The Drowning

The glass had missed the major arteries. Otherwise things could have gone very badly. That was exactly what the doctor had so cheerfully told him.

Kenneth turned his face to the wall. Didn’t they understand that this was as bad as it could get? If he’d had his way, the glass would have sliced through one of his arteries, cutting off the pain and taking away the evil in his heart. Purging the evil memory. Because in the ambulance, while the sirens wailed in his ears and he grimaced at every jolt as the vehicle roared along at high speed, he had suddenly understood. And he knew who it was that was hunting them. Who hated all of them and wanted to harm both him and the others. And who had taken Lisbet from him. The idea that his wife had died with the truth ringing in her ears was more than he could bear.

He looked down at his arms resting on top of the blanket. They were covered with bandages. His legs were too. He had run his last marathon. The doctor said that it would be a miracle if his wounds healed properly. But that didn’t matter now. He had no desire to do any more running.

He had no intention of running away from her either. She had already taken what mattered most to him. The rest was unimportant. There was some sort of biblical justice that was impossible to combat. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Kenneth closed his eyes and saw the images that he had banished to a far corner of his memory. After so many years, it was as if it had never even happened. Only once had the memories resurfaced. That was on that midsummer day when the whole thing had nearly fallen apart. But the walls had held, and he had suppressed those images once again, storing them away in the darkest recesses of his brain.

Now they were back. She had brought them out into the light, forcing him to look at them. And he couldn’t stand what he saw. Above all, he couldn’t bear knowing that this had been the last thing Lisbet had heard. Had it changed everything? Had she died with a black hole in her heart where her love had once been? Had he become a stranger to her at that moment?

He opened his eyes again. Staring up at the ceiling, he felt tears running down his cheeks. She could come and take him now. He wasn’t going to run away.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

16

‘Out of the way, Fatty!’

The boys deliberately bumped into him as they passed in the corridor. He tried to ignore them, to be as invisible at school as he was at home. But it didn’t work. It was as if they had been waiting for someone like him, someone who stuck out, a scapegoat they could pick on. He understood. After spending so many hours reading books, he knew more and understood more than most kids his age. He excelled in all his classes, and the teachers loved him. But what good was that when he couldn’t kick a ball, run fast, or spit far? Those were the sorts of skills that counted, the talents that mattered.

Slowly he made his way home. He kept looking around to see if anyone was waiting to ambush him. Luckily he didn’t have a long walk to school. The route was filled with dangers, but at least it was short. All he had to do was go down the slope of Hackebacken, head left towards the wharf that faced Badholmen, and there was his house. The house they had inherited from the Old Bitch.

Mother still called her by that name. She had said that name with great satisfaction every time she discarded any of the old woman’s possessions, tossing them into the big rubbish bin they had placed in the yard when they moved in.

‘If only the Old Bitch could see this. Here go all her fancy chairs,’ said Mother, cleaning and clearing things out as if she’d gone mad. ‘Now I’m throwing away your grandmother’s china. See that?’

He had never heard why she’d been given that name: the Old Bitch. Or why Mother was so angry with her. Once he had timidly asked Father, but he had merely muttered a few vague words in reply.

‘You’re already home?’ Mother was combing Alice’s hair when he came in.

‘School was out the same time as always,’ he said, ignoring Alice’s smile. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘You look like you’ve already eaten enough for the rest of the year. No dinner for you today. You can just live on your fat.’

It was only four o’clock, and already he could feel how hungry he was going to be. But when he looked at Mother, he could tell that it would do no good to protest.

He went up to his room, closed the door, and lay down on his bed with a book. Filled with hope, he stuck his hand under the mattress. If he was lucky, he might have missed something. But there was nothing there. She was very clever. She always found the food and sweets that he stashed away, no matter where he tried to hide them.

A couple of hours later, his stomach was growling noisily. He was so hungry that he was on the verge of tears. From downstairs came the smell of freshly baked buns, and he knew that Mother was making cinnamon rolls just so that the fragrance would drive him crazy with hunger. He sniffed at the air, then turned on to his side and buried his face in the pillow. Sometimes he thought about running away. No one would care. Alice might miss him, but he didn’t give a damn about her. She had Mother.

Mother devoted all her free time to Alice. So why couldn’t Alice look at her instead of him with those adoring eyes of hers? And why did she take for granted what he would have given anything to have?

He must have dozed off, because he was awakened by a light tap on the door. His book had fallen over his face, and he had been drooling in his sleep, because the pillow was wet with saliva. He wiped his cheek with his hand and groggily got up to open the door. Alice was standing there. In one hand she had a bun, which she held out to him. His mouth watered, but he hesitated. Mother would be angry if she found out that Alice had slipped upstairs to bring him something to eat.

Alice stared at him with her eyes wide. She wanted him to see her, to love her. An image appeared in his mind. An image and the feeling of a baby’s slippery, wet body. Alice staring up at him from the water. The way she flailed about and then lay still.

He grabbed the bun and closed the door in her face. But it didn’t help. The images were still there.

Patrik had sent Gosta and Martin to Uddevalla to see if Kenneth was feeling well enough to talk to them. Torbjorn Ruud’s team of crime techs was on the way. The team would have to split up in order to deal with both the place where Kenneth had fallen and the house belonging to Christian and Sanna. Gosta hadn’t wanted to leave; he would have preferred to stay and have a talk with Christian. But Patrik wanted Paula to stay instead. He thought it would be good to have a woman speak with Sanna and the children. Nevertheless he had been impressed with Gosta’s handling of the situation, and especially his finding the rag and bottle in the basement. With luck, these items would give them the perpetrator’s fingerprints and DNA. Up until now he or she had been too careful to leave a trace.

He stared at the man sitting at the kitchen table facing him. Christian looked worn-out and old. He seemed to have aged ten years since Patrik last saw him. He hadn’t bothered to tie the belt of his bathrobe properly, and his bare chest made him look even more vulnerable. Patrik wondered if he ought to tell Christian, for his own sake, to close up his bathrobe, but he decided not to say anything. His clothing was undoubtedly the last thing on Christian’s mind at the moment.

‘The boys have calmed down. My colleague Paula is going to talk to them and your wife. She’ll be careful what she says and do her best to make sure they won’t be further frightened or upset. Okay?’ Patrik tried to catch Christian’s eye to see if he was listening. At first there was no response, and he considered repeating what he’d just said. But finally Christian nodded.

‘In the meantime, I thought you and I should have a little chat,’ Patrik went on. ‘I know that you haven’t been keen to talk to us before, but this time you really have no choice. Someone came into your house and went into