And what I just saw must be a sign, mustn’t it, the scratching of white spiders’ legs with rabbits’ claws in the dust of the bed. Shall I rattle the rabbits’ claws above her neck? Is that what you want?
I’ll try with the claws. They’ll tear you again. I’ll scrub with the milky white, that’s what I’ll do. Your skin will be a white dress. Impossible to trace, of course. Like the dildo. I bought it with cash down in the city last year. He said he’d sold a lot of them. I knew it would come in handy.
I’ll show you. She will become you, you will become her.
You’re leading me in the right direction, Malin Fors. Pain breeds pain which breeds love again. You mentioned your daughter on television. Why? She must be your whole world. Isn’t she?
I just hope she’s the right age.
My summer angel.
The pure love of summertime angels.
I can see it in you.
You’re longing for resurrected love, just like me.
I’m going to escape my longing, and yours will begin.
Balance.
Maybe that’s what’s missing?
What I’ve been missing?
What we’ve been missing.
52
Markus.
It’s odd. First she couldn’t be without him, then everything became sort of normal; not boring or anything, just normal. He didn’t exactly turn into a friend, but it wasn’t like it was at the start either.
Tove knew that she wouldn’t miss him in Bali, she just knew, and she knew what that meant.
It’s hotter at home that it was there.
And the light is ten times sharper.
It’s a good thing I’ve got good sunglasses.
Mum doesn’t like wearing sunglasses, she thinks they distort reality. I like it when the world gets a bit more yellow.
Her heart is pounding in her chest as she stands up to pedal up the hill into Ramshall, past the brick villas and the big wooden houses occupied by the most prominent of the city’s inhabitants.
Markus’s mum and dad are people like that. Doctors, both of them. She’d liked that as well to start with; their big house, not at all like at home, it was a bit like one of the books she’d read: the girl of the people, the man better off, like a prince or duke.
But the house became normal as well, it wasn’t like in any of the books. Bali. That wasn’t normal.
On her way to the house and Markus now. He wanted to come up with something to do, and he must have been able to tell from her voice over the phone last night that she wasn’t sure. She thought about it last night as she was falling asleep. How she somehow can’t imagine seeing Markus the way she used to. Of course they can meet up, but not like that.
How to say that to him?
It’s like she means more to him.
A white van drives past her, slowly, presumably looking for an address, probably a gardener.
Finally, their white brick villa. The big apple trees look sad, the trunks look like they’re about to crack in the heat. The front door opens before she’s even had time to park her bike on the path.
Markus.
Thin and pale, and he smiles.
Tove smiles back, thinking: Hope my smile looks genuine. It’s good that he can’t see my eyes.
Then she thinks: Is it always like this? That when you aren’t in love any more everything is just flat? Isn’t there anything else?
Karin Johannison is in her office, feeling restless. She gets up, sits down, puts her feet up on the desk, her pink painted toenails perfectly matching the narrow pink stripes of her Prada sandals. She bought them in Milan back in the spring, when she and Kalle were there on a shopping trip.
Restless.
Karin doesn’t know why, but one of the reasons is probably that she and Kalle had sex like idiots all night, they had the windows open and the night heat, damp but somehow fresh, had made them wilder than usual.
She can feel him inside her still, wants him inside her now, is that why she can’t sit still?
They don’t really talk to each other much any more.
Not about anything.
And certainly not about the fact that they have never been able to have children, in spite of a thousand doctors and as many appointments. Instead they fuck. They’ve been doing that ever since they first met, and now their fucking is confirmation, that they’re OK, that they still look at each other, and Karin thinks that that gets them a long way, but only a child can get you all the way.
Wordless love is nothing to be afraid of. Words don’t get you far anyway.
But there’s something more than her residual lust that’s making her restless.
Have I missed something important?
Is that why I feel restless?
Karin sits down, switches on the computer, reads through her report about Josefin Davidsson. Watertight.
She reads through her report about Theresa Eckeved.
Probably murdered out at the beach.
Why?
No marks on the body to suggest it had been moved after death.
The soil under her nails matched the soil found at the scene, in both structure and content.
But.
