It was not until they were on holiday together at Skagen that Fredrika felt able to bring up the subject.
‘I’m thinking of adopting,’ she said. ‘I want to be a mother, Spencer. And I understand that you can’t be, and don’t want to be, part of that, but I still need to tell you how I feel.’
Spencer’s reaction had taken Fredrika completely by surprise. He was dismayed, and went on at great length about how reprehensible it was to uproot children from other parts of the globe simply to send them to love-starved people in Sweden.
‘Are you really going to subscribe to a system like that?’ he asked.
Fredrika burst into tears, sobbing:
‘What alternative have I got? Tell me that, Spencer, what the hell am I supposed to do?’
So they had talked about it instead. For a long time.
Fredrika smiled. It was childish of her to think that way, but it did amuse her how much the project had provoked her parents.
‘But, Fredrika, whatever’s got into you?’ her mother asked sceptically. ‘And who is this Spencer, anyway? How long have you known him?’
‘Over ten years,’ said Fredrika, looking her mother firmly in the eye.
Fredrika swallowed. Pregnancy and all those hormones had triggered extreme mood swings. One minute she would be laughing out loud, the next minute crying. Perhaps she ought to re-evaluate her self-image. It clearly wasn’t only police colleagues who considered her abnormal; her own family was starting to wonder, too.
Frustrated, she reached for the report drawn up at the scene of the unidentified man’s death. No identity documents. He still had not been reported missing. Hardly any personal possessions on him. The doctor who examined the body when it reached the hospital said in his preliminary report that he had found nothing on the body to indicate the man had been subjected to any physical violence before the impact. Fredrika noted that a full autopsy had been requested.
She went through the plastic wallet on the desk in front of her, which contained the things found on the man’s person. A pamphlet in Arabic script. A gold necklace. A ring with a black stone, wrapped in a slip of paper. Another scrap of paper, rolled into a hard little ball that took ages to unwind. More Arabic characters, on both bits of paper. And then a map. It looked as though someone had torn one of the map pages out of an old telephone directory and crumpled it into a ball. Fredrika frowned. It was a map of Uppsala city centre. On the edge of the map, someone had scribbled something; this, too, seemed to be in Arabic.
The fatigue that sporadically paralysed her brain briefly gave way to a suspicion. She wondered what to do with it. It probably wouldn’t lead anywhere, but it was just as well to check. She went into the next room to consult Ellen.
‘Where can I find someone to read and translate Arabic text?’ she asked.
It was Alex Recht himself who took the call from the vicar of Bromma parish. They exchanged a few polite phrases before the vicar got to the point.
‘It’s about Jakob Ahlbin, who was found dead yesterday.’
Alex waited.
‘I just wanted to assure you on behalf of the Church that we will help you with everything you need. Everything. This is a terribly sad day for us. What happened is simply unfathomable.’
‘We do understand that,’ said Alex. ‘Did you see each other socially, as well?’
‘No, we didn’t,’ said the vicar. ‘But he was a highly valued member of our parish team. As was Marja. They’ve left a gaping hole behind them.’
‘Would it be convenient for us to come and see you sometime today?’ asked Alex. ‘We want to talk to as many of the people who knew them as we can.’
‘I’m at your disposal whenever you want,’ the vicar replied.
When the call was over, Alex briefly considered ringing his father. It was an impulse he felt increasingly rarely these days, and the only reason he had it now was that the case was so clearly linked to the Church. Alex’s father was a Church of Sweden clergyman, as was his younger brother. Alex had had to fight hard once upon a time to justify his choice of career to his parents. All firstborn sons in the family had taken holy orders, going back generations.
Finally his father had given in. A career in the police was a kind of calling, after all.
‘I’ve chosen this because I can’t see myself making a better job of anything else,’ Alex had said.
And with these words he had finally won the battle.
The telephone on his desk rang. It made him feel warm inside to hear his wife Lena’s voice, even though it had started to make him feel a bit uneasy of late. There was something worrying her, but she was not saying what.
‘Are you going to be late tonight?’ she asked.
‘Probably not.’
‘You won’t forget your physio appointment?’
‘Of course not,’ he said peevishly.
They talked about what to have for dinner and what they really thought of their daughter’s new boyfriend, who looked like a hard rocker and talked like a politician. ‘A bloody disaster,’ was Alex’s succinct verdict, and that made Lena laugh.
Her laugh was still echoing in his head even after they had hung up.
Alex looked down at his scarred hands. They had got badly burnt in that insane case of the missing girl the previous summer. Little children were abducted from around the capital and later found murdered. The hunt for the perpetrator had taken less than a week all told, but it had been more intense than anything else in his whole career. The fire in the murderer’s flat was like a bizarre grand finale to an equally bizarre case.
Alex flexed his fingers. The doctors had promised him full mobility if he just gave it time, and they had been right. Alex remembered nothing of the fire itself, and he was glad of it. He had never been on sick leave for so long before, and just a few weeks after his return to work, he and Lena had gone to South America to visit their son.
He chuckled, as he always did when he thought about the trip. Good grief, what a mess the police force was over there.
The phone rang again. To his great surprise it was Margareta Berlin, head of HR.
‘Alex, we’ve got to talk about Peder Rydh,’ she said flatly.
‘Oh yes?’ said Alex hesitantly. ‘What’s up?’
‘Croissants.’
Although he had been in Sweden for a number of days, he hadn’t yet seen the country at all. He had taken the airport bus from Arlanda into the centre of Stockholm as instructed, and waited in the bus station on a seat outside a newsagent’s shop.
He had had to wait half an hour before the woman came. She did not look at all as he had expected. She was much shorter and darker than he had imagined Swedish women to be, and she was wearing a man’s suit, with trousers instead of a skirt. He was suddenly unsure of what to say.
‘Ali?’ asked the woman.
He nodded.
The woman glanced over her shoulder, then took a mobile phone from her bag and gave it to him. Such relief washed over him that it almost made him cry. Handing over the phone was the signal he had been waiting for, the receipt for having found the right place.
He stuffed the phone into his pocket with clumsy fingers, feeling for his passport in his shirt pocket with his other hand. The woman gave a distinct nod as he passed it to her, and leafed quickly though it.
Then she gestured to him to go with her.
She took him through the bus station, which was called the City Terminal, out onto a street full of cars. Just to the left of the entrance, alongside the pavement, were more bicycles than Ali had ever seen at a bus station. Swedish people must cycle all the time.
The woman urged him to keep up and when they reached her car she directed him to get into the passenger seat. He watched with fascination as she took her place at the wheel and started the car. It was much colder than he had expected, but the car was still warm.