“Thank you,” said Mans deliberately. “You’ve already made a start on publicity for the firm. Why the hell didn’t you get in touch with me when you flattened that journalist?”
“I didn’t flatten her,” Rebecka defended herself. “I was trying to get past her and she slipped-”
“I haven’t finished!” hissed Mans. “I’ve wasted an hour and a half this morning sitting in a meeting about you. If I’d had my way, I’d be asking for your resignation. Fortunately for you, other people were in a more forgiving frame of mind.”
Rebecka pretended she hadn’t heard. “I need some help with that journalist. Can you get in touch with the news team and get her to withdraw her complaint?”
Mans gave an astonished laugh. “Who the hell do you think I am? Don Corleone?”
Rebecka scrubbed at the car window again.
“I was only asking,” she said. “I’ve got to go. I’m looking after Sanna’s two kids, and the youngest is taking all her clothes off.”
“Well, let her get on with it,” said Mans crossly. “We’re not finished yet.”
“I’ll ring or send you an e-mail later. The kids are outside and it’s bitter. A four-year-old with double pneumonia is the last thing I need right now. Bye.”
She hung up before he managed to say anything else.
He didn’t tell me I couldn’t do it, she thought with relief. He didn’t tell me I couldn’t carry on, and I haven’t lost my job. How come it was so easy?
Then she remembered the children and hurled herself out of the car.
“What on earth are you doing?” she screamed at Sara and Lova.
Lova had taken off her jacket, gloves and both jumpers. She was standing there in the snow with her hat on her head, her upper body bare except for a tiny white cotton vest. Tears were pouring down her face. Virku was looking anxiously at her.
“Sara said I looked like an idiot in the jumper I borrowed from you,” sobbed Lova. “She said I’d get teased at nursery.”
'Put your clothes on at once,' said Rebecka impatiently.
She grabbed hold of Lova’s arm and forced her into the jumpers. The child sobbed inconsolably.
“It’s true,” said Sara mercilessly. “She looks ridiculous. There was a girl at our school who had on a jumper like that one day. The boys got hold of her and pushed her head down the toilet and flushed it till she nearly drowned.”
“Leave me alone!” bawled Lova as Rebecka dressed her by sheer force.
“Get in the car,” said Rebecka in a tight voice. “You are going to nursery and to school.”
“You can’t force us,” screamed Sara. “You’re not our mother!”
“You want to bet?” growled Rebecka, lifting the two screaming children into the backseat. Virku hopped in after them, turning round and round anxiously on the seat.
“And I’m hungry,” wailed Lova.
“Exactly,” yelled Sara. “We haven’t had any breakfast, and that’s neglect. Give me your cell phone, I’m going to ring Granddad.”
She grabbed Rebecka’s phone.
“Like hell you are,” snapped Rebecka as she snatched back the phone.
She leapt out of the car and flung open the back door.
“Out!” she ordered, dragging Sara and Lova out of the car and throwing them down on the snow.
Both children fell silent immediately, and stared at her with big eyes.
“It’s true,” said Rebecka, trying to control her voice. “I’m not your mother. But Sanna has asked me to look after you, so neither you nor I has any choice. We’ll make a deal. First we’ll drive to the cafe in the bus station and have breakfast. Because it’s been such a terrible morning, you can order anything you want. Then we’ll go buy some new clothes for Lova. And for Sanna too. You can help me choose something nice for her. Now get in the car.”
Sara didn’t speak, just looked down at her feet. Then she shrugged and got in the car. Lova climbed in after her and the older girl helped her little sister with the seat belt. Virku licked the salty tears off Lova’s face.
Rebecka Martinsson started the car and reversed out of Sanna’s yard.
Please, God, she thought for the first time in many years. Please help me, God.
The redbrick houses on Gasellvagen were neatly arranged along the street like pieces of Lego. Snow-covered hedges, piles of snow and kitchen curtains covering the lower part of the windows protected them from anybody who might look in.
And this family is going to need that, thought Anna-Maria Mella as she and Sven-Erik Stalnacke got out of the car outside Gasellvagen 35.
“You can actually feel the neighbors’ eyes on the back of your neck,” said Sven-Erik, as if he’d read her thoughts. “What do you think Sanna and Viktor Strandgard’s parents might have to tell us?”
“We’ll see. Yesterday they didn’t want to see us, but once they heard their daughter had been taken in for questioning they rang and asked us to come.”
They stamped the snow off their shoes and rang the doorbell.
Olof Strandgard opened the door. He was well groomed and articulate as he invited them in. Shook hands, took their coats and hung them up. Late middle age. But with no sign of middle-age spread.
He’s got a rowing machine and weights down in the cellar, thought Anna-Maria.
“No, no, please keep them on,” said Olof Strandgard to Sven-Erik, who had bent down to take off his shoes.
Anna-Maria noticed that Olof Strandgard himself was wearing well-polished indoor shoes.
He led them into the lounge. One end of the room was dominated by a Gustavian-style dining suite. Silver candlesticks and a vase by Ulrika Hydman-Vallien were reflected in the dark mahogany surface of the table. A small reproduction crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. At the other end of the lounge was a suite consisting of a pale, squashy corner sofa made of leather, and a matching armchair. The coffee table was made of smoky glass with metal legs. Everything was spotlessly clean and tidy.
Kristina Strandgard was slumped in the armchair. Her greeting to the two detectives who had turned up in her living room was distracted.
She had the same thick, pale blond hair as her children. But Kristina Strandgard’s hair was cut in a bob following the line of her jaw.
She must have been really pretty once upon a time, thought Anna-Maria. Before this absolute exhaustion got its claws into her. And that didn’t happen yesterday, it happened a long time ago.
Olof Strandgard leaned over his wife. His voice was gentle, but the smile on his lips didn’t reach his eyes.
“Perhaps we should give Inspector Mella the comfortable chair,” he said.
Kristina Strandgard shot up out of the chair as if someone had stuck a pin into her.
“I’m so sorry, yes, of course.”
She gave Anna-Maria an embarrassed smile and stood there for a second as if she’d forgotten where she was and what she was supposed to be doing. Then she suddenly seemed to come back to the present, and sank down on the sofa next to Sven-Erik.
Anna-Maria lowered herself laboriously into the proffered armchair. It was far too low and the back wasn’t sufficiently upright to be comfortable. She turned the corners of her mouth upward in an attempt at a grateful smile. The baby was pressing against her abdomen, and she immediately got heartburn and a pain in her lower back.
“Can we get you anything?” asked Olof Strandgard. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
As if she had been given a signal, his wife shot up again.
“Yes, of course,” she said with a quick glance at her husband. “I should have asked.”
Both Sven-Erik and Anna-Maria waved dismissively. Kristina Strandgard sat down again, but this time she perched on the very edge of the sofa, ready to leap to her feet again if something came up.
Anna-Maria looked at her. She didn’t look like a woman who’d just lost her child. Her hair was newly washed and blow-dried. Her polo-neck sweater, cardigan and trousers were all in toning shades of sandy brown and beige. Her makeup wasn’t smudged around her eyes or mouth. She wasn’t wringing her hands in despair. No screwed-up tissues on the coffee table in front of her. Instead, it was as if she’d shut out the outside world.
