He found it hard to adapt to new workplaces, and was constantly changing job. He was always on the move, and seen by those around him as a restless soul.
At the time he met Nora, he was back in Umeå where he grew up, working at the hospital. According to the papers, the break-up with Nora must have triggered some kind of psychosis, because that was when he went to his grandmother’s home in the middle of the night and set fire to it, burning her alive in her bed.
The rest was, as they say, history. Alex had recently spoken to the parents of the little boy Aron Steen had taken hostage. The boy was slowly recovering. His injuries were much more extensive than Alex’s, but at least he was alive. His parents were very grateful for that. Only time would tell whether the boy felt the same gratitude.
Though resolute police work had uncovered the identity of the perpetrator, many other questions remained unanswered. It was impossible to establish exactly where Aron had murdered the children. In all probability, Lilian had been killed in Jelena’s flat, and Natalie in Aron’s, but nothing could be proved. Nor had the investigation reached any conclusion about why Nora had been murdered at precisely that point in time. When they interviewed Jelena Scortz, she claimed she knew nothing about it.
As for Jelena, she had been discharged from hospital and was being held on remand in Kronoberg Prison, awaiting trial. She denied all the charges, but there was technical evidence confirming Lilian had been in her flat. Lilian’s panties had been found in a bag in the rubbish collection area in the basement of her block. Jelena refused to say anything about how they came to be there. Alex couldn’t decide if he felt sorry for her or not.
Alex switched on his computer and flicked through his desk diary. He only had a couple of weeks at work before he and Lena were off on their trip to South America to see their son. It was going to be a wonderful and exciting trip, Alex was in no doubt about it.
There was an unobtrusive little knock at Alex’s door.
Fredrika was loitering hesitantly in the doorway.
‘Come in,’ said Alex with real warmth in his voice.
Fredrika smiled as she came in and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
‘I just wanted to see how you were,’ she said. ‘Is everything okay?’
Alex nodded and smiled.
‘Almost everything’s very okay indeed,’ he said. ‘How about you, are you okay?’
It was Fredrika’s turn to nod. Yes, she was fine.
‘Did you have a good holiday?’ asked Alex, sounding genuinely interested.
Fredrika was caught out by the question. The summer and her holiday both felt so very far away.
But his query brought back happy memories of the week she and Spencer had spent at a little guest house in Skagen.
She smiled, but her eyes clouded over.
‘I had a lovely holiday,’ she replied emphatically.
Saying it conjured up the image of Spencer, sitting on the sand, looking out over the sea. The wind in his face and his eyes like narrow slits, protecting themselves from the sun.
‘It won’t get any better than this, Fredrika,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she answered.
‘Just so you don’t feel I’m misleading you.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that. I’ve never felt anything but safe with you.’
Then they sat there on the sand, looking out over the water where the tall waves chased each other back and forth, until Fredrika, agonizing, hesitantly broke the silence.
‘Talking of misleading each other, there’s something else I think we should talk about…’
Alex cleared his throat as Fredrika’s attention drifted away.
‘Thanks for the CD you sent,’ he said. ‘Lena and I both love it. We play it almost every day.’
‘Oh, I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I’m very fond of that one myself.’
Then there was silence.
Alex shifted uneasily in his seat and decided to ask a more urgently topical question, but Fredrika got in first.
‘When’s Peder expected back?’
Alex had to think.
‘The first of November,’ he said. ‘Unless he opts to be a stay-at-home dad.’
Fredrika had to smile.
Peder and Fredrika had joined forces to conclude the investigation that started when Lilian Sebastiansson went missing from a train at Stockholm Central Station. It had been a fruitful collaboration that had given them new respect for each other, and they had parted as good colleagues when Peder went on paternity leave at the start of August.
That was the last they had heard of each other. Fredrika wondered a few times whether to give him a ring, but never got round to it. Perhaps it was because she saw him as just that, a colleague, rather than a friend. And now too much time had passed for it to feel a natural thing to do. There was also quiet but persistent gossip on the corridor about Peder and his wife having a ‘trial separation’, as it was put, though he was also said to have asked a lawyer friend to act for him in the question of divorce proceedings and dividing the joint property.
Tragic, thought Fredrika.
Alex thought the same.
But neither of them put it into words, simply letting it hang there in the air.
In the resulting silence, Alex again tried to ask the question he needed answering.
‘And what about you, Fredrika? Are you going to stay on here with us?’
Fredrika drew herself up and looked Alex straight in the eye.
‘Yes,’ she said with composure. ‘I am.’
Alex smiled at her.
‘I’m glad,’ he said honestly.
More mutual agreement that didn’t need words. Fredrika briefly considered whether this was the time to say that although she wanted to stay with Alex, certain things would have to change. Certain things to do with his assessment of her competence, and how her background was valued. The media had drawn attention to her involvement in the case, which had turned a spotlight on tensions between police and civilian personnel in the force. Fredrika had refused no fewer than two invitations to take part in discussion programmes. But she felt no urge whatsoever to give vent to her personal opinions on television.
Fredrika decided the issue could wait. It was Alex’s first day back at work since the fire; it didn’t feel right to force him into such a major discussion.
And anyway, there was another question she wanted to take up with him.
‘I’ve got to tell you that I shall be on parental leave from the end of April next year.’
Alex gave a start. Fredrika had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself bursting out laughing.
‘Parental leave?’ Alex repeated in amazement.
‘I’m going to be a mother,’ said Fredrika, feeling her cheeks glow with pride.
‘Congratulations!’ Alex said automatically.
He studied her.
‘It doesn’t show yet,’ he blurted out before he could stop himself.
Fredrika simply smiled, leaving Alex free to put his foot in it a second time.
‘Is there going to be a shotgun wedding?’
It was Fredrika’s turn to flinch, and Alex made a defensive gesture with his damaged hands to show he took the comment back. Fredrika found herself giggling, entirely involuntarily. Shotgun wedding. What a phrase.
I owe him this one, thought Fredrika, and answered the question.
‘No, I’m afraid not. The father’s already married, you see.’
Alex stared at Fredrika with a foolish grin, waiting for her to take back what she had just said. But she didn’t.
Alex turned to look out of the window instead.
It’ll do me good to get away to South America, he thought.
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is my first book and therefore the longest list of thanks I shall probably ever write.
This book would have been impossible to write if I had not already spent twenty years amusing myself writing endless tales and stories. You have to start somewhere, after all. And for me that was when I wrote my first so-called storybooks at school, at the age of seven. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the amazing teachers in primary and lower secondary school who taught me at an early stage to love reading and writing, and then didn’t stop encouraging me to write more when they saw how much I was enjoying it: Kristina Göransson, Kristina Permer and Olle Holmberg.