Gosta sighed and shook his head.
‘And to think that Marianne and I had actually been discussing whether we should let you come up to clean the house.’
Nour handed over the present. Sanna took it with both hands and great delight.
‘Can I open it?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Nour said.
‘But it’s not my birthday.’
‘It doesn’t have to be your birthday.’
Sanna hurried out to the kitchen. Mike watched her go and then smiled at his guest. He gave her a cautious hug.
‘Welcome.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and produced a bottle of wine from her bag.
Mike took it and looked at the label.
‘Not that expensive,’ Nour said, ‘but very good.’
‘I’m sure it’s good. Thank you. Can I take your coat?’
He hung up her coat and said she could keep her shoes on.
‘But they’re wet,’ Nour said.
‘No worries,’ Mike insisted.
‘Have you got a cleaner?’
‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’
Mike put his hand to his heart and pretended to be upset. Nour stared at him. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.
‘What?’ Mike said, unnerved.
Nour shook her head.
‘That was the last thing I heard Ylva say,’ she said. ‘We were going on about her coming out for one drink, and she said she wanted to go home. Someone shouted, “Say hi to the family,” and she put her hand on her heart just like you did and said, “You make it sound like something bad.”’
They stood in silence for a while, both surprised by how potent the memory was. Mike swallowed nervously.
‘It’s my mum,’ he said, uncertain. ‘Who cleans, I mean. I like to think she does it out of love.’
‘She likes nothing more than to clean your house?’ Nour teased.
‘Who am I to deny her that pleasure?’ Mike returned.
They went into the kitchen. Nour took a piece of kitchen roll and quickly wiped her shoes.
‘I take it you’re not intending to barbecue.’
‘No, the weather certainly did change. So it’s lasagne. Vegetarian. Hope that’s okay?’
‘Sounds good to me. Did your mum make it?’
‘No, it was actually me …’
‘Daddy! It’s pens. And a drawing pad.’
Sanna held up her present.
‘Yes. I seem to remember that you’re very good at drawing,’ Nour said. ‘In fact, I still have your hippopotamus at work. Do you remember it?’
‘It wasn’t that good,’ Sanna said.
‘It’s super good,’ Nour told her. ‘I look at it every day.’
Mike poured some wine and passed her a glass.
‘Sanna, Coke?’
‘Not just now.’
She wanted to try her new pens first.
‘Well, cheers and welcome to our humble abode,’ Mike said, and raised his glass.
They tasted the wine.
‘Mm, lovely,’ Nour said.
Mike looked at his daughter and mouthed
‘And thank you for coming,’ Mike said. ‘Sounds a bit silly, but that coffee with you the other day made my week. What does that actually mean – “made my week”?’
‘Enhanced?’ Nour suggested.
‘Yes. The coffee enhanced my week, it really did.’
Nour noticed that Mike’s eyelashes were wet. He turned round and looked in the oven. Nour pulled out a chair and sat down beside Sanna.
‘A cat?’
‘Horse,’ Sanna said.
‘Yes, right, now I see it.’
Nour looked up. Mike had turned towards the work top and was blowing his nose.
‘Hmm,’ he said, and threw the tissue in the bin. ‘I’m pretty pathetic really.’
He gave an embarrassed laugh.
‘And you have every right to be,’ Nour said.
40
‘Three of the four are dead,’ Jorgen Petersson said. ‘That can’t be a coincidence.’
Calle Collin didn’t manage to hold back a sceptical laugh.
‘You think there’s a connection?’ he chuckled. ‘Morgan died of cancer, Anders was found murdered up by Fjallgatan, and Johan died in a motorbike accident in Africa. Now please explain the connection to me.’
‘There’s connection and there’s connection,’ Jorgen said. ‘I see it more as proof that God exists.’
Calle held up his hand.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that, not even as a joke,’ he said.
‘But I mean it,’ Jorgen told him in all seriousness. ‘The world might not be better without them, but it certainly won’t be as bad.’
Calle looked at him sternly.
‘What did they do to you? How did they manage to leave such a mark that you can’t even sympathise that they’ve lost maybe forty years of their lives?’
‘Me?’ Jorgen said. ‘I kept out of the way as much as possible. But I still managed to get beaten up a couple of times. You could hardly say that they did any good. They terrorised everyone. The whole school bowed to their tyranny. I was terrified every time I had to go past them.’
‘I don’t remember it being like that.’
‘How do you remember it, then?’
Calle shrugged.
‘Last week I interviewed this guy who was paralysed from the waist down. He’d dived into shallow water and broken his neck. Eighteen years old. He was one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. I asked him whether he felt bitter about the fact that the accident happened to him. And do you know what he said? He said that there was no one else to blame, accidents like that usually happened to people who take risks, who expose themselves to unnecessary risks. He had only himself to blame, it wasn’t even extreme bad luck. You should meet him. He might teach you a thing or two.’
‘I’m sure,’ Jorgen said.
