looked down at her vulnerable face. She lay on the bed with her eyes closed. He felt overcome by a great sense of weariness. He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Then he pulled the blanket over her, turned off the light, and left the room.
KNUTAS TOSSED AND turned all night, lying on the narrow hotel bed, unable to sleep. The small room was stifling. Heavy curtains in a drab, rusty-brown colour hung at the window. He could hear a fan whirring somewhere. The traffic noise was clearly audible, now and then interrupted by the siren of a police car or ambulance. Occasionally some passerby would yell or laugh out on the street. He couldn’t for the life of him understand how Stockholmers could stand all this racket. The city was never silent. He would go crazy if he had to live here.
Thinking about Karin kept him awake. At this moment he regretted insisting that she tell him what was bothering her. How strong could a friendship be? She had put him in an impossible situation. She had deliberately allowed a double murderer to go free; that was totally unacceptable. It was very unlikely that Vera Petrov would ever kill again, and any reasonable person would understand how a terribly tragic and heartbreaking episode in her past had motivated her actions. But that was no excuse. Karin could not remain on the police force. She had been his colleague for almost twenty years, but now she was going to have to leave. The thought was so alarming that it made him shiver. Imagine going to work every day and not seeing her there. She wouldn’t be getting coffee out of the vending machine or sitting at the conference table for a meeting. He wouldn’t hear her laugh or see that gap between her front teeth. Karin Jacobsson was his sounding board, both professionally and personally. He couldn’t even picture what it would be like at the station without her.
In the past he had sometimes worried that she might quit. She was still single, as far as Knutas knew, which had always seemed to him incomprehensible. She was so beautiful with her dark hair and warm eyes. He used to worry that she might meet someone who would take her away from Visby. She was so intense, so lively. Sometimes he had wondered how she viewed him. What did he have to offer her? He was just an ordinary middle-aged man with pitiful personal problems, which he never hesitated to discuss with her. He wasn’t a particularly inspiring friend.
When he thought about what she had been through – the rape, the birth, her parents’ betrayal – he was filled with anger. Finally he got out of bed, found his pipe and sat down in the armchair next to the window. He pulled aside the curtains and opened the window. It was four in the morning, and he realized it was hopeless trying to sleep.
He lit his pipe and sat there until dawn, watching the city wake up outside the window.
THE YARD IS filled with children playing. Their raincoats – yellow, blue, red, green and pink – form a colourful bouquet against the backdrop of the black asphalt and surrounding grey buildings. The rain has just stopped, but the air is dripping with moisture. Cold winds keep the temperature down. A low-pressure area has settled over Gotland, instantly and brutally dropping the temperature from 20 to 9 degrees Celsius. The change in the weather doesn’t seem to bother the kids, who are running from one side of the playground at the day-care centre to the other. A few teachers are chatting as they keep an eye on the children. Their conversation is constantly being interrupted when someone falls down and starts crying, or another child stuffs something in his mouth, or a few of the kids start fighting. The youngest toddlers, who can barely walk, are sitting in the sandbox with buckets and shovels, happily digging in the rain-soaked sand.
It takes me a minute to spot him. He’s wearing a dark blue rain jacket, waterproof trousers and a matching sou’wester hat. He’s busy with a bright yellow bucket and shovel. He’s sitting next to a friend, and they seem to be talking and playing well together.
I feel a pang in my heart. I’m having a hard time breathing, and I have to squat down. I’m hiding behind a warehouse, not wanting to draw attention to myself.
My boy. His dark hair is sticking out from under his rain cap, his cheeks are a glowing pink, and I catch a glimpse of his dark eyes. A contented child. What does his future hold? How will he be affected by what is about to happen? What will he think when he gets older? How many questions will he have? And how much will he suffer? That little boy sitting there, playing so happily in the sand. Innocent, carefree. He has the right to a safe and secure childhood. To deny him that would be reprehensible. And now here I am, about to shirk my responsibility.
