style="font-size:15px;"> “Promise me instead...that you’ll take care of Mai.” Her mother had coughed out the sentences while frantically clawing at her arm until the fluid-filled blister had popped.
“No... I can’t do it myself!” Pim had said, starting to cry. “She’s only eight years old.”
“You’re fifteen. You can do it.”
Now Pim looked down at her hands, thinking of Mai and wondering what her little sister was doing that very moment. Was she sleeping? Did she feel alone or scared? But Pim was only going to be gone for five days, and soon, soon she would be home with Mai again.
Her lower lip started to quiver and she suddenly felt another, stronger pain—this one from the pills in her stomach.
I have to make sure I get home again, she thought.
* * *
Gunnar Öhrn sat at the desk in his office with his legs spread apart. He stretched his arms up and grunted when he felt the twinge in his shoulders. The pain went all the way up to what used to be his hairline. He felt too heavy and old, but he pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t have time to worry about things like that.
Investigation reports were piled on the bookshelf behind him. He was going to start somewhere in the middle, being effective and focused, reading carefully to shake off this feeling of tiredness.
He picked up folder after folder, flipping through a couple of documents in each one, but hadn’t gotten any further than this when there was a knock at the door. Anders Wester appeared with two coffee mugs in his hands.
“Did I wake you?” he said.
“What do you mean, wake me?” Gunnar asked.
“It looked like you were sleeping.”
“I was just thinking. Since when is that forbidden?”
“This damn weather.”
“I don’t feel like talking.”
Anders put the mugs on the table, sitting down in the chair across from Gunnar and resting his fingertips against each other.
“How is she?” Anders asked.
“Who?” Gunnar said.
“Anneli.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“She looks tired.”
“I’m not into small talk.”
“I just want to know how she is.”
“You shouldn’t give a damn about her, do you hear me?”
“Calm down,” Anders sneered. “I was just asking how she is.”
“And I’m working.”
Gunnar shifted his weight in his chair, feeling the sweat on his back seeping through the material of his shirt. He looked at Anders, who sat composed and still, hands now by his mouth, fingertips still pressed against each other. He had an expression of superiority on his face, a crooked smile visible at the corner of his mouth.
“Coffee?”
“Oh, are we going to take coffee breaks together now, too?”
“Here you go,” Anders said, pushing the mug toward Gunnar, who looked at it with disgust.
“I don’t understand how you can dare to come in here,” Gunnar said.
“I value your opinions,” Anders replied.
“You have nothing to do here.”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“To think that you have the balls to question our investigation.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“We’re doing ours, too.”
“Clearly not, because I’m here.”
“There must be another reason you’re here. I really want to tell you to go to hell.”
“I know.”
“But then I risk retaliation?”
“You might anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I just said.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Anders continued smiling, rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward.
“No, Gunnar. Why would I threaten you? I just want to make sure that you’re all doing a good job here in Norrköping.”
“I have worked in law enforcement my whole life. I know how to do a good job.”
“Then I’ll have to see that you do a better job, then.”
“You can sit here, leaning in to seem more dangerous,” Gunnar said, leaning back in his chair, “and you can say whatever you want. I’m still not going to listen.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Anders said.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think you do. It seems like you don’t understand the importance of cooperation. That we are going to cooperate. Regional and National Crime Squads. Norrköping and Stockholm. You and me, Gunnar.”
Gunnar didn’t want to hear any more. Sweat ran down his temples, but he didn’t dare wipe it away for fear of showing Anders how upset he really was.
“Obviously, we will cooperate,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You and me. Anything else I can do for you?”
Anders stood up.
“No,” he said, putting his hand out and giving Gunnar a firm handshake. Unnecessarily firm, for unnecessarily long.
And Gunnar responded.
Just as unnecessarily hard and for just as unnecessarily long.
HIS COAT SPARKLED with snowflakes.
Karl Berzelius stamped the snow from his shoes before he got into the taxi outside the Louis De Geer Concert Hall.
He raked his hand through his thick gray hair and straightened his coat underneath him.
Margaretha was already sitting in the backseat with her purse on her
