He’s just a lump of meat, she thinks.
One of the life-support machines is making a rhythmic, soporific bleeping sound. She knows she can’t just switch them off. The alarm would go off and the staff would be there in less than a minute.
Same thing if she were to try to smother him.
She looks at him. His eyes are moving restlessly beneath his closed eyelids. Perhaps he’s aware of her presence.
Perhaps he even understands why she’s there, without being able to do anything about it.
She puts her bag down at the end of the bed, opens it and takes out a small syringe, then goes over to the drips.
She reads the labels: MORPHINE and NUTRITION.
No sound but the rain outside and the respirator.
She holds up the syringe, sticks it into the top of the plastic bag of nutrients and squeezes in the contents. She removes the needle, then gently shakes the bag so that the morphine blends into the sugar solution.
When she’s finished, she fills a vase with water in the bathroom. Then she unwraps the tulips and puts them in the vase.
Before leaving the room she takes out her Polaroid camera.
The flash of the camera goes off at the same moment as another flash of lightning outside, the photograph comes out of the camera and the image gradually forms before her eyes.
She looks at the photograph.
The flash has completely bleached the walls and bed sheets, but Karl Lundstr?m’s body and the vase of yellow flowers are perfectly exposed.
Karl Lundstr?m. The man who abused his daughter for years. The man who had no regrets. The man who wanted to end his worthless life in a pathetic attempt to hang himself.
The man who even managed to fail at something anyone could manage.
Opening a milk carton.
But she can help him realise his intention. She can put an end to everything.
As she carefully opens the door she can hear his breathing getting slower.
Soon it will cease altogether and liberate a number of cubic metres of fresh air for the living to breathe.
Gamla Enskede – Kihlberg House
THEY’RE SITTING IN silence in the car. The only sounds are the windscreen wipers and the faint crackle of the police radio. Jens Hurtig is driving, and Jeanette is sitting in the back with Johan.
Hurtig turns onto the Enskede road and glances at Johan.
‘You’re looking OK.’ He smiles into the rear-view mirror.
Johan nods without speaking, then turns his head away and looks out of the window.
What happened to him? Jeanette wonders, and once again she’s on the verge of opening her mouth to ask him how he’s feeling. But this time she stops herself. She doesn’t want to put any pressure on him. Nagging won’t make him talk, and she knows that at this point the first move has to come from him. It will just have to run its own course. Maybe he doesn’t know anything about what happened, but she has a feeling there’s something he’s not saying.
The silence in the car feels oppressive as Hurtig pulls into the drive outside the house.
‘Mikkelsen called this morning,’ he says, switching off the engine. ‘Lundstr?m died last night. I just wanted to tell you before you read it in the evening papers.’
She feels herself slump. For a moment the heavy drumming of the rain on the windscreen makes her think that the car is still moving, even though she knows it’s parked in front of the garage door. Her only lead in the hunt for whoever killed the dead boys is gone.
‘Would you mind waiting here, please? I’ll be right back,’ she says, and opens the car door. ‘Come on, Johan. Let’s get you inside.’
Johan walks ahead of her through the garden, up the steps and into the hall. He takes his shoes off without saying anything, hangs up his wet jacket and goes into his room.
She stops for a moment, staring after him.
When she goes back down to the drive the rain has eased to a constant shower. Hurtig is standing next to the car, smoking.
‘It’s become a habit, then?’
He grins and passes her a cigarette.
‘So, Karl Lundstr?m died last night,’ she says.
‘Yes, it looks like his kidneys just gave out.’
Two corridors away. The same night Johan regained consciousness. ‘Nothing funny, then?’
‘No, probably not, more likely to be the result of all the medication they were pumping into him. Mikkelsen’s promised to let us have a report tomorrow, and … well, I just thought you should know.’
‘Nothing else?’ she asks.
‘No, nothing much. But he had a visitor just before he died. The nurse who found him said a bunch of flowers had appeared during the course of the evening. Yellow tulips. From his wife, or his solicitor. They were the only visitors registered yesterday evening.’
‘Annette Lundstr?m? Isn’t she in hospital?’
‘No, not in hospital. Isolated, though. Mikkelsen said that Annette Lundstr?m has hardly left their villa in Danderyd for several weeks now, other than to visit her husband. They went to see her this morning, to tell her what’s happened … evidently the house smells like it hasn’t been aired in weeks.’
Someone gave Karl Lundstr?m yellow flowers, Jeanette thinks. Yellow usually symbolises betrayal.
‘Am I a bad mother?’ she asks.
Hurtig laughs nervously. ‘No, for God’s sake. Johan’s a teenager now, after all. He ran off, met someone who gave him booze. He got drunk, it all went wrong and now he feels ashamed.’
Just trying to cheer me up, Jeanette thinks. But that’s not right.
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
But she can see that he isn’t.
‘No, Johan’s ashamed. You can see it on him.’
He leans against the bonnet. Maybe he’s right, Jeanette thinks. Hurtig drums his fingers on the car roof.
They say goodbye, and she goes back into the house. She gets a glass of water from the kitchen and takes it with her into Johan’s room.
He’s fallen asleep, so she puts the glass down on the bedside table and strokes his cheek.
Then she goes down into the basement, where she gathers together a load of Johan’s dirty clothes for the washing machine. His sports gear and football socks. And the shirts ?ke has left behind.
She pours in some detergent, shuts the door, then sits down in front of the rotating drum. Traces of an earlier life spin round before her eyes.
She thinks about Johan. Silent the whole way home. Not a word. Not a glance. He’s decided that she’s disqualified. And has consciously chosen to shut her out.
That hurts.
Vita Bergen – Sofia Zetterlund’s Apartment
SOFIA ZETTERLUND HAS done the cleaning, paid the bills and tried to take care of practical matters.
At lunchtime she calls Mikael.
‘So you’re still alive?’ She can hear how angry he sounds.
‘We need to talk …’
‘Now isn’t a good time. I’m on my way to a lunch meeting. Why don’t you call this evening instead? You know what my days are like.’
‘You’re pretty busy in the evening as well. I’ve left several messages –’