At that moment the windowpane shattered, and the sound of a rifle shot combined with the noise of falling glass. Ya Ru had no time to realise that something had gone wrong, catastrophically wrong. The bullet hit him in his right temple and killed him instantly. All his important bodily functions had already ceased when his body fell onto a table and knocked over a vase of flowers.
Birgitta Roslin stood there motionless, just like all the other guests in the dining room, the waiters and waitresses and a head waiter clutching a dish of hard-boiled eggs. The silence was broken by somebody screaming.
Birgitta stared at the dead body lying on the white tablecloth. It still hadn’t dawned on her that it had anything to do with her. A vague thought that London was being subjected to a terrorist attack flew through her head.
Then she felt a hand grabbing hold of her arm. She tried to pull herself free as she turned round.
It was Ho standing behind her.
‘Don’t say a word,’ said Ho. ‘Just follow me. We can’t stay here.’
Ho ushered Birgitta out into the lobby.
‘Give me your key. I’ll pack your bag while you pay your bill.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Don’t ask any questions. Just do as I say.’
Ho was gripping her arm so tightly that it hurt. Chaos had broken out in the hotel. People were screaming and yelling, running back and forth.
‘Insist on paying,’ said Ho. ‘We have to get out of here.’
Birgitta understood. Not what had happened, but what Ho said. She stood at the desk and bellowed at one of the bewildered receptionists that she wanted to settle her bill. Ho disappeared into one of the lifts and returned ten minutes later with Birgitta’s suitcase. By then the hotel lobby was teeming with police officers and paramedics.
Birgitta had paid her bill.
‘Now we’re going to walk calmly out of the door,’ said Ho. ‘If anybody tries to stop you, just say that you have a plane to catch.’
They elbowed their way out into the street without anybody hindering them. Birgitta paused and looked back. Ho dragged at her arm once again.
‘Don’t turn round. Just walk normally. We’ll talk later.’
They came to where Ho lived and went up to her flat on the second floor. There was a man there, in his twenties. He was very pale and talked excitedly to Ho. Birgitta could see that Ho was trying to calm him down. She took him into an adjacent room where the agitated conversation continued. When they returned, the man was carrying a bundle that looked like it might contain a pool cue. He left the flat. Ho stood by the window, looking down into the street. Birgitta slumped onto a chair. She had only just realised that the man who died had fallen onto the table next to the one where she’d been sitting.
She looked at Ho, who had now left the window. She was very pale. Birgitta could see that she was trembling.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You were the one who was supposed to die,’ said Ho. ‘He was going to kill you. I must tell it exactly as it is.’
Birgitta shook her head.
‘You have to be clear,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.’
‘The man who died was Ya Ru. Hong Qiu’s brother.’
‘What happened?’
‘He tried to kill you. We managed to stop him at the very last moment.’
‘We?’
‘You could have died because you gave me false information about the hotel you were staying at. Why did you do that? Did you think you couldn’t trust me? Are you so confused that you can’t distinguish between friends and people who are anything but?’
Birgitta raised her hand. ‘You’re going too fast. I can’t keep up. Hong Qiu’s brother? Why would he want to kill me?’
‘Because you knew too much about what happened in your country. All those people who died. Ya Ru was presumably behind it all — that’s what Hong Qiu thought, at least.’
‘But why?’
‘I can’t say. I don’t know.’
Birgitta was thinking. When Ho was about to speak again, Birgitta raised her hand to stop her.
‘You said “we,” ’ said Birgitta after a while. ‘The man who just left your flat was carrying something. Was it a rifle?’
‘Yes. I had decided that San should keep an eye on you. But there was nobody with your name at the hotel you told me you were staying at. It was San who realised that this hotel was closest. We saw you through the window. When Ya Ru came up to your table after you’d been called away, I realised that he was going to kill you. San took out his rifle and shot him. It all happened so quickly that nobody in the street caught on. Most people probably thought it was a motorbike backfiring. San had the rifle hidden in a raincoat.’
‘San?’
‘Hong Qiu’s son. She sent him to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Hong Qiu wasn’t only afraid for her own life and yours. She was just as afraid for her son. San was convinced that Ya Ru had killed his mother. So he didn’t need much encouragement to get his revenge.’
Birgitta felt sick. She was slowly beginning to realise what it was all about. It was as she had suspected earlier but rejected because it seemed so preposterous. Something in the past had triggered the deaths of all those people in Hesjövallen.
She reached out and grabbed hold of Ho. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Is it all over now?’
‘I think so. You can go home. Ya Ru is dead. Neither you nor I know what will happen next. But at least you won’t be a part of the story any more.’
‘How am I going to be able to live without knowing how it all ends?’
‘I’ll try to help you.’
‘What will happen to San?’
‘No doubt the police will find witnesses who will say that a Chinese man shot another Chinese man. But nobody will be able to finger San.’
‘He saved my life.’
‘He probably saved his own life by killing Ya Ru.’
‘But who is this man that everybody’s afraid of?’
Ho shook her head. ‘I don’t know if I can answer that. In many ways he’s a representative of the new China that neither Hong Qiu nor I nor Ma Li, nor even San for that matter, want to have anything to do with. There are major struggles going on in our country about what’s going to happen next. What the future is going to look like. Nobody knows; nothing is assured. You can only do what you think is right.’
‘Such as killing Ya Ru?’
‘That was necessary.’
Birgitta went into the kitchen and drank a glass of water. When she put the glass down, she knew that she had to go home now. Everything that was still unclear would have to wait. All she wanted to do was to go home, to get away from London and everything that had happened.
Ho accompanied her in a taxi to Heathrow. After a wait of four hours she succeeded in finding a seat on a flight to Copenhagen. Ho wanted to wait until the plane had left, but Birgitta asked her to leave.
When she got back to Helsingborg she opened a bottle of wine and emptied it during the course of the night. She slept most of the next day. She was woken up by Staffan’s call to say that their boat trip was over. She couldn’t stop herself from bursting into tears.
‘What’s the matter? Has something happened?’
‘No, nothing. I’m tired.’