She was no longer in charge of any investigations, did not attend any morning meetings, and was never woken up by calls relating to violence and misery. She felt released from responsibility. Erik was a surprisingly easy baby. If she kept him on a reasonably regular schedule, he was content. He didn’t have even a hint of colic. The first real problem, if you could call it that, was this rash.
Ann was in town after twenty minutes. She was sweating inside her coat. Earlier she had rarely worn a coat, preferring a short jacket or just a sweater.
“You’re turning into a real lady,” Ottosson had said when she last came down to the station for a visit.
“He means a real old lady,” Sammy Nilsson had added.
They had looked at her in a way they had never done before, or so it seemed to her. She didn’t know what she thought of that. She was proud to be a mother. To be caring for a son on her own. It was no grand achievement, she knew, it was something that millions of mothers had done throughout the ages, and most often without the help of a maternity ward and one-year checkups, but in this matter it was she, Ann Lindell, who was the mother. No one else, neither man nor woman, could take this point of pride from her. She knew it was an old-fashioned and ridiculous thought, but in some way she felt she had been judged good enough. She had been taken up in the ranks of all mothers, living and dead. It was an exclusive club, automatically excluding half of humanity and many others besides, those who could not or did not want to give birth.
Was it the same for men? she wondered. She sensed that she knew too little about them to be able to say. Of course she had met fathers pushing baby carriages with that exalted, almost silly expression, but did it feel the same for them? She had no man to ask. Edvard, the man she had been closest to, had been pained by a lack of contact with his two boys. But he was the one who had left them. Would a woman have been able to escape the way he had done? She was getting tired of these quasi-philosophical homemade analyses but couldn’t shake them off entirely. She knew they provided her with a way of dealing with her loneliness and frustration. For all her intoxication with the wonders of motherhood, she remained alone.
To give birth to a child and watch him develop was a wonderful experience, but at the same time it was rather boring. This was the word she used to herself. She missed the excitement of police work. She now understood more fully why she had chosen this career. It was not so much for idealistic reasons as for the tension, the anticipation of the unknown, the extraordinary, the feeling of playing a furious game where the stakes were nothing short of life and death.
Shortly after one o’clock she arrived at the children’s clinic and was shown into an office to see Katrin, a nurse-practitioner she had met several times before. She liked Katrin, a little woman in gold-colored sandals. She had talked to Ann about mastitis, and about the mixture of emptiness, longing, relief, and freedom that accompanies the absence of menstruation. She and Ann got along.
Ann was still nursing Erik but thinking seriously of weaning him. He refused to nurse on the left breast, which had now gone down to its normal shape, while the one on the right had ballooned up as big as a soccer ball. Ann often felt like a cow. She wanted to retain the closeness of nursing but also wanted her breasts back. Lately Erik had also taking to biting her.
She removed Erik’s clothing and showed Katrin the rash on his chest and back. Katrin studied them carefully and then said she thought they were a reaction to something Ann was eating.
“Think carefully about what you’re having,” she said. “Erik is reacting to something in your diet. If it were summer I would guess strawberries.”
“I’m fond of Indian food,” Ann said. “Could that be it? There’s lots of cumin and ginger in Indian food.”
“No, I think spicy food would more likely cause a stomachache.”
“And you’re sure it’s not a virus?” Ann asked, feeling helpless. She had grabbed on to this idea from the woman who ran the drop-in playgroup, a group she sometimes attended not because she really liked it but because she felt it was part of the experience.
“No, I don’t think so. Not with you still nursing him.”
Ann agreed to keep close track of what she was eating and to watch for any changes in Erik’s rash.
They sat and talked for another thirty minutes. Katrin was someone who did not shy away from asking personal questions. She intuited Ann’s bafflement in her new role as mother, probably because she had seen it before, but her penetrating questions were posed with such gentle tact that Ann felt completely relaxed. Katrin had an ability to give advice that never felt like criticism.
They said good-bye in the corridor. Ann turned and waved after a few steps, taking Erik’s hand and letting him wave too. Katrin looked suddenly shy, but held up her hand.
Ann stepped out into the weak December sun, which was now sinking ever more rapidly into the horizon, and felt a wave of gratitude. She continued on down the street and decided to stop by the station. She checked the time: shortly before two. Ottosson was probably in, and he would likely take the time to have a cup of tea and a chat.
The door was open and Lindell looked in. Ottosson was sitting at his desk, his gaze fixed on a piece of paper in front of him. She heard him humming. Then he turned the page and sighed.
“Is this a bad time?”
Ottosson flinched, looked up, and the momentary confusion gave way to a smile.
“Did I startle you?”
“No, what I was reading startled me.”
He didn’t say anything else, but he studied her.
“You look blooming with health,” he said.
Lindell smiled. He always told her that, even when she felt terrible.
“What are you doing?”
Ottosson ignored the question, instead asking her where Erik was.
“He’s sleeping in his stroller just outside your door.”
The chief got up and Lindell saw that his back pain had returned.
“It would be a pity to miss an opportunity to complain,” he said when he noticed her gaze.
They walked out together and looked at the baby. Another colleague was walking by and he also looked into the stroller. Ottosson started humming again but didn’t say anything.
“He’ll be one soon,” Lindell said. “Well, ‘soon’ is relative, I guess.”
Ottosson nodded.
“My wife sends her regards, by the way. She was talking about you the other day.”
Lindell pushed the stroller into Ottosson’s office and he shut the door.
“It’s your usual festive pre-Christmas season here,” he said. “We have a murder in Libro and a lunatic intruder in Sävja, with a possible connection between the two events. Little John, the woman, and the loony-his name is Vincent Hahn-were classmates in high school. I’ve just been reading through the few items we have on Hahn. He seems remarkable, to say the least. Complains about every little thing. We’ve recovered five thick folders containing copies of letters he’s sent over the years, with the accompanying replies from various companies and state departments.”
“Has he had run-ins with us before?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“How strong is the connection to John?”
“Not more than their school, which could be mere coincidence. But the murder could also mark the start of some private revenge scheme. We’re trying to get our noses in everyone’s business. John’s widow has never heard of Hahn.”
“And what about John’s brother?”
“We haven’t been able to reach him for a while.”
Lindell felt the thrill of suspense. After only a few minutes of talk she was back.
“As I recall, Lennart was a fairly unsympathetic character,” she said. “Loudmouthed and arrogant.”
“He has his bad sides, to be sure,” Ottosson said. “But it’s clear he’s mourning his brother. He appears to be staying sober and I think he’s doing his own investigating. You know Nilsson, Johan Sebastian, the one Sammy is in touch with, he called and told us.”