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Calm down, she told herself.

It was the work of a madman, a sick human being. Mentally, she ran through the list of other occupants. Was there anyone capable of strangling and disemboweling a rabbit? No. Her neighbor Cattis could be difficult and she certainly had opinions on everyone and everything, but she was hardly so far gone as to do this.

The wind had picked up and Gunilla thought she could hear the rabbit’s body rhythmically smacking against the railing. She knew she should cut him down but didn’t want to go out onto the patio again. And if she called the police again, what would they do? They must have enough on their hands with John’s murder without investigating the death of a pet rabbit.

She heard Magnus Härenstam’s voice on the television as she gently pushed open the door and at the same time turned on the outside light. It didn’t turn on and she tried again with the same result. A branch of the bird-cherry shrub that Martin had planted was dashed against the plastic roof. Why did he plant it so close? she had time to think before she noticed that the rabbit was gone. As it was white, it took a while before she spotted it again. Had it been blown down onto the snow or had someone taken it down?

She looked out toward the trees, holding her breath and crouching down slightly so that she would not be as visible to the outside. The pine trees swayed in the wind. The bird-cherry branch scraped against the roof. She took a few hesitant steps, wearing only thin stockings. Ansgar couldn’t stay down there, people would think she had done it. Malin would never forgive her.

She was terrified, but strangely not very surprised, when a hand covered her mouth and another encircled her waist. She tried to bite her attacker but couldn’t open her mouth.

“Rabbits are disgusting,” a voice hissed in her ear, a voice she recognized but was unable to place.

The man’s breath stank of decay. Gunilla tried to kick back with her legs like a frightened horse but had no strength. The man only chuckled, as if her show of resistance amused him.

“Let’s go in,” he said smoothly.

Gunilla desperately tried to place the voice. She had been so stupid. He must have been hiding behind the door.

He dragged her back into the apartment without allowing her to see him. He turned off the light by pressing his back against the button, then dragged her farther into the room and gave her a shove so that she fell into the sofa.

“Hi, Gunilla,” he said. “I just wanted to drop in for a visit.”

His voice was so familiar. She studied his face, which was narrow, with two deep lines that ran down his cheeks, a black beard, almost bald on top, and with a smile on his lips that frightened and confused her.

“I’m talking to you.”

“What?” Gunilla said.

She had seen his lips move but had no idea what he had said.

“Do you remember me?”

Gunilla nodded. Suddenly she knew who he was. She started to shake.

“What do you want?”

The man laughed. He had bad teeth, disintegrating and covered in tartar.

“Did you kill the rabbit?”

Vincent Hahn’s features stiffened in a mask, a laughing mask.

“I want to see your breasts,” he said.

She flinched as if he had struck her.

“Don’t touch me!” she sobbed.

“That’s what you said before, but now I’m the one who decides.”

He didn’t look so strong, she thought. His shoulders and wrists were thin, but she knew how easily one could underestimate a person. Even mere children could be moved by rage to incredible feats of strength, which their bodies did not seem capable of. They had talked about self-defense at the daycare, once, when one of her colleagues had completed a course. She knew she had a chance to escape if only the opportunity arose. No one was invincible.

“If you show me your breasts I’ll leave.”

He looked tired. Maybe he was on medication.

“Then I’ll leave,” he repeated, and leaned forward so that his sour breath wafted over her again. She had to fight against revealing her disgust.

What was the right thing to say?

“Take off your sweater.”

“It’s certainly been a long time.”

“Or I’ll lay you on the ground.”

She stood up. Suddenly she felt sorry for the man in front of her. At school he had always been the one the other students looked down on or treated as an outsider, someone who never fit in. But he had not been completely without friends, and he actually seemed to manage his schoolwork well. A few years ago, when she was leafing through her yearbook, she had seen a picture of Vincent’s thin figure. She had thought at that time that it was strange how Vincent seemed to have gone through high school virtually unchanged-lanky, acne-ridden, and to all appearances unaffected by the usual emotional and hormonal storms that descended on everyone else, especially the boys. He had simply been there, attentive to the teachers, sometimes with an air of superiority toward the other students, but often ingratiating, wanting to please.

“I need to have a drink,” she said. “I’m so scared. Would you like some wine?”

He looked back at her with a total lack of expression. She wondered if he had even understood what she had said.

“Would you like some wine?”

He grabbed her when she tried to walk past. Her arm hurt. He pulled her over but she managed to keep her balance.

“Let me go. I’m only getting some wine. Then you can see my breasts.”

Don’t show your fear, she thought, as the image of the strangled rabbit with his slit belly made her whimper softly. She pulled off her sweater and saw Vincent sway at the sight of her upper body.

“Okay, one glass,” he said and smiled.

He followed her closely. She could feel his body heat behind her back. He was breathing heavily. The wine bottle clinked against the stand and it was as if the noise startled him, because suddenly he grabbed her shoulder, the way Martin did when her neck and shoulders were tight, but this grasp was much harder and turned her around.

“You remember me, don’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “But you’ve changed a lot.”

“So have you.”

Gunilla freed herself from his hand and reached for the corkscrew hanging above the counter. Vincent Hahn stood right next to her, his sour, foul-smelling breath filling the entire kitchen, and she was struck by the thought that she would never be able to get it clean again.

“Do you like red wine?” she asked and raised the bottle.

The blow came from nowhere, startling both her and Vincent. Everything happened like a reflex action, the instinctive self-defense of an animal.

The bottle struck him on the side of the head and she finished the attack by thrusting the corkscrew into his chest.

Wine was spilling everywhere. Vincent’s face was twisted with pain and surprise. He teetered, fumbling with his hand against the kitchen table, grabbing the back of the chair, then gliding down onto the floor and pulling the chair along with him. Wine and blood mingled together.

Gunilla stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds, paralyzed, still with the broken bottle in one hand and the corkscrew in her left, leaning over, tense, prepared to attack again, but the man at her feet hardly moved. The pool of blood spread out like a dark rose over the linoleum. The raw smell of the blood mixed with the heavy scent of the Rioja.

“You bastard,” she said and pointed the broken bottle at his face, but then she suddenly dropped the sharp-edged weapon and fled from the kitchen, pulled open the front door, and ran out into the dark night.

The cold outside was intense. She slipped in the snow but ran on. Her cries filled the whole yard and the neighbors said later that it had sounded like a terrified, wounded animal.

Åke Bolinder, who lived in the tower block and had just taken his dog off its leash, was the first on the scene. He came running around the corner of the laundry building to see a woman sink to the ground. He immediately recognized her, not because he knew her particularly well, but because he had seen her at the association meetings and occasionally in the grocery store.