that really interest him are pure mathematics and physical love.

  I know exactly what he means. Pure mathematics and physical love. All that emotional outpouring that sloshes around between those two poles – no, it disgusts me. Its tackiness and lack of rigour make me feel physically sick. I demand precision in life.

  This is the only way Germund and I socialize. He phones or I do, to ask if we can meet up.

  He comes to my place or I go to his. Usually the latter; my room is so small and the walls are thin, and even though I know how to keep my orgasms silent, I’ve no wish to share my love life with the Holmberg family, who live in the rest of the house. Though I bet Mr Holmberg, whose first name is Arne, would find it rather stimulating. He’s given me a look or two, and Mrs Holmberg, whose other name I don’t actually know, seems more interested in her loom down in the basement than she is in her husband. When Germund and I fucked for the first time in my narrow bed we gradually got into the same rhythm as her, or she matched herself to ours, I don’t know which. Germund and I both thought it added extra zest.