LITMIR.BIZ

      Awakened from a deep and dreamless sleep, Erica at first could not identify the sound. By the time she realized that it was the shrill ring of the telephone that woke her, it had already rung many times. She jumped out of bed to answer it.

      ‘Erica Falck.’ Her voice was no more than a croak. She cleared her throat loudly with her hand over the mouthpiece to get rid of the worst of the hoarseness.

      ‘Oh, sorry, did I wake you? I beg your pardon.’

      ‘No, I was awake.’ The reply came automatically and Erica could hear how transparent it sounded. It was quite obvious that she was groggy, to say the least.

      ‘Well, I’m sorry in any case. This is Henrik Wijkner. I just had a call from Birgit, and she asked me to contact you. Apparently she got a call this morning from a particularly rude police superintendent from the Tanumshede station. He more or less ordered her, in not very polite terms, to come down to the station. Evidently my presence was also desired. He didn’t want to say what it was about, but we have an idea. Birgit is quite upset, and since neither Karl-Erik nor Julia is in Fjällbacka at the moment for various reasons, I wonder whether you could do me a big favour and go over to see her. Her sister and brother-in-law are at work, so she’s at home alone at their house. It will be a couple of hours before I can get back to Fjällbacka, and I don’t want her to be alone that long. I know it’s a lot to ask, and we don’t actually know each other that well, but I have no one else to turn to.’

      ‘Of course I’ll go over to see Birgit. It’s no problem. I just have to throw on some clothes. I can be over there in about fifteen minutes.’

      ‘That’s fine. I’m eternally grateful to you. Really. Birgit has never been particularly stable, and I’d like someone to be with her until I make it back to Fjällbacka. I’ll ring and tell her you’re on the way. I’ll be there sometime after noon, so we can talk more then. Once again – thank you.’

      Still with sleep in her eyes, Erica hurried into the bathroom to wash her face. She put on the clothes she’d been wearing the day before, and after running a comb through her hair and applying a little mascara, she was sitting behind the wheel of her car less than ten minutes later. It didn’t take more than five minutes to drive to Tallgatan from Sälvik, so it was almost precisely a quarter hour after Henrik’s call that she rang the doorbell.

      Birgit looked as if she’d lost several pounds in the few days since Erica last saw her, and her clothes hung loosely on her body. This time they didn’t go into the living room; instead, Birgit led her into the kitchen.

      ‘Thank you for taking the time to come over. I get so nervous, and I just couldn’t sit here worrying until Henrik arrived.’

      ‘He said you had a phone call from the police in Tanumshede?’

      ‘Yes, this morning at eight a Superintendent Mellberg rang and told me that Karl-Erik, Henrik and I were to come to his office at once. I explained that Karl-Erik had gone out of town on an urgent business matter, but that he would be back tomorrow. I asked if it was all right if we waited until then. That was not acceptable, as he expressed it, and so Henrik and I would have to do for the time being. The man was quite rude, and of course I rang Henrik at once. He said he’d come home as soon as he could. I probably sounded a bit upset, I’m afraid, and that’s when Henrik suggested he would ring you and ask whether you could come over for a couple of hours. I really hope you don’t think we’re asking too much. You probably don’t want to get even more involved in our family tragedy, but I didn’t know where to turn. Besides, you were almost like a daughter in our house once upon a time, so I thought that maybe—’

      ‘Think nothing of it. I’m happy to help. Did the police say what this was all about?’

      ‘No, the superintendent didn’t want to say a word. But I have an idea. Didn’t I tell you that Alex didn’t take her own life? Didn’t I?’

      Erica impulsively placed her hand over Birgit’s.

      ‘Dear Birgit, let’s not draw any hasty conclusions. You may be right, but until we know for sure it’s better that we don’t speculate.’

      They spent two long hours sitting at the kitchen table. The conversation died out after only a short while, and the only thing that could be heard in the silence was the ticking of the kitchen clock. Erica drew circles with her index finger around the pattern on the slick surface of the oilcloth. Birgit was dressed neatly and her make-up was as immaculate as the last time Erica saw her. But now there was something indefinably tired and worn-out about Birgit, like a photograph whose edges were missing their crispness. The weight she had lost didn’t suit her. Even last time she had bordered on skinny, and the weight loss had brought out new wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Birgit was gripping her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles were white. If the long wait was tiresome for Erica, it had to be insufferable for her.

      ‘I don’t understand who would want to kill Alex.’ The words sounded like a pistol shot after the long silence. ‘She didn’t have any enemies. She just lived a completely ordinary life together with Henrik.’

      ‘We don’t know yet what this is about. It’s no use speculating before we know what the police want,’ Erica said again. She interpreted the lack of a reply from Birgit as tacit agreement.

      Just after twelve noon Henrik pulled into the little parking space in front of the house. They saw him through the kitchen window and got up with relief to put on their coats. When he rang the bell they were already waiting in the

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