The Beast

alongside the barbed-wire fence or playing football. In a far corner he spotted two men strolling very slowly, with oddly jerky movements. It was Lindgren and his henchman, obviously still too high to walk normally.

Micaela had left early. He must have been asleep. Night after night he performed the same ritual of listening to the sounds coming through the window until the town slowly started to wake up, the noises made by the first newspaper boys, the first lorries. Then, at about half past five, he fell asleep. His body gave in at last, exhausted by the restless hours when his mind had been crowded with thoughts. Suspended in empty space, he dreamed on until late in the morning.

Vague mental images of the morning; Micaela lying naked on him and him not responding, her whispering you boring old thing, kissing his cheek, leaving him for the shower; Marie's room on the other side of the bathroom wall, the hissing of water through the pipes awakening her and David; Micaela making them all breakfast while he stayed put, his legs refusing to get him out of bed, then slowly slipping back into that isolated space and dreaming again.

At eleven o'clock he was woken by the shrieks and yells of the creatures in one of Marie's videos and finally got up.

He must start sleeping at night. He couldn't carry on like this.

Couldn't.

He no longer did any work, and he didn't engage with the people close to him. The morning used to be his best time for writing, either at home or in his writer's den on Arno Island. Not any more. Marie had learned to amuse herself in the mornings. Thank God, Micaela worked in Marie's nursery school and had persuaded her colleagues that it was fine for the child not to turn up until after lunch, day after day.

But he felt so ashamed, like an alcoholic who's promised eternal sobriety in the evening and wakes up with a hangover the morning after. And his head ached.

Tomorrow would be different.

'Hello, Daddy.'

His lovely little daughter. He lifted her up.

'Hello, sweetheart. Am I getting a morning kiss?'

Marie pressed her moist lips against his cheek.

'David's gone now.'

'Has he?'

'His daddy came to pick him up.'

But they know I'm a responsible person, he thought, they know me. Oh, never mind. He shrugged and put Marie down.

'Have you had anything to eat?'

'Micaela gave us things.'

'But that was hours ago. Aren't you hungry?'

'I want to eat in school.'

How long did they keep the food for the children? It was quarter past one now. Ten minutes to get dressed, five minutes to get there if they took the car.

'So you shall. Let's get dressed.'

Fredrik pulled on a pair of jeans and a white shirt. A bit warm for a hot day, but he felt he looked silly in shorts, his legs were so pale. Marie came running to show him a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

'Fine, that's nice. And which shoes?'

'The red ones.'

He put them on her feet and fastened the metal buckles with some kind of buttons underneath.

Ready to go.

The phone rang.

'Daddy. The phone!'

'Leave it. We must go.'

'Wait.'

Marie ran to pick up the phone in the kitchen, standing on tiptoe in her shiny red shoes to reach. Her face lit up when she heard who it was.

'Daddy, it's Mummy!'

He nodded, and listened while Marie told a long story about the Big Bad Wolf and how it chased the pigs but they won anyway, and how they'd run out of bath foam except they hadn't, because she knew where there was another bottle, two bottles, on the bottom shelf in the cupboard. She was laughing most of the time. Then she gave the receiver a smacking kiss and handed it to him.

'It's for you. Mummy wants to talk.'

His mind was still too drowsy to separate the woman's voice he heard now from his body's memory of the naked Micaela. The voice belonged to Agnes, a woman he had once desired more than anyone else and who had asked him to leave her; her voice and the sensation of Micaela's young body drifted together and merged, and he felt slightly dizzy and breathless. Then he had a strong erection and turned away, Marie mustn't see it.

'Yes?'

'When are you turning up?'

'What do you mean?'

'Marie is with me today.'

'No she isn't. It's not until Monday. We swapped, remember?'

'We did nothing of the sort.'

He was too tired. Not now. Not today.

'Agnes, this is too much. I'm tired and in a hurry. I won't argue, Marie is just next to me.'

He handed the receiver to Marie, at the same time twirling his hands in the air. It was their special sign for being in a hurry.

'Mummy, I can't. I'm late for school.'

Agnes was too good a mother to show Marie how irritated she was. She always put Marie's interests first and he loved her for it.

'Bye, Mummy. Must go now.'

She didn't quite manage to put the receiver back and it crashed against the top of the microwave oven. He caught hold of it.

'There, sweetheart. Let's go!'

He caught sight of the kitchen clock. They could still be there by half past one and they would let her stay until quarter past five. It meant she would get her lunch, though a bit late, and then she could play outside for a bit in the afternoon. It would feel almost like a whole day and she'd be pleased when he picked her up.

Half past one. Sven stared at the green alarm clock on Ewert's desk. Technically, he had been off duty for two hours. The bottles of wine and the gateau were waiting for him in the car. He was ready to go home, he wanted to be with Anita and Jonas, have a nice meal with them. It was his fortieth, after all.

Sven felt that working for the Metropolitan Police was much less important now than he used to think. Once, not that long ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to work on his wedding night, even to divorce, rather than compromise about taking on the late shifts.

He had begun to confide in Ewert how he felt now, especially during the last year, when they had become closer. Sven had tried to explain his totally out-of-order indifference about which moron had carried out which moronic offence, and whether it was that one or some other useless bugger who was arrested for it. Tough. Shit happens. He was a man in his middle age but ready for retirement, he was bored with the detecting and the caring. All he wanted to do was things like relaxing over breakfast in the garden, taking long walks on the beach and being there for Jonas when he came running home from school with his young life in his backpack.

Twenty years of work done, twenty-five more to go. It practically made him hyperventilate, just thinking of that unbearable passage of time inside dull police stations, among the files of incomplete bloody awful investigations.