LITMIR.BIZ

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      He declaimed it in a voice full of emotion. Now it was his turn to stare vacantly at the water. He sat down abruptly on a crate on deck and tore off his cap. His hair stuck out in all directions. He pulled off his gloves and ran his hands through his hair. Then he looked straight at Erica.

      ‘I couldn’t let it get out. What we had together was madness. An intense and all-consuming madness. Not something that we could let collide with our real lives. We both knew that it had to end.’

      ‘Were you supposed to meet on the Friday she died?’

      A muscle twitched in Dan’s face at the reminder. After Alex died he must have pondered countless times what would have happened if he had actually shown up. Whether she still would have been alive.

      ‘Yes, we were supposed to meet that Friday evening. Pernilla was going to visit her sister in Munkedal with the kids. I thought up some excuse about feeling out of sorts and preferring to stay at home.’

      ‘But Pernilla didn’t go, did she?’

      There was a long silence.

      ‘Yes, Pernilla went but I stayed at home. I turned off my mobile, and I knew she’d never dare ring the phone at the house. I stayed away because I was afraid. I didn’t dare look her in the eye and tell her it was over. Even though I knew she realized that it would have to happen sooner or later, I was afraid to be the one who took that step. I thought that if I could slowly start backing away, she’d get tired of things and break it off with me. Very manly, don’t you think?’

      Erica knew that the hardest part was yet to come, but she had to go on. Better that he heard it from her.

      ‘But Dan, she didn’t understand that it had to end. She envisaged a future with you. A future where you left your family and she left Henrik and the two of you lived happily ever after.’

      He seemed to shrink with each word, and the worst was yet to come.

      ‘Dan, she was pregnant. With your child. Apparently, she had intended to tell you about it that Friday night. She’d prepared a feast and put champagne on ice.’

      Dan couldn’t look at her. He tried to fix his gaze out in the distance, but tears began to flow, making everything run together in a mist. Grief welled up from somewhere deep inside him, and tears started running down his cheeks. He began to sob, and he kept having to wipe his nose with his gloves to stop the snot from running down. Finally, he put his head in his hands and gave up all attempts to wipe off his face.

      Erica squatted down next to him and put her arms around him to console him. But Dan shook her off. She knew that he’d have to get himself out of the hell he was in on his own. So she waited him out with her arms crossed until the tears came more slowly and he seemed to be able to breathe again.

      ‘How do you know she was pregnant?’ The words came in a stammer.

      ‘I was with Birgit and Henrik at the police when they told us.’

      ‘Do they know it wasn’t Henrik’s child?’

      ‘I’m sure Henrik knows, but Birgit doesn’t; she thinks Henrik is the father.’

      Dan nodded. It seemed to console him a little that her parents didn’t know.

      ‘How did you meet?’

      Erica wanted to turn away his thoughts from his unborn child, if only for a moment, to give him a little breathing space.

      He smiled bitterly. ‘Really classic. Where do people meet each other in Fjällbacka at our age? Having a beer at Galären, of course. We saw each other across the room and it was like being kicked in the stomach. I’ve never felt so attracted to a woman before.’

      Erica felt a tiny, tiny twinge of jealousy at those words.

      Dan went on. ‘We didn’t do anything then, but a couple of weekends later she called on my mobile. I drove over to see her. Then it just sort of snowballed from there. Stolen hours when Pernilla was away somewhere. Not that many nights, in other words; it was usually during the day that we met.’

      ‘Weren’t you afraid that the neighbours would see you when you went to Alex’s house? You know how fast gossip travels here.’

      ‘Sure, I did think about that. I used to climb over the fence in the back yard and then go in through the cellar entrance. To be quite honest, that was probably a good part of the excitement between us as well. The danger and the risk.’

      ‘But didn’t you understand how much you were risking?’

      Dan was fidgeting with his cap and kept his eyes fixed on the deck as he talked.

      ‘Of course I did. On one level. But on another I felt invulnerable. Other people might get caught, but not me. Isn’t that how it always is?’

      ‘Does Pernilla know?’

      ‘No. Not in so many words, anyway. But I think she suspects something. You saw how she reacted when she saw us here. That’s how she’s been the past few months – jealous and watchful. I’m sure she senses that something is going on.’

      ‘You know you have to tell her about it now.’

      Dan shook his head vehemently. Tears welled up in his eyes again.

      ‘That won’t work, Erica. I can’t do it. It wasn’t until this thing with Alex that I really understood how much Pernilla means to me. Alex was a passion, but Pernilla and the kids are my life. I can’t do it!’

      Erica leaned forward and put her hand over Dan’s. Her voice was calm and clear and showed nothing of the agitation she felt inside.

      ‘Dan, you have to. The police need to be informed, and you have a chance now to tell Pernilla about it in your own way. Sooner or later the police will figure it out by themselves, and then you won’t have a chance to explain to Pernilla the way you want to. Then you’ll no longer have any choice. And you said yourself that she probably knows or at least suspects something. Maybe it would even be a relief for both of you if you talked about it. Clear the air.’

      She saw that Dan was listening and taking in what she said. She could also feel that he was shaking.

      ‘But what if she leaves me? What if she takes the kids and leaves me, Erica? Where will I go then? I’m nothing without them.’

      A tiny, tiny voice inside Erica whispered cruelly that he should have thought of that earlier, but stronger voices drowned it out and said that the time for recriminations was past. There were more important matters to take care of right now. She leaned forward, put her arms around him and ran her hands over his back to comfort him. At first his sobs intensified, then ebbed away. When he freed himself from her embrace and wiped away the tears she saw that he had decided not to postpone the inevitable.

      As she drove away from the wharf she looked at him in the rear-view mirror, standing motionless on his beloved boat with his eyes fixed on the horizon. She crossed her fingers that he would find the right words. It wasn’t going to be easy.

      The yawn felt like it came all the way from his toes and spread through his whole body. Patrik had never been so tired in his life. Nor had he ever been so happy.

      It was difficult to focus on the huge piles of paperwork lying in front of him. A homicide generated incredible amounts of documents, and his job now was to go through everything in detail to find that one tiny piece of the puzzle that could propel the investigation forward. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath to gather energy for the task.

      Every ten minutes, he had to get up from his chair to stretch, get some coffee, hop a little in place, or whatever would make him stay awake and focused for a little while longer. Several times his hand had strayed towards the telephone to ring Erica, but he checked himself. If she was as tired as he was, she was probably still in bed asleep. He hoped she was. He intended to keep her awake as long as possible tonight too, if he had anything to say about it.

      One stack of papers

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