Bang! The door to Belinda’s room slammed shut, and they heard the key turn. A second later the music started up, so loud that it made the plates on the counter jump and clatter to the beat.
‘Oops,’ said Dan with a wry expression as he looked up at the ceiling.
‘Yes, “oops” is the right word for it,’ Anna said, pulling out of his arms. ‘This really isn’t easy for her.’ She picked up the clinking plates and put them in the sink.
‘I know, but she’s just going to have to accept that I have a new woman in my life,’ said Dan, sounding annoyed.
‘Just try and put yourself in her position. First you and Pernilla get divorced, then a whole lot of…’ – she weighed her words carefully – ‘girlfriends come waltzing through here, and then I appear on the scene and move in with two little kids. Belinda is barely seventeen, which is tough enough, without having to get used to three strangers moving in.’
‘You’re right, I know that,’ said Dan with a sigh. ‘But I have no idea how to deal with a teenager. I mean, should I just leave her alone, or will that make her feel neglected? Or should I insist on talking to her and then risk having her think I’m pressuring her? There should be a manual for situations like this.’
Anna laughed. ‘I think they forgot about handing out manuals back in the maternity ward. But you could try talking to her. If she slams the door in your face, at least you’ve given it a try. And then you should try again. And again. She’s afraid of losing you. She’s afraid of losing the right to be a child. She’s afraid that we’re going to take over everything now that we’ve moved in. And that’s perfectly understandable.’
‘What did I do to deserve such a wise woman?’ said Dan, pulling Anna close again.
‘I don’t know,’ said Anna, smiling as she burrowed her face into his chest. ‘Mind you, I’m not particularly wise. It just seems that way, compared to your previous conquests.’
‘Hey, watch out,’ said Dan with a laugh as he wrapped his arms tighter around her. ‘If you keep that up, I might decide to hang on to the pine bed after all.’
‘So do you want me to stay here or not?’
‘Okay. You win. Consider it gone.’
They both laughed. And kissed. Overhead the pop music continued to pound, turned up to a deafening volume.
Martin saw the boys as soon as he turned on to the drive in front of the house. They were standing off to the side, both of them hugging their arms to their bodies and shivering. Their faces were pale, and they looked visibly relieved when they caught sight of the police cars.
‘Martin Molin,’ he said, shaking the hand of the first boy, who introduced himself as Adam Andersson, mumbling the name. The other boy waved his right hand, offering an apology with an embarrassed expression.
‘I threw up and wiped it off with my… Well, I don’t think I should shake hands.’
Martin nodded sympathetically. ‘All right, so what exactly happened here?’ He turned to Adam, who seemed more composed. He was shorter than his friend, with shaggy blond hair and an angry outbreak of acne on his cheeks.
‘Well, the thing is, we…’ Adam glanced over at Mattias, who merely shrugged, so he went on. ‘Well, we were thinking of going inside the house to have a look around, since it looked like the old guys had gone away.’
‘Old guys?’ said Martin. ‘So two people live here?’
Mattias replied, ‘Two brothers. I don’t know what their first names are, but my mother probably does. She’s been taking in their post since the beginning of June. One of the brothers always goes away during the summer, but not the other one. Except this time no one was taking in the post from the letter box, so we thought that…’ He left the rest of the sentence unspoken and looked down at his feet. A dead fly was still lying on one shoe. He kicked out in disgust, trying to knock it off. ‘Is he the one who’s dead inside the house?’ he said then, looking up.
‘At the moment you know more than we do,’ said Martin. ‘But go on. You were thinking of going inside, and then what happened?’
‘Mattias found a window that was open, and he climbed in first,’ said Adam. ‘Seems funny now, because when we came out we discovered that the front door was unlocked. So we could just as well have walked right in. Anyway, Mattias climbed in through the window and pulled me up after him. When we jumped down on to the floor, we noticed something crunching under our feet, but we didn’t see what it was because it was too dark.’
‘Dark?’ Martin interrupted him. ‘Why was it dark?’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Gosta, Paula and Bertil were now standing behind him, listening.
‘All the blinds were down,’ Adam explained patiently. ‘But we rolled up the blind of the window we’d come through. And then we saw that the floor was covered with dead flies. And the smell was horrible.’
‘Really awful,’ Mattias chimed in, looking as if he was fighting off another wave of nausea.
‘Then what?’ Martin said, in an effort to keep them on track.
‘Then we went further into the room, and the chair behind the desk was turned so the back was facing us, and we couldn’t tell what was there. But I had a feeling that… well, I’ve seen
Apparently the scene was still all too vivid for Mattias; he turned and threw up on the grass. He wiped off his mouth and whispered, ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Martin. ‘We’ve all done the same thing at some point when we’ve seen a dead body.’
‘Not me,’ said Mellberg arrogantly.
‘Me neither,’ said Gosta laconically.
‘I never have either,’ Paula added.
Martin glanced over his shoulder and gave them all a stern look.
‘He looked really gross,’ Adam told them. In spite of the shock, he seemed to be taking a certain pleasure in the situation. Behind him Mattias had doubled over and was retching again, but he seemed to have nothing more in his stomach.
‘Could someone take the boys home?’ said Martin, turning to face his colleagues. At first no one answered, but then Gosta said:
‘I’ll take them. Come on, lads, hop in the car.’
‘We only live a few hundred metres from here,’ said Mattias weakly.
‘Then I’ll walk you home,’ said Gosta, gesturing for them to follow. They slunk after him in their typical teenage way – Mattias with a grateful expression, while Adam was obviously disappointed to miss out on what was going to happen next.
Martin watched until they were out of sight round the bend in the road and then said, without any hint of anticipation, ‘Well, let’s see what we have here.’
Bertil Mellberg cleared his throat. ‘I have no problem with dead bodies and the like – absolutely none; I’ve seen quite a few in my day. But somebody ought to check… the surrounding area too. Maybe it’d be best if I took on that assignment, since I’m the boss and the most experienced officer here.’ Again he cleared his throat.
Martin and Paula exchanged amused glances, but before replying, Martin was careful to put on a serious expression.
‘You’re got a point there, Bertil. It’d be best for someone with your experience to make a careful inspection of the site. Paula and I can go inside and take a look.’
‘Right… exactly. I think that would be best.’ Mellberg rocked back on his heels for a moment before sauntering off across the lawn.
‘Shall we go in?’ said Martin.
Paula merely nodded.
‘Careful now,’ Martin told her as he opened the door. ‘We don’t want to disturb any evidence in case it turns out that this was not a death from natural causes. We’ll just have a quick look around before the techs get here.’
‘I have five years’ experience in the violent crimes division with Regional Criminal Investigation in Stockholm. I know how to handle a potential crime scene,’ Paula replied good-naturedly.
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t know that,’ said Martin, embarrassed, but then he focused his attention on the task at hand.
