“If it’s too cold, she’ll come home.”
“You’re probably right,” sighed Rebecka. “It just feels a bit funny without her.”
She hesitated for a moment, then said, “I want to show you something. Wait here, I don’t want the girls to see it.”
She ran out to the car and fetched the note that had been on the windscreen.
Sivving read it, a deep frown creasing his forehead.
“Have you shown this to the police?” he asked.
“No, what can they do?”
“How should I know-give you protection or something.”
Rebecka laughed dryly.
“For this? No way, they don’t have the resources to do that. But there’s something else as well.”
She told him about the postcard in Viktor’s Bible.
“What if the person who wrote the postcard was somebody who loved him?”
“Well?”
“ ‘What we have done is not wrong in the eyes of God.’ I don’t know, but Viktor never had a girlfriend. I’m just thinking that maybe… well, it just occurred to me that there might be somebody who loved him, but who wasn’t allowed to. And maybe it’s that person who’s threatening me, because he feels threatened himself.”
“A man?”
“Exactly. That would never be accepted within the church. He’d be out on his ear. And if that’s the case, and Viktor wanted to keep it secret, I don’t want to go running to the police and broadcasting it unnecessarily. You can just imagine the headlines.”
Sivving grunted and ran his hand anxiously over his head.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “What if something happens to you?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. But I’m worried about Virku.”
“Do you want me and Bella to come and stay the night?”
Rebecka shook her head.
“She’ll be back soon,” said Sivving reassuringly. “I’m going to take Bella fora walk. I’ll give her a shout.”
But Sivving is wrong. Virku isn’t coming back. She is lying on a rag rug in the trunk of a car. There is silver tape wound around her muzzle. And around her back and front paws. Her heart is pounding in her little chest and her eyes are staring out into the black darkness. She scrabbles around in the cramped trunk and pushes her face against the floor in a desperate attempt to get rid of the tape around her muzzle. One tooth has been partly knocked out, and bits of tooth and blood are in her throat. How can this dog be such an easy victim? A dog who was mistreated by her previous owner over and over again. Why doesn’t she recognize evil when she runs straight into its arms? Because she has the ability to forget. Just like her mistress. She forgets. Burrows down into the feathery snow and is pleased to see anyone who stretches out a hand to her. And now she is lying here.
And evening came and morning came, the fourth day
Mans Wenngren wakes with a start. His heart is pounding like a clenched fist. His lungs are gasping for air. He gropes for the bedside light and switches it on; it’s twenty past three. How the hell is he supposed to sleep when his brain is running a nonstop festival of horror films. First of all it was a car that went straight through the ice on the lake outside the summer cottage. He was standing on the shore watching, but couldn’t do anything. In the rear window he saw Rebecka’s pale, terrified face. And the last time he’d managed to go back to sleep, Rebecka had come to him in his dream and put her arms around him. When his hands moved over her back and up toward her hair, they had become wet and warm. The whole of the back of her head had been shot away.
He wriggles backwards in the bed and sits up, leaning against the headboard. It used to be different, once upon a time. The boys and the job took it out of him. You didn’t get enough sleep, but at least it was proper sleep. These days it’s hardly ever sleep that’s waiting for him when he goes to bed in the small hours. Instead he falls into a deep, dreamless state of unconsciousness. And look what happens when he goes to bed sober. Keeps waking up with panic racing through his body, sweating like a pig.
The apartment is as silent as the grave. The only sound is his own breathing and the low drone of the air- conditioning. Apart from that, every other sound is outside. The humming of the electricity meter out in the stairwell. The practiced tread of the paperboy on the stairs. Every other step going up, every third step going down. The cars and people still out for the night down on the street. When the boys were little, their room used to be filled with the sounds they made. Little Johan’s short, rapid breathing. Calle, snuffling under a mountain of cuddly toys. And Madelene, of course, who started snoring as soon as she had even a hint of a cold. Then it became quieter and quieter. The boys moved into their own room. Madelene lay quiet as a mouse, pretending to be asleep when he got home late.
No, that’s it. He’ll stick an old Clint movie in the video and pour himself a Macallan. Maybe he’ll doze off in the armchair.
It is still snowing in the mountains. In Kurravaara cars and houses are buried under a thick white blanket. In the sofa bed in her grandmother’s house, Rebecka lies awake.
I ought to get up and see if the dog’s here, she thinks. She might be standing out there in the snow freezing her paws off.
It’s impossible to get back to sleep. She closes her eyes and alters her position, shifts onto her side. But her brain is wide-awake inside her tired body.
There is something peculiar about the knife. Why had it been washed? If someone wanted to put the blame on Sanna, and put the knife in her drawer, then why did that person wash the blade? Surely it would have been better to clean the handle to get rid of any possible prints, and to leave the blade covered in blood. There was a risk they might not be able to tie the weapon to the murder. There is something she isn’t seeing. Like one of those pictures that is made up of a jumble of dots. All of a sudden the image appears. That’s how it feels now. All the little dots are there. It’s just a question of finding the pattern that links them together.
She switches on the bedside light and gets up carefully. The bed creaks by way of an answer. She listens to make sure the children haven’t woken up. Slides her feet into ice-cold shoes and goes out to shout for Virku.
She stands there in the falling snow, shouting for a dog that doesn’t come.
When Rebecka comes back inside, Sara is standing in the middle of the kitchen. She turns stiffly toward Rebecka. Her thin body is swamped by the big woolly sweater and baggy pants.
“What’s the matter?” asks Rebecka. “Have you been dreaming?”
At the same time she realizes Sara is crying. It is a terrible cry. Dry and hacking. Her lower jaw is working up and down, like a clattering puppet made of wood.
“What’s the matter?' Rebecka asks again, kicking her shoes off quickly. 'Is it because Virku’s gone?”
There is no answer. Her face is still distorted by the strange crying. But her arms move forward slightly, as if she would have held them out to Rebecka, if only she could.
Rebecka picks her up. Sara doesn’t resist. It is a small child Rebecka holds in her arms. Not someone who is almost a teenager. Just a little girl. And she is so light. Rebecka lays her down on the bed and crawls in behind her. She puts her arms around Sara’s body, feeling it tense as if she is aching with tears that won’t come. At last they fall asleep.
At around five Rebecka is woken by Lova, who comes tiptoeing in. She creeps into bed behind Rebecka, cuddles into her back, slips her arm under Rebecka’s sweater and falls asleep.
It is as warm as toast under all the blankets, but Rebecka lies there wide-awake, as still as stone.
Thursday, February 20
At half past five in the morning Manne the cat decided to wake Sven-Erik Stalnacke. He padded to and fro across Sven-Erik’s sleeping body, emitting a plaintive cry from time to time. When that didn’t work, he made his way up to Sven-Erik’s face and laid a tentative paw against his cheek. But Sven-Erik was in a deep sleep. Manne moved the paw to his hairline and unsheathed his claws just enough to catch the skin and
