bang when one of the doors up front slammed against the car; it sounded like fireworks and as if the rain was hitting the car much harder. Diagonally above her she saw that the window had cracked but held together anyway, so no pieces of glass fell down on her or onto the backseat.
Everyone was shouting and screaming, and she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She listened for Mommy but couldn’t hear her. The car swerved back and forth, and now they were driving again. There was something like a scream from underneath the car; she heard it because she was lying so close to it. And now she heard one of the men sitting in the backseat and it sounded as if he was crying. It was strange to hear a man making that kind of sound. This was a game she didn’t like.
1
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand over the stubble on his face, his head heavy from something between sleeping and waking. Then he walked across the wooden floor to the shower and stood there, waiting for the water to warm. Wuss, he thought to himself.
He lathered up, feeling his testicles tighten. Two nights before, Angela had come home from a double shift at the hospital. In the morning hours they’d played the beast with two backs, and he’d felt young again and strong; the orgasm had surged through him for so long that he’d cried out.
But when he moved afterward, it was with the relaxed motion of an old man. She lay on her side and looked at him. Yet again he gazed in awe at the contours of her hips, at her hair, which partially concealed her face. The ends were wet, of a darker hue.
“You think you’re using me, but it’s the other way around,” she said, and twirled her finger slowly in the thick hair on his chest.
“Surely nobody here’s using anyone.”
“But I’ve come to the conclusion that we need something more than just sex.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
“The fact that we need more than just sex?”
“The suggestion that all we do is have sex.”
“Well, what else do we do, then?” She took her finger away from his chest.
“Well, right now, for example, we’re having a conversation. A conversation about our relationship.”
“It might be the first time ever.” She sat up in bed. “One conversation for ten couplings.”
“You’re kidding me now.”
“Maybe, but just a little. I want something…”
“Like what?”
“Erik.”
“Maturity?”
“Yes.”
“That I should take responsibility for the family I haven’t got yet?”
“This just isn’t enough for me anymore.”
“Not even when you get to use me?”
“Not even then.”
He was thirty-seven and an inspector at the district CID, in homicide. He’d made inspector at the age of thirty- five, a record in Gothenburg and the whole of Sweden, but it meant nothing to him other than that he didn’t have to take orders as often as he used to.
Now he sat alone at the kitchen table, with two slices of toast and a cup of tea, the sweat returning to his hairline as the heat seeped in through the blinds. The thermometer on the shady side of the balcony read eighty- five degrees and it was just eleven o’clock. He had four days left of his second round of vacation. He was going to continue relaxing.
The telephone rang on the hall table, so he left the kitchen and said his name into the receiver.
“This is Steve, if you remember.” The voice was Scottish.
“How could anyone forget the knight from Croydon?”
Steve Macdonald was a detective chief inspector in South London, and they had worked together on a difficult case earlier in the year. They had become friends-at least Winter saw it that way.
“If anyone’s a knight here, it’s you,” Macdonald said. “Shining armor and all that.”
“I think that’s history now.”
“What?”
“I’m unshaven. And I haven’t had a haircut for months.”
“Did I make such a powerful impression on you? As for me, I’ve been over on Jermyn Street, looking for a Baldessarini suit. Thought it might command more respect. If you’d stayed at the station much longer, they would have started taking orders from you.”
“How’d it work out?”
“What?”
“Did you find a suit?”
“No. Mere mortals can’t afford the stuff you wear. I have to ask you again, by the way-is it true that you don’t pine for your monthly paycheck like the rest of us?”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Something you said last spring.”
“Clearly, I didn’t listen carefully enough to what I was saying.”
“So you do depend on your paycheck?”
“What do you think? I’ve got a little money in the bank, but no great sum.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know. I just wondered.”
“So that’s why you called?”
“Actually, I called to hear how you’re doing. It was tough going last spring.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“What?”
“How’s it going?”
“It’s hot. Summer’s supposed to be over. I’m still on vacation.”
Winter heard the static breaking up the signal as it crossed the heated waters, then Macdonald clearing his throat softly.
“Give us a call sometime.”
“I might come over before Christmas to do a bit of shopping,” Winter said.
“Cigarettes? Shirts?”
“Jeans, I was thinking.”
“Careful that you don’t end up like me.”
“I could say the same.”
They said good-bye, and Winter hung up. Suddenly he felt dizzy and grabbed hold of the tabletop. After a few seconds everything around him settled down, and he went back to the kitchen and took a sip of his tea, which had gone cold. He considered brewing a fresh pot but instead took the cup and saucer to the sink.
He put on a pair of shorts and a cotton shirt and slipped his feet into a pair of sandals. Just when he grabbed
