spins him around.
“Let go of me, Pops,” says the boy, looking him straight in the eye.
“Don’t you know it’s against the law to demand money from people?”
Kennet is looking into a pair of slippery, surprisingly calm eyes.
“Your surname is Johansson,” says Kennet, glancing at the door.
“That’s right.” The boy smiles. “What’s your name?”
“Detective Inspector Kennet Sträng.”
The boy simply stands there looking at him, showing no sign of fear.
“How much money have you taken from Nicky?”
“I don’t take any money. If people want to give it to me, that’s their business. I don’t take it. Everybody’s happy, nobody’s upset.”
“I’m going to have a word with your parents.”
“Whatever.”
“Shall I do that?”
“Oh, no, please don’t,” says the boy mockingly.
Kennet rings the bell, and he and the boy wait until the door is opened by a fat sunburned woman.
“Good afternoon,” says Kennet. “I’m a detective inspector, and I’m afraid your son is in a bit of trouble.”
“My son? I haven’t got any children,” she says.
Kennet notices that the boy is gazing at the floor, smiling.
“You don’t know this boy?”
“Could I see your police ID, please?” the fat woman says.
“This boy is—”
The boy interrupts. “He hasn’t got any ID.”
“Oh, yes, I have,” Kennet lies.
“He’s not a cop,” says the boy, taking out his wallet. “Here’s my bus pass, I’m more of a cop than—”
Kennet grabs the boy’s wallet.
“Give that back.”
“I just want to take a look,” says Kennet.
“He said he wanted to suck my dick,” says the boy.
“I’m calling the police,” says the woman, sounding scared.
Kennet pushes the lift button. The woman looks around, hurries out, and starts banging on the doors of the other apartments.
“He gave me money,” the boy tells her, “but I didn’t want to go with him.”
The lift doors glide open. A neighbour opens the door with the security chain on.
“You damn well better leave Nicky alone in future,” says Kennet quietly.
“He’s mine,” the boy replies.
The woman is shouting for the police. Kennet gets in the lift, presses the green button, and the doors close. Sweat is pouring down his back. The boy must have noticed he was tailing him from the fountain, and tricked him into following him all the way to a strange apartment. The lift moves slowly downward, the light flashes, the steel cables above bang loudly. Kennet looks inside the boy’s wallet: almost a thousand kronor, a membership card for a video shop, a bus pass, and a creased blue card with THE SEA, LOUDDSVÄGEN 18 on it.
59
sunday, december 13 (feast of st lucia): afternoon
A giant smiling sausage has been erected on top of the diner; with one hand it gives a thumbs-up, with the other it covers itself with ketchup. Erik orders a burger with fries, sits down on one of the high stools at the narrow counter by the window, and looks out through the misty glass. There is a locksmith on the opposite side of the street; his Christmas decorations consist of knee-high elves frolicking among an assortment of safes, locks, and keys.
Four hours ago, Joona called to tell him they had missed Josef again. He had been in the cellar but had escaped. There was nothing to suggest that Benjamin had been there. On the contrary, preliminary DNA results indicated that Josef had been alone in the room the whole time.
A bone-deep fatigue comes over him. Josef Ek wants to harm me. He’s jealous, he hates me, he’s got it into his head that Evelyn and I have a sexual relationship, and now he’s determined to take his revenge on me. But he doesn’t know where I live. In the letter he demands that Evelyn tell him. You are going to show me where he lives, he wrote. If Josef doesn’t know where I live, he wasn’t the one who got into our apartment and dragged Benjamin out.
Erik opens his bottle of mineral water, takes a sip, and calls home. He hears his own voice on the answering machine, exhorting himself to leave a message. He cuts the connection and calls Simone’s mobile instead. She doesn’t answer.
“Hi, Simone,” he says to her voicemail. “Look, I do think you ought to accept police protection. Apparently, Josef Ek is very angry with me. But that’s it, as far as we know. He didn’t take Benjamin.”
He gulps down a mouthful of hamburger, aware suddenly of the gnawing emptiness in his stomach. He spears the crisply fried potatoes on his plastic fork, thinking about Joona’s face when he read Josef’s letter to Evelyn. It was as if the temperature in the room had fallen. The pale grey eyes became like ice, but with an uncompromising sharpness. Erik tries to recall Evelyn’s face, her exact words when she suddenly realised Josef had returned to the house. Mulling it over, Erik decides she didn’t deliberately fail to mention the secret room but had simply forgotten about it.
He eats some more of the burger, wipes his hands on the paper napkin, and makes another attempt to get hold of Simone. Not only does she need to be told that it wasn’t Josef Ek who took Benjamin, but he also wants to ask what else she can recall from the night Benjamin was abducted. Despite his relief at finding that his son is not in Josef Ek’s hands, he knows they have to start all over again, think the whole thing through from the beginning. He opens a notebook, writes Aida’s name on it, then changes his mind and tears out the sheet. It’s Simone he needs to talk to. She must remember more, he says to himself, she must have seen something. Joona had interviewed her, but she hadn’t remembered anything else. Of course, they’d been concentrating on Josef then.
His mobile phone rings and he puts down the burger, wipes his hands again, and answers without looking at the display.
“Erik Maria Bark.”
There is a dull crackling, roaring noise.
“Hello?” says Erik, more loudly this time.
Suddenly he hears a faint voice. “Dad?”
The hot oil hisses as the basket of potatoes is lowered in.
“Benjamin?” A
