Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (44 page)

It was late by the time we decided to go on to Riche, which was not far from the national theatre. We almost fell over when we were handing our coats in at the cloakroom; Maja was leaning on me and I misjudged the distance to the wall. When we regained our balance and saw the morose, deadly serious expression on the attendant’s face, Maja burst out laughing and, glancing at him apologetically, I led her away to the bar.

We each ordered a gin and tonic. It was hot and crowded, and we had to stand close together, leaning in to speak directly into each other’s ears in order to talk. Suddenly, we found ourselves kissing passionately. The back of her head thudded against the wall as I pressed myself against her. The music throbbed. She was speaking close to my ear, telling me we should go back to her place.

We rushed outside and into a taxi.

“We’re only going to Roslagsgatan,” she slurred. “Roslagsgatan seventeen.”

The driver nodded and pulled out into traffic. It was something like two o’clock in the morning, and the sky was beginning to lighten. The buildings flashing by were pale grey shadows. Maja leaned against me. I thought she was going to go to sleep when I felt her hand caressing my crotch. I was hard at once, and she laughed quietly, her lips against my neck.

I’m not sure how we got up to her studio. I remember standing in the lift licking her face, aware of the taste of salt and lipstick and powder, catching sight of my own drunken face in the blotchy mirror.

Inside her place, Maja stood in the hallway, let her jacket fall to the floor, and kicked off her shoes. She drew me over to the bed, helped me undress, and pulled off her white panties.

“Come here,” she whispered. “I want to feel you inside me.”

I lay down heavily between her thighs; she was very wet, and I simply sank into the warmth as she wrapped herself around me, squeezing me tightly. She groaned in my ear, clung to my back, moved her hips gently.

We had sex carelessly, drunkenly. I began to feel more and more detached from myself, more and more isolated and mute. I was getting close to my orgasm; I intended to pull out, but instead simply gave in to a convulsive, rapid ejaculation. She was breathing fast. I lay there panting as my penis grew limp and slid out of her. My heart was still pounding. I saw Maja’s lips part in a strange smile, which made me feel uncomfortable.

I felt ill. I no longer understood what had happened. What was I doing here? Stupid. This was so stupid.

I sat up in bed beside her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, stroking my back.

I shrugged off her hand. “Don’t,” I said abruptly. My heart was thudding with fear.

“Erik? I thought—”

She sounded upset. I felt I couldn’t look at her, I was angry with her. What had happened was my fault, of course. But it would never have happened if she hadn’t been so persistent.

“We’re both tired and drunk,” she whispered.

“I have to go,” I said, in a choked voice; I picked up my clothes and staggered into the bathroom. It was very small and full of creams, brushes, towels. A fluffy bathrobe was hanging from a hook, along with a pink razor on a soft, thick cord. I did my best to avoid looking at myself in the mirror as I washed myself with a pale blue cake of soap shaped like a rose. As I dressed, my elbows bumped into the walls.

When I came out she was waiting anxiously. She stood with the sheet wound around her body, looking very young. “Are you angry with me?” she asked, and I could see her lips trembling as if she were about to cry.

“I’m angry with myself, Maja. I should never, ever—”

“But I wanted to, Erik. I’m in love with you, can’t you see that?” She tried to smile at me, but her eyes filled with tears. “You’re not allowed to treat me like shit now,” she whispered, reaching out to touch me.

I moved away and said this had been a mistake, my tone somewhat more dismissive than I had wished.

She nodded and lowered her eyes. I didn’t say goodbye, I simply left the studio and closed the door behind me.

I walked all the way to the hospital. Perhaps I could convince Simone that I had spent the night in my office.

In the morning I took a taxi home to our house in Järfälla. It was a mistake; my body heaved with nausea every time the cab hit a bump. Worse, I felt disgust at what I’d done the night before. I couldn’t possibly have been unfaithful to Simone. It couldn’t be true. Maja was beautiful and amusing, but she was not someone I could ever care about in any real way. How the hell could I have let myself be flattered into going to bed with her?

I didn’t know how I was going to tell Simone this, but I had to do it. I had made a mistake, people do, but people can forgive each other if they just explain, and I felt that our relationship was strong enough to withstand the explanation.

I knew I could never let Simone go. I would be hurt, badly, if she was unfaithful to me, but I would find a way to forgive her. I would never leave her because of something like that.

Simone was in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of coffee when I got home. She had on her tatty, pale pink silk robe. We’d bought it in China when Benjamin was only one, and they had both gone with me to a conference.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Please.” I sat down heavily at the table.

“Erik, I’m so sorry I forgot your birthday.”

“I stayed over at the hospital,” I explained, thinking it must be obvious from the tone of my voice that I was lying.

She looked down at the floor for a moment—I held my breath, waiting for anger or an accusation—the strawberry-blonde hair obscuring her face. Then, without a word, she went into the bedroom, returning a moment later with a package. She extended it toward me with a shy smile on her face and I tore off the paper with playful eagerness.

It was a boxed set of CDs by Charlie Parker, containing concert recordings from each of his appearances during his only visit to Sweden: two shows at the concert hall in Stockholm, two in Gothenburg, one at Amiralen in Malmö and the subsequent jam session at the Academic Club, the show at Folkets Park in Helsingborg, at the arena in Jönköping, at Folkets Park in Gävle, and finally at the Nalen jazz club in Stockholm.

“Thank you,” I said.

“What does your day look like?” she asked.

“Well, I have to go back to work.”

“I was thinking,” she said, “that maybe we should have a really nice meal together at home tonight.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Only it can’t be too late—the painters say they are coming at seven tomorrow morning. Why the hell do they always have to come so early?”

I realised she was expecting an answer. “And you always end up waiting for them anyway,” I mumbled.

“Exactly.” She smiled, sipping her coffee. “So what shall we have? Perhaps that thing with tournedos in a port wine and currant sauce, do you remember?”

“That was a long time ago,” I said, struggling not to sound on the verge of tears.

“Don’t be pissed off with me.”

“I’m not, Simone.” I tried to smile at her.

Later, when I was standing in the hall with my shoes on, just about to leave, she emerged from the bathroom. She had something in her hand.

“Erik,” she said.

“Yes?”

“What’s this?”

They were Maja’s miniature anatomical binoculars.

“Oh, that. A present,” I said, hearing the elusiveness in my voice.

“It’s a beautiful object. It looks antique. Who