The radio went silent.
Or perhaps it hadn’t, and Sven’s cry had been there all the time.
‘She did it! Ewert! She’s blown up the person who was lying there.’
His voice was weak.
‘Did you hear me? Ewert! Shit, that all that’s left. Only shit!’
Lisa Ohrstrom was frightened. She had lived with a pain in her stomach for a long time, now a burning, screeching pain that forced her to stop mid-step to check if she could still breathe normally. She had seen the man who had presumably thrown the punches and let the wheelchair roll down the stairs, and knew that the images would haunt her for as long as she could endure living with them.
She hadn’t eaten anything, had tried a sandwich, then an apple, but it wasn’t any good. She couldn’t swallow, wasn’t producing any saliva.
She couldn’t quite take it in.
That he was dead now.
What she couldn’t work out was whether it was a relief to know exactly where he was, what he was
She spent more time thinking about how to make Jonathan and Sanna understand than anything else. They were Ylva’s children, but she loved them like her own. They were her substitute children, the children she’d never had herself.
Your Uncle Hilding is dead.
Your Uncle Hilding was killed when he fell down a staircase.
Lisa went back to the kitchen, needing the coffee she had made this morning. One of the policemen, who had been ordered to stay behind in the ward, had given in to her pleading and, in the end, told her more than he should. She had learnt more about the visitor with the shaved skull who had killed her brother, the man she had recognised in police identification photograph thirty-two. His name was Lang; he was a professional hitman, someone who was paid to threaten and use violence. He had been charged with crimes of violence quite a few times, and in many more cases had been suspected and arrested but gone free because the witnesses had changed their minds about testifying. That was how these people worked, using threats to instil fear, because frightened people don’t talk.
Jochum stayed in the car outside the hospital entrance, but didn’t bother to look round after Slobodan. The guy was no doubt running around trying to be boss, getting a hard-on because it was him who was tidying up after Jochum this time.
I shouldn’t have been seen, he said to himself, but that’s what happens, sooner or later you take your eye off the ball, and risk your position. The little guys are after you in a flash, they forget quickly and need to be reminded.
He turned the ignition key to check the time. The figures lit up. Twenty minutes. More than enough. Slobodan should’ve had time to tell her a thing or two.
Lisa was leaning against the kitchen sink. The coffee was stronger than it should be but she drank some all the same. It felt good to be able to swallow. She wasn’t even halfway through her list of patients. A long day ahead, as if the morning hadn’t been enough.
She was just about to put the cup down when the ward sister came in, flushed and agitated.
‘Dr Ohrstrom! Shouldn’t you go home?’
‘Not alone. I couldn’t bear it, Ann-Marie. I’ll stay here.’
The sister shook her head slowly. She still looked flushed.
‘A patient has been murdered and you saw it. Shouldn’t you get in touch with the staff counsellor? At the very least?’
‘Patients often die.’
‘It was your brother.’
‘Ann-Marie, my brother died a long time ago.’
The ward sister looked at Lisa and gently touched her cheek.
‘There’s someone here to see you.’
Lisa caught the other woman’s eye, as she drained the remains of the coffee.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. But I don’t like the look of him.’
‘A patient?’
‘No.’
Ann-Marie sat down at the table with its red-and-white-checked tablecloth.
‘And what does he want?’
‘No idea. But he wouldn’t go away. Needed to talk to you, he said.’
As Lisa pulled a chair up to the table, she felt the floor under her feet move and heard the cups in the cupboards rattle.
It felt like the whole place was shaking.
She knew that parts of the hospital had been evacuated, but did not know why. The kitchen was shuddering and she had the distinct impression that a bomb had gone off. Not that she had ever experienced a bomb blast, but that was her only thought in the after-shock of the explosion.
Jochum Lang turned the key again, checked the time, started the windscreen wipers so he could see out while he waited. What a day. The rain was set to carry on until after dark.
Then it happened.
He heard it clearly, a dull thud from somewhere inside the hospital. He turned around, tried to peer through the wet glass of the automatic doors. Explosives. He had no doubt. It was that kind of noise.
He prepared himself for more, but that was it. Just the one bang and then silence.
The room was too brightly lit. The bloody overhead light had irritated Ewert ever since he came into the Casualty operating theatre and started to move things that were in the way. He had just heard the noise of a human body exploding, followed by Sven’s desperate shouts over the radio.
Bloody lights, he thought. Can’t stand it for a moment longer. How can anyone live with all this light? He sat down, then stood up again and almost ran across the room, past the trolley where Edvardson and Hermansson were standing, threw himself at the switch and turned off the light.
A quiet moment. No exploding bodies. No prostitutes taking charge of other people’s lives. A quiet moment. The light, his irritation, the dark, the light switch were all tangible things he could understand. And he needed to understand if he was to fathom what had happened. Just a quiet moment.
It was still light enough for them to see each other. Ewert started pacing again; he needed his circling and forgot the darkened lamps. Concentrated on his breathing, felt the blood return to his face. He stopped when he reached the corner where Bengt was sitting with the earphones still on, and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
‘Call her.’
The shaking stopped as abruptly as it had started. Lisa Ohrstrom was still at the table. She leaned forward and put her hand on top of the ward sister’s.
‘Ann-Marie.’
‘Yes?’
‘Where is he?’
‘Outside your office. He frightens me. I can’t think why, but what with Mr Oldйus being murdered and the police snooping about all morning…I don’t know, it’s too much.’
Lisa was silently looking at the red-and-white-checked pattern on the tablecloth when there was a knock on the door. She turned. A man, dark hair and moustache, slightly overweight. She caught a glimpse of Ann-Marie nodding. It was him.
‘Sorry to trouble you.’
His voice was soft, his tone friendly.
