his headlights, all pointless of course. Then he phoned the ferry. It was quieter than usual and the ferryman heard it ring. Fredrik managed to explain enough and was promised that they would come straight back for him.
Why had he taken Marie to that fucking school?
Why hadn't they simply stayed at home? It had been half past one already.
Fredrik watched as the ferry reached the other side of the narrow straits, looked at the time that kept moving on unbearably. Marie had not been there, not inside the school and not outside either, and he thought of his little daughter, who had grown into a human being while he had been with her; maybe she'd grown too fast. Once Agnes had left, it was Marie who received all his deepest love; he offered up all the old feeling for Agnes, for everyone, to Marie and she alone had to cope with that concentrated love, and she stored it and also somehow returned it. More than once he'd thought it wasn't fair; no one should be made to represent other people and forced to hold more love than there was room for; a five-year-old is not very big after all.
He phoned Micaela again. No reply. And the same again. Her telephone must be switched off. The signals rang out and then a tinny voice asked him to leave a message.
He hadn't cried for a long time, not even when Agnes moved out. There had been times he'd actually tried but it was impossible; it was as if his reservoir of tears had dried up. Thinking back he realised that as an adult he had never wept; the flow had been turned off. Until now.
Perhaps that was why he still hadn't quite taken in what was happening to him, the gut-wrenching fear that wouldn't let go and the damnable tears streaming down his cheeks. He had imagined that weeping might be a relief, but it was not, only something that poured out uncontrollably, leaving a huge empty space inside him.
The yellow-and-green ferry came chugging back empty, making a thumping noise as it hit the two rusty steel cables which served as mobile rails in the water. The closer it came, the louder the noise. He waved towards the cabin, he always greeted the ferryman, and drove on board. The water spread out all around him as the ferry moved placidly along its set route.
The images kept passing through in his mind. Lund in black and white, a kind of smile on his face. Then Lund standing in front of the prison wall, between the guards; he had been waving. That smiling, waving creature raped children. Fredrik remembered enough about the girls-in-the- cellar case. Lund had mutilated, torn and beaten his victims until they were like worn-out, rejected dolls. Fredrik, like the rest of the public, had been outraged and at the same time unable to cope with what he read about the case, and somehow it was still as if all that could not have happened, as if the news story could not be true. The media had been watching every move in the trial for weeks, but he still didn't fucking well understand.
The ferryman was the older of the two, a semi-retired stand-in for the younger one. He had seen enough to grasp Fredrik's desperation and wisely kept off the usual chit-chat to pass the time. Fredrik would thank him one day, much later, for his understanding.
They reached the other side, where the ferryman's dog had been tied up. The dog barked with pleasure at seeing his master again. Fredrik raced off the ferry the moment it hit land.
He was so intensely afraid. Terrified.
She would never go away without telling someone. She knew Micaela was there and she knew she must not go anywhere outside the fence without letting her know.
That man. Cap on his head, quite short and quite thin. He had nodded to him.
Across Arno Island, nine kilometres of winding gravel. Then Road 55, eight kilometres of accident-prone tarmac. Not many cars around at this time of day. He increased his speed.
Face to face. It was him. He knew it was him.
Now, five cars ahead, driving slowly, a small red car hauling an enormous caravan that tilted dangerously on the bends and made the next car keep a respectful distance. Fredrik kept trying to overtake, but was forced back by the curves in the road.
A slip-road, a right turn, then the bridge and central Strangnas.
He spotted the crowd from far away.
People were clustering at the gate, in the playground and in the street outside The Dove. Five nursery school teachers, two catering assistants from the kitchen, four policemen with dogs, some parents he recognised and some he didn't.
One of them, carrying a small child, was pointing towards the wood. A policeman with a dog went off in that direction, then two more followed.
Fredrik stopped outside the gate and stayed in the car for a while.
When he got out, Micaela came towards him. She hadn't been outside, but had been waiting for him inside the school.
His coffee was black. No messing about with effing milk, especially no latte or cappuccino or any of that fashionable crap, just no-frills, real Swedish black coffee, filtered to get rid of the dregs. Ewert Grens contemplated the coffee machine; he wouldn't pay a penny extra to get a dollop of evil-tasting emulsified muck in his mug, but Sven had to have his dose of the glop, he was prepared to pay good money to get this pale-brown chemical- flavoured stuff in his cup. Ewert kept the plastic cups well apart in case Sven's was toxic and limped gingerly back along the shiny corridor floor to his room. Sven was slumped in the visitor's chair. He looked exhausted.
'Your poison. Here.'
Sven roused himself enough to take his cup.
'Thanks.'
Ewert stopped in front of him; there was something new in Sven's eyes.
'What's up with you? It can't be that fucking bad to work on your fortieth.'
'No.'
'So what's wrong?'
'Jonas called me. While you were struggling with the coffee machine.'
'And?'
'He asked why I hadn't come home. I'd told him I would. He said grown-ups lie all the time.'
'What did he mean, lie?'
'It seems he saw the TV news about Lund. So he asked why grown-ups lie, like they tell a child they'll show it a dead squirrel or a nice doll, but all the grown-up wants is to do bad things to the child with his willy and then hit the child. That's word for word what Jonas said to me.'
Sven sank back in his chair and sipped his coffee in silence. Absently, he started swivelling the chair, left, then right, back again. Ewert was rooting among his tapes.
'So how do you reply? Daddy lies, all grown-ups lie, some of them lie and poke at you with their willy and hit you. I can't stand this, Ewert. It's too bloody awful.'
The song was bland and silly, but offered a kind of escape because it was so pointless. Ewert closed his eyes, wagging his head to the beat. For a few minutes he was in another, more peaceful time.
There was a knock on the door.
They exchanged glances. Ewert shook his head irritably, but there was another, firmer knock.
'Yes!'
It was Agestam. Ewert recognised the neatly combed fringe and the ingratiating face in the doorway; he had no time for busy little boys and especially none for the busy boys who pretended to be public prosecutors but couldn't wait to get on and up in the world.
'What are you after?'
Agestam was visibly taken aback, though it wasn't clear what bothered him most, Ewert's bad temper or the room resounding with Siw's voice.
'It's about Lund.'
Ewert put his coffee cup to the side.
'What about him?'
'He has turned up.'
Agestam explained that the duty officer had just concluded a telephone conversation with someone who'd
