She had been dirty and he had spent a whole day cleaning her off and repairing a tear in her groin. Someone had been violent with her. He had saved her from that. Now he guarded her, changed her underwear, and gave her love.
He got off at the bus terminal and walked up Bangårdsgatan to the bingo hall. He always looked around before going in. Once he was inside, some of the tension lifted.
Twelve
The headlines in the morning paper screamed: MURDER. Her first impulse once she had finished reading was to call Ottosson. The morning fatigue vanished. This was her job.
Some got a kick out of the sports pages and the latest results, some preferred the massive texts in the arts-and-culture section, and others read the cartoons or the home-and-garden inserts. None of this interested Ann Lindell, but a murder in her hometown made her heart beat faster. She was excited not by the violence itself or the fact that a person had been brutally slaughtered, but by the fact that it meant she had work to do.
She studied the text carefully and tried to read between the lines. Haver’s and Ryde’s brief comments didn’t yield much, but she knew enough to assume they didn’t have much to work with at this point.
She pushed the paper away. She had been home for nine months now. The baby, Erik, was growing incredibly slowly. She often called him “my poor boy.” She didn’t mean anything by this other than that she felt sorry for him because he had been born to a single parent, and a police officer at that.
She thought she was not a particularly good mother. Not that the little one was suffering-he got all the care and attention he could want-but Ann continually felt impatient over the time it was taking. Why couldn’t he hurry up and grow so that she could go back to work?
She had mentioned it to Beatrice, saying that she felt like she was being disloyal to him, but Bea had just laughed.
“I’ve felt the same thing,” she said. “We all love our kids, but we want so much. The kids are everything to us, and yet they aren’t our life, so to speak. Some women love to putter around at home but I almost went crazy that first year. Sitting around the playground shooting the breeze with other moms was not my thing.”
Ann was only partly comforted by her colleague’s words. Guilt gnawed at her. She felt as if she were copying other mothers, especially her own, in almost everything she did. It was as if she weren’t a mother for real.
She had never lived this close to another human being, never poured almost all her strength into caring for another. It was tiring but also filled her with a sense of power and pride. She was continually surprised at the direction her life had taken, over the change in herself.
She lived in two worlds, one where she pretended to be a good mother while the dual feelings of impatience and guilt coursed through her, and another where she proudly pushed her stroller through the streets of Uppsala, filled with a gentle happiness.
She didn’t think much about Erik’s father. That was a surprise. During her pregnancy, especially in the last few months, she had toyed with the idea of looking him up. Not to get him to leave his family-she had already found out that he was married and had two children-and not to extract any kind of allowance, not even to get him to admit paternity. Then why? she asked herself. She couldn’t give herself an answer, and now that the baby was here she didn’t care about him any longer.
Ann’s parents had pressed her for information, but she had resisted their attempts to extract the name of the father. It was of no significance to her or her parents, after all, as she would never live with him.
She would have to reconsider the matter when her boy was older. As a matter of principle she had always thought every child had a right to know his father. But now she was no longer so sure. He wasn’t needed. What she denied in herself was the slumbering half-hope that there would one day be a man who would take on the role of a stand-in.
She often hated herself for her somewhat dismissive attitude but used rationalizations to deny the needs she had felt the past few years when her thoughts of Edvard had confused and weakened her.
Things are as they are. Be a good mom just as you’ve been a good cop. Period. You don’t need a man, she told herself, fully conscious of the fact that she was engaged in an act of self-deception. The art of survival, Beatrice had called it, the one time they had talked with unusual candor about Ann’s situation.
She was grateful for Beatrice. She would never have thought that her colleague would one day come to mean so much to her. Beatrice had always seemed like an iron lady with principles to boot. Ann had tentatively sought her out, eager for the friendship but dreading her judgment.
She often felt like a wandering sheep, driven hither and thither by her violent feelings for Edvard, her-in her own opinion-adolescent desire to have a man in her life, and her vacillating emotions toward the child.
But Beatrice had not judged her. Quite the opposite: the feeling of rivalry that had once existed between the two officers had dissipated and Beatrice had become a close friend, something that Ann had missed ever since she had left Ödeshög. Sometimes she imagined that it had to do with the fact that Beatrice no longer had to compete with her, now that Ann was incapacitated, away from her post, bound to the little bunting.
Ottosson, their chief, had always treated Ann as his favorite, supporting her and showing her small favors, although always in private since he was careful not to jeopardize the group camaraderie. But Beatrice must have sensed it anyway, perhaps feeling unjustly ignored.
Whatever the case, Ann was happy over Beatrice’s interest in her as a personal friend. It was an unfamiliar feeling. From talking exclusively about work, they now shared so much more as friends.
She called Ottosson. She knew she would not be able to contain herself, so she called right away.
Ottosson chuckled delightedly at the sound of her voice. Lindell felt that he could see through her. He filled her in on the case, and, as she had suspected, they did not have much to go on. She had never heard of Little John before, but she knew Lennart. She didn’t think it such a good idea that Sammy was the one assigned to question him. Those two had never really hit it off, but she didn’t say anything about her reservations. She remembered the notorious small-time crook as arrogant.
As she listened to Ottosson’s report she was filled with an overwhelming desire to be back at work. She heard in his voice that he was stressed, but he still took the time to talk to her. Lindell sat at her kitchen table. Out of habit she had grabbed a pad and started making notes.
She could see it all in her mind, the morning meeting, the colleagues bent over their desks with a phone in their hands or in front of a computer screen. Haver’s receptive face, Sammy’s slightly careless style, Fredriksson staring into space while he unconsciously pulled on his nose with his fingertips. Lundin in the toilet, no doubt soaping up his hands, Wende searching the database, Beatrice gritting her teeth and methodically working her way through the list of names and addresses, and Ryde, the sullen forensic specialist, pondering and wise behind his mask of gruffness.
She wanted to be back there again, soon. The little one whimpered. She unconsciously put a hand to her breast and stood up. What was the reason for the murder? she wondered. Drugs? Debts? Jealousy? She threw a last glance at her notes and then walked slowly to Erik’s room.
He lay on his back, looking either at a spot on the ceiling or at the colorful bells that hung above the crib. Ann looked at him. Her little one, her poor boy. His eyes fixed on her and he let out a soft whimper.