Shortly before they were supposed to meet, Emma had almost called Johan to cancel, but even though she knew she was headed into deep water, she couldn’t make herself do it. Her interest in Johan took the upper hand.
As she let him pull out a chair for her, she could feel that she was already lost.
They each ordered a different type of pasta. The waiter brought their drinks. White wine and water for both of them.
I need a glass of wine, Emma thought nervously. She lit a cigarette and looked at him across the table.
“I’m glad to see you again,” he said.
“Are you?” She couldn’t help smiling.
He smiled back. His dimples deepened. Annoyingly charming. Johan’s brown eyes were fixed on her. She made an effort not to hold his gaze too long.
“Let’s not talk about the murders. At least for the moment,” he pleaded. “I want to know more about you.”
“Okay.”
They talked about themselves. Johan wanted to know everything, both about her and her children. He seems genuinely interested, she thought.
Emma asked him about his job. Why had he become a journalist?
“When I was in high school, I was angry about everything in general,” he said. “Especially all the social injustices. I had seen them firsthand, even in the suburb where I grew up. The railroad tracks cut right through the community and divided it in two. On one side was the nice residential area for people who had money. On the other side there were nothing but big apartment buildings, tenements covered with graffiti and the basement windows smashed in. That’s where most of the drug addicts lived, along with people who were unemployed. Two different worlds. It was really quite disgusting. At the middle-school level, kids from the whole suburb went to the same school, and that was a wake-up call for me.”
“In what way?” asked Emma.
“I ended up having friends who lived in those big apartment buildings. I realized that not everyone has the same opportunities. Some of us started a school newspaper, and we wrote articles about the injustices. That was how it all started, with passion and idealism. And here I am now, just a simple crime reporter.”
He laughed and shook his head. “When I started at journalism school, I wanted to be a newspaper reporter, like most people, I assume, but I wound up getting an internship in television, and that’s where I stayed. And what about you? How did you end up being a teacher?”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same passionate involvement that you did. It’s the classic story. Both of my parents were teachers. Probably a lot of it had to do with wanting to please them. I’ve always liked school. And I’m also very fond of children,” she said as the thought of her own children flitted past like a guilty reminder that she shouldn’t really be sitting here at all.
Johan noticed the shadow that passed over her face. Quickly he changed the subject.
“What do you think about this new murder?”
“It’s totally crazy. How could that happen here? On little Gotland? I don’t understand it at all. First Helena and now this.”
“Did you know Frida Lindh?”
“No. She only lived here a year, right? Although I think there’s something familiar about her face.”
“She worked at a beauty salon in Ostercentrum. Maybe you saw her there.”
“Oh, you’re right. I took my kids there a couple of times to get their hair cut.”
“Do you think Helena might have known her?”
“No idea. I wonder whether it’s just a coincidence that the two of them were murdered, or whether there’s some sort of connection. I’ve been thinking about Helena nonstop, turning everything over in my mind. I’ve tried to figure out what could be behind such a crime, and who could have done it. I went to Stockholm for her funeral, and I met a lot of people there who knew Helena. Her parents, her siblings, her friends. Per’s parents were at the funeral, too, of course. No one believed for a minute that he was the killer. Since then all of us who were at the party on that evening at Per and Helena’s house have gotten together. We can’t think of anything. I wonder if she had met some new man that none of us knew about, someone she started a relationship with and who turned out to be crazy.”
She poked her fork at the remnants of the food on her plate.
“Maybe she was trying to break off the relationship because she realized that she loved Per, and then the other man got horribly jealous.”
“Maybe,” said Johan. “Sure, it’s a possibility. Do you know whether she was ever unfaithful to Per?”
“Yes, that actually did happen. At least once, several years ago. She met someone at a party, and they ended up in bed together. They had an affair that lasted several weeks. She was having her doubts at the time about Per. Didn’t really know what her own feelings were anymore. She thought things had gotten to be so routine between them. Helena was completely obsessed with that other guy. She talked about nothing else and said that he was like a drug that calmed her down. She even left work a few times to meet him. That wasn’t like her.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. I thought she was being ridiculous. She refused to say anything about who he was or what he did or where he lived.”
“Why is that?”
“No clue. Of course I tried to squeeze the information out of her, but she was really impossible. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ she told me.”
“So what happened?”
“One day she told me that it was over. I don’t know what happened or why. She just said it was over and that she had decided to stay with Per.”
“When was that?”
“Hm… a few years back. It must have been three or four years ago, I guess.”
“Didn’t she ever talk about him after that?”
“No. Time passed and I forgot all about it. Until now.”
“That’s something that should be checked out,” said Johan. “Somebody else must know about it. Did you discuss it with any of her friends over in Stockholm when you were there?”
“No, I didn’t. It didn’t occur to me.”
She glanced at her watch. Two thirty. An hour and a half until she had to pick up the kids. She could feel the effect of the wine, but she took another sip and met his gaze.
“I need to keep an eye on the time because I have to catch a bus so I won’t be late at the daycare center.”
“I can drive you there. I’ve only had one glass of wine. It’ll be okay.”
They drove through the town in silence. Emma leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling more at ease than she had in a very long time.
She opened her eyes and let her eyes rest on him.
Good Lord, she thought, am I falling in love? This is idiotic. At the same time, she couldn’t help enjoying the moment. She felt relaxed in his company, happier and more talkative than she’d been in a long time. She looked at his hands on the steering wheel. Very tan and manly. Short, clean fingernails.
He turned his head to look at her. “What are you thinking about?”
She blushed. “Nothing.” She felt a smile tugging at her lips.
Without warning, he turned off the main road to Roma onto a gravel road, stopping at the edge of the woods. She was neither surprised nor frightened, merely felt a fluttering in her stomach.
He didn’t say a word, just leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back. He was startled by her intensity. He touched her hair, her arms, her thighs. Emma felt desire seize hold of her. Just a few more minutes, she thought as her tongue began playing a tender wrestling match with his. Just a little while longer. Until his hand crept under her shirt and she pushed him away.
“We have to stop. We can’t do this right now.”
“Just a little more,” he begged.