But there’s no other way out of this straitjacket, none at all. Mamma will continue to plague me for the rest of my life. I will never be free. Other people die – from cancer or in a car crash. She will presumably go on poisoning the lives of everyone close to her until she’s a hundred years old. By then I’ll be almost eighty.
I once had a dream that I was leafing through the newspaper until I came to the obituary page. There I saw her name. And the only thing I felt was relief.
I stand up and look at my son one last time before I turn on my heel.
And with heavy steps, I walk away.
WHEN KNUTAS CAME downstairs to the hotel breakfast room, he found Karin sitting next to the window with a cup of coffee and the morning paper in front of her. She had dark smudges under her eyes and she was frowning. As usual, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. Around one wrist was a leather strap with a green stone. On her feet, which stuck out from under the table, she wore purple trainers. She was deeply immersed in the article she was reading and didn’t notice when he paused in the doorway to study her.
Knutas was overcome with tenderness for the slight figure sitting near the window. He felt a prickling in his hands and legs, as if tiny needles were sticking into his skin. For a second everything went black, and he had to hold on to the doorpost. He hadn’t slept a wink and his body ached with fatigue. When he left his hotel room, he had made up his mind. There was nothing else to do. He had to ask Karin to resign. To leave the police force. He took a step forward, then another. The distance to her table was about 10 metres. Moving like a sleepwalker, he continued forward, his eyes fixed on her face. Suddenly she felt his approach and looked up. Their eyes met.
No, he thought. I can’t make a decision right now. I need more time to think things through.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Good morning.’
‘Listen, I’d rather not discuss what we talked about last night. I need time to think.’
‘OK. But when we get home, I plan to hand in my resignation. Just so you know. I don’t want to cause you any problems, Anders.’
Her words made him feel panic-stricken. Once before she had almost quit her job, and he didn’t want to go through that again.
‘Let’s not do anything hasty. You’re not responsible for my bloody welfare. Whatever I decide, it’ll be my decision. Please give me some time to think it over,’ he pleaded. He could hear for himself how insistent he sounded. ‘You’ve had to carry too much on your own. Try to let it all go for the time being.’
She gave him a wan smile.
They got the rental car from the Katarina garage, just a stone’s throw from the hotel. They did their best to ignore what they were both thinking about and tried to focus on the task ahead of them. Their personal problems would have to wait until later.
Knutas found it surprisingly easy to make his way through the city. At first he kept to the shoreline, driving along Skeppsbron and Strandvagen, past the TV and radio building on Oxenstiernsgatan. Then he turned on to Valhallavagen, one of Stockholm’s most fashionable streets, which was designed like a French boulevard, very wide with a double row of trees down the middle. It came to an end at Roslagtull, and from there they continued straight ahead along Norrtaljevagen. Presumably he could have taken a more direct route through the city, but at least he had found the right road. And the view was spectacular, with the water glittering in between all of Stockholm’s islands and the magnificent buildings of the royal palace, the National Museum, the Dramaten theatre, and the Nordic Museum on Djurgarden, which resembled a renaissance palace with its turrets and towers.
As the investigation had progressed, Knutas had grown more curious about Mikaela Hammar. She had created a whole new life for herself away from Gotland. She had married a mainlander and moved to Stockholm’s archipelago. There she started a riding school, which she and her husband ran together. At the same time, she worked for a humanitarian aid organization.
It was quite a drive. Knutas checked his watch as they passed Norrtalje, with at least 10 kilometres still ahead of them. It was just past eleven. Their plane home left at three thirty. They had plenty of time.
When they drove across the bridge to the island of Vato, he was reminded how different the archipelago was from Gotland. An entirely different kind of landscape. No long sand dunes here. Instead, he saw cliffs, boulders and skerries. Vato was one of the bigger islands in Stockholm’s archipelago, with about a thousand permanent residents, shops, a post office, library and school. Many people who lived on the island commuted to Stockholm or
