inside the narrow dark space, divided by two shelves.
There wasn’t much to see.
Two dresses in a plastic bag. A photo album with black-and-white studio photographs of relatives wearing their nicest clothes and nervous smiles. A cigar box full of Swedish paper money in one- or five- hundred kronor notes. He counted quickly. Forty thousand kronor.
The estate of Lydia Grajauskas.
He held on to the metal door. It struck him that her life had been stored in this box, what little past she still had, as well as her stake in the future, her hope, her escape, her sense of existing somewhere other than in that flat, in a real place.
Sven Sundkvist put the things he had found into his briefcase.
Then he reached up to the top shelf and took down a video with a label on the back in Cyrillic script.
She had run after him, across the courtyard, through the hallway and out on to Hogalid Street. He stopped there, barefoot and tearful. She loved him and hugged him close and carried him home in her arms, saying his name over and over again. He was Jonathan, her nephew, and what she felt for him must surely be what you feel for your own child.
Lisa Ohrstrom stroked his hair; she had to go soon. It was late and dark, as dark as it could be a few weeks before midsummer; darkness was gently edging into what had been daylight until now. She kissed his cheek. Sanna had already gone to bed. Ylva was there and she met her sister’s eyes before closing the door behind her.
There were so few of them left. Their father was gone, and now Hilding. She had seen it coming, of course, and now there it was, the enveloping loneliness.
She decided to walk. She had been there before and knew the way, across Vдster Bridge, along Norr Mдlarstrand, then through side streets to the City Police building. It would take half an hour or so, not long on a summer’s night. She knew that he usually worked late, he had said so, and he was that sort, one of those who didn’t have anything else. He would sit hunched over the investigation that had to be completed, just as the week before there had been an investigation to complete and next week would bring another one to serve as a reason for not leaving the office.
She phoned to tell him that she was coming. He replied quickly, sounded as if he was expecting her, possibly even certain that she would come.
He met her at the main entrance and led the way along a dark, stale-smelling corridor, his uneven steps slapping and resounding against the walls. Christ, how grim it was. How strange that anyone should choose to work in surroundings like these. She looked at him from behind, broad and overweight, a bald patch on the back of his head, his limping, slightly bent body. How odd that he should seem strong, but he did; at least in this shabby place he radiated the kind of strength that gives a sense of security, the result of having made a choice. Which was what he had done, he had actually chosen to work in this place.
Ewert Grens ushered her into his office and offered her a seat in his visitor’s chair. She looked around and thought it a bleak room. The only things with a personality setting them apart from the dull, mass-produced office furniture were an ancient monster of a ghetto-blaster and a sofa, ugly and sagging, which she felt sure he often slept on.
‘Coffee?’
He didn’t really mean it, but knew that he should ask.
‘No thank you. I’m not here to drink coffee.’
‘I guessed not. Anyway.’
He raised a plastic cup half full of what looked like black coffee from a machine and drank the lot.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘You don’t seem surprised. To see me.’
‘I’m not surprised. But I am pleased.’
Lisa Ohrstrom realised that what had come over her, what was tugging at her mind, was tiredness. She had been so tense. Now she relaxed as much as she dared to and the recent past weighed heavily on her.
‘I don’t want to see any more of your photographs. I don’t want any more images of people I don’t know and never want to know thrust in my face. I’ve had enough. I’ll testify. I will identify Lang as the man who came to see my brother yesterday.’
Lisa Ohrstrom put her elbows on the desk, leaning forward with her chin on her clasped hands. So very tired. Home soon.
‘But there’s one thing I want you to know. It wasn’t only the threats that made me hold back. Quite a long time ago I decided that I would never again allow Hilding and his addiction to influence how I lived. This last year, I haven’t been there for him any more, but it didn’t make any difference. I still couldn’t escape him. Now that he’s dead, he still drains me of strength, perhaps more than ever. So I might as well testify.’
Ewert Grens tried to keep the smile from his face. This was it, obviously.
Closure.
‘Nobody is blaming you.’
‘I don’t need your pity.’
‘Your choice, but that’s how it is. Nobody blames you because you didn’t know what to do.’
Grens went over to root among his audiotapes, found what he wanted and put it into the player. Siw Malmkvist. She was sure it would be.
‘One thing more. Who threatened you?’
Siw Malmkvist. She had just taken the hardest decision in her life and he was listening to Siw Malmkvist.
‘That’s not important. I will stand witness. But on one condition.’
Lisa Ohrstrom stayed where she was, chin resting on her hands. She was leaning forward, getting closer to him.
‘My nephew and niece. I want them to have protection.’
‘They already have protection.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They have been under protection ever since the identity parade. I know, for instance, that you went to see them today. One of the kids ran outside without his shoes on. And they will continue to be protected, of course.’
Fatigue paralysed her. She yawned without even trying to hide it.
‘I must get home now.’
‘I’ll get someone to drive you. In a plain car.’
‘Please, to Hogalid Street. To Jonathan and Sanna. They’ll be asleep.’
‘I suggest that we step up the level of protection and put someone inside the flat as well. Do you agree?’
Evening had really come.
Darkness. Silence, as if the whole big building were empty.
She looked at the policeman and his tape recorder; he was humming along, knew the jolly tune and the meaningless text by heart.
He sang under his breath and she felt sorry for him.
FRIDAY 7 JUNE
He had never liked the dark.
Winter darkness that lasted for an eternity had been part of his childhood in Kiruna, well to the north of the Arctic Circle, and police college in Stockholm had meant a series of night shifts, but he couldn’t resign himself to the dark, couldn’t get used to it. To him, the dark would never be beautiful.
He was standing in the sitting room, looking out through the window at the dense forest. The June night lay as
