Her parents looked at her.
I am the father of a genius, thought Winter.
“Where did you get that from, Elsa?” asked Angela.
“You had to say something with ‘nose,’ right? My day-care teacher told us the story of the nosy boy.”
“So you didn’t mean that Papa and I were talking about knowing about noses?”
Winter saw that Elsa didn’t understand the question, and he relaxed.
“Did your teacher tell you what nosiness means?” he asked.
“I forget.”
“What does it actually mean?” asked Angela, looking at him.
“That you take too many liberties,” said Winter.
“You’re taking too many liberties here,” said the man who said that his name was Sigge Lindsten and that he was Anette Lindsten’s father. “Even for the police.”
Aneta Djanali didn’t answer. She still felt dizzy. If there had been anything to take hold of, she would have grabbed it.
“Are you okay?” asked the man.
“Could I have a glass of water?”
The man seemed to make a decision. He no longer looked unsympathetic. Maybe he never had.
“Come in,” he said.
She took off her shoes in the hall. She could smell some plant, a scent she recognized but couldn’t place.
When she followed the man to the kitchen she remembered that she had smelled the same scent in the apartment that two men were in the process of emptying in front of her. Crazy. Just crazy.
She felt the dizziness again.
“Please sit down,” said the man. He filled a glass with water. “Here,” he said.
She drank. She saw the wind move in a tree outside, maybe a maple. The wind had increased the last few days, like a growling promise of autumn. She didn’t look forward to it.
She suddenly spun again. Am I becoming seriously ill? she thought.
“Now, what’s this about Anette?” said Sigge Lindsten.
That’s my question, she thought.
“Is Anette home?” she asked.
“Not at the moment,” said the man.
She looked around.
“Is your wife home?”
“She’s not home at the moment either,” he said.
“Could I see some identification?” asked Aneta.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Identification. I’m sorry, but this is all a bit confusing, and I will explain soon. But first I have to be certain that you’re the-”
“Good Lord,” interrupted the man, “I’ll get my wallet. This should be interesting to hear.”
He went out into the hall and came back with his wallet and held it out, and she saw his driver’s license in a plastic sleeve. It was in the name of a Sigvard Lindsten, and the relatively recent photograph showed the man who stood before her.
“Thanks,” she said.
He closed his wallet.
“Have you heard of Hans Forsblad?” she asked.
“Isn’t it my turn to ask some questions?” said Lindsten.
“Just answer this one.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“That piece of shit wouldn’t dare come here. If he did, it would be the last thing he did.”
“When did Anette move out of the apartment in Kortedala?”
“That’s another question.”
“I’ll explain soon,” said Aneta.
Lindsten suddenly seemed to lose interest in the conversation. He turned toward the counter and turned on the faucet and turned it off again.
“When?” repeated Aneta.
“What?”
“When did she move?”
“She hasn’t moved,” said Lindsten. “Not officially. She has left the apartment but she hasn’t given notice yet.”
Good God, thought Aneta.
Time to explain.
Lindsten had made himself a cup of coffee. Aneta had declined. She had called dispatch and reported a break- in. She had called the local police.
She had felt like an idiot the whole time.
Would Fredrik have asked for identification first off if he had been her and had come up to Anette’s apartment and met a nice but worried dad and a sulky brother? She wasn’t sure. She would ask him.
It was an interesting psychological situation. She had wandered right into it. The man who had claimed he was Sigge Lindsten had shown exceptional presence of mind in this situation. Exceptional. She had been under his command. The younger man had been under his command. When she thought back to the hour or so she had spent in the apartment, she realized how skillfully he had handled everything. Almost an hour! They were in the process of emptying an entire apartment and the cops knock on the door and they offer coffee and wave good-bye in the end!
It was comical, but it was also something else.
She had exposed herself.
To the two men.
And to Hans Forsblad. If it had in fact been him.
Was that man also someone else?
“Do you have a picture of Forsblad in the house?”
Lindsten went and got a photograph without a frame. A young woman and a young man, trying to outdo each other’s smiles. It was possible that several years had gone by since, but she recognized Forsblad from the meeting in that damn apartment.
It struck her that this was the first time she’d seen Anette, really seen her. She had come here without having a face in mind. That was unusual for her. The first time. But she had also come here. Something had
Suddenly she thought of death. She thought of her own death. She felt the sharp but fleeting sense of dizziness again, as though she had been dragged down into an abyss, a darkness.
Something told her that she ought to run away from these people, these events. Run away from everything,
Anette Lindsten had regular features that tried to make her beautiful but didn’t really succeed. Aneta held the picture in her hand. Anette’s face was long, and the impression was intensified by her hair, which hung free. She was wearing a dress that was bigger than it needed to be. Anette and Hans were sitting on a bench, and it wasn’t possible to determine how tall Anette was. The man was of an average build, well over six feet.
Anette held a Popsicle that was in the process of melting.
The picture was taken on a street with cars parked on it. A store was visible behind the couple, but she couldn’t see the name. A child was on the way into the store, maybe on the way to the ice cream counter. There were sharp shadows in the photograph. Somewhere outside the picture was a sharp sun.
“It was taken a few summers ago,” said Sigge Lindsten.
Aneta nodded.
“And now it’s probably time to go to Kortedala and see the damage,” said Lindsten.
