loved him so much. Either I had to accept his orientation or I would have had to leave him. The latter never felt like an option.”
“Then you were prepared to share him with a man?” Irene wondered.
Sara started twisting a strand of her hair. It took a while before she answered, “No. Not to share him with anyone else. But I thought that his love for me was so strong that he had gotten over. . that.”
She fell silent and started absentmindedly making a knot in the strand of hair. To get her to continue, Irene said, “From what I understand he hadn’t gotten over it.”
Sara gave a start as if Irene had stuck her with a needle. With resignation she said, “No. When I was pregnant with Johannes I understood that he had been seeing someone else. It turned out to be Marcus Tosscander. We had a terrible fight. Then Erik said that he felt like half a person sometimes. He was missing something when he was together with me. It was. . terrible.”
“How did you react?”
“I left him. I moved out. But I couldn’t function without Erik. Before Johannes was born I moved back. Erik made a solemn vow to try and resist his. . other desire. I know that it didn’t always work. But his relationships never hurt us. He was an amazingly good father and husband.”
“Did you notice anything recently that could point to Erik’s having had a new man?”
“No. Sometimes-”
She stopped herself and bit her lip. With a defiant gesture she threw her hair back, lifted her chin, and looked Irene straight in the eye.
“Sometimes he would work late. And he often worked far from home. I couldn’t check what he was doing every second. I had to trust him.”
Irene thought about the old saying You see what you want to see. She decided to change tacks and put her hand in her jacket pocket. Her fingertips touched the envelope holding the photos of Tom Tanaka’s two pictures. She placed the pictures on top of the coffee table. Sara Bolin leaned forward and inspected both photographs. When she examined the picture of Marcus more closely, she recoiled. She realized that they had noticed her reaction and she said in a shaky voice, “The picture of Marcus didn’t look like that. The one that Erik had at the exhibition.”
“What do you mean? Is it the wrong picture?” Hannu asked innocently.
“No, not the wrong picture. . but it didn’t look like. . this!”
With a shaking index finger, Sara pointed at Marcus’s magnificent erection. In the exhibition picture, Marcus’s hanging hand had nonchalantly concealed his sex. But Irene understood Sara’s distress. The picture on the table radiated lust and desire: Marcus seen through his lover’s eye.
Sara stared as though entranced at the picture, and finally she whispered, “He swore that it was over. He swore!”
Irene saw how close she was to bursting into tears. In order to distract her, Irene threw the picture of
“Do you recognize this man?” she asked.
For a second, Sara Bolin looked confused. Hesitantly, she picked up the picture of Basta and examined it. Then she lowered it and looked at Irene again.
“Of course I recognize the picture itself. It was part of the exhibition and it looked like this. But I have no idea who the man is.”
“Erik never said anything about this man or mentioned his name?”
“No.”
Irene saw that several nice pictures were hanging on the walls. A thought struck her. She pointed at the photos on the table and said, “I see you are displaying many of Erik’s photographs on the walls. Is it possible that the enlargement of one of these two photos is hanging somewhere in the house?”
Sara’s voice was harsh when she replied, “No. I decide what is going to hang on the walls!”
She was interrupted by a child’s cry. She rose and said apologetically, “Kristian is awake. He’s crying for me to come and change his diaper. It’s always so wet when he’s been sleeping and. .”
The last part of the sentence faded away as she entered the hall. Irene turned to Hannu and said teasingly, “The parents of small children have such interesting conversational topics.”
Hannu raised his eyebrows a fraction of a millimeter and said, “Really.”
She was close to saying, “Just wait and see when it’s your turn,” but she stopped herself. Hannu would never sit and discuss his child’s diaper status with anyone.
They got up at the same time and started toward the glass doors. Sara Bolin came out of a door a little farther down the corridor. In her arms she was carrying a baby, still warm with sleep, who had thrown his chubby arms around her neck and burrowed his dark head under her chin.
“Thanks for letting us stop by,” said Irene.
Sara Bolin tried to smile bravely. “Naturally, I’m interested in seeing my husband’s murder solved. Of course, I’ll help any way I can.”
The little one in her arms became conscious of the strangers in the house. He turned and looked at Irene. Her throat tightened when she looked into Erik Bolin’s amber eyes.
HANNU CALLED Birgitta on the cell phone and they decided on a time to meet outside the station house. Fifteen minutes later, he and Irene picked her up in an unmarked police car. During the ride, Irene and Hannu had decided to eat lunch at the Goteborg City Museum. Birgitta had enthusiastically talked about the restaurant on the ground floor several times, but Irene had never been there despite repeated urgings. Now it would actually happen.
After circling for several minutes they managed to find a parking spot on Packhuskajen. It was a ways to walk but that was a bonus in the gorgeous weather.
Hannu held the door open for the ladies and invited them to step into the eighteenth century. Irene’s eyes had a hard time adjusting to the half darkness under the restaurant’s stone arches. The staff’s clothes-rough homespun skirts and stiff white aprons-were reminiscent of bygone centuries.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if today’s lunch is cold herring with dill and chives and mashed rutabaga,” Irene whispered to Birgitta.
They managed to get an empty table and ordered from the menu, which offered three lunch alternatives. Irene took a Creole brochette with potato wedges, and a light beer. Both Hannu and Birgitta chose the haddock in a white wine sauce with scalloped potatoes. Typical of newlyweds to choose the same thing, thought Irene.
The food was very good and Irene realized how hungry she was. Even if it wasn’t the cheapest lunch special she had ever had, it was worth the money.
During the meal they sat and chatted about everything but the current investigation. The big news that neither Irene nor anyone else in Violent Crimes had heard-was that Birgitta and Hannu were in the process of renovating an older house in Vastra Bodarna. An explanation of the location established that the house was a few kilometers southwest of Alingsas and not in Dalsland, which Irene had originally thought.
“We’ll be moving at the beginning of August,” Birgitta chirped.
It wasn’t possible to overlook her happiness; it haloed her.
Had Irene felt that way when she and Krister moved into their row house twelve years earlier? Maybe something approaching it but not quite as strong. The twins had just turned four and were particularly active. Irene thought it was wonderful not to be squeezed into two rooms and a kitchen on Smorslottsgatan. Out in Fiskeback they could let the girls run free on the lawn and in the playgrounds but, of course, under some parental supervision. The young Huss girls had been very adventurous and often ran off on their own adventures.
“And the property is three thousand square meters,” Birgitta bubbled enthusiastically.
Irene raised her eyebrows and turned to Hannu.
“Riding lawn mower?” she asked.
He smiled faintly and shrugged. That could mean anything from “probably” to “who cares?”
During coffee Birgitta changed the subject and said, “Svante Malm and some technician from Copenhagen inform each other of all their findings and clues. It’s saving double work. And Svante is sending some samples for testing directly to Copenhagen. The noose is tightening around Basta.”
“I wish it would. And that we could identify him at some point,” sighed Irene.
“He’s killed too many times and left too many clues. We’ll get him,” said Hannu.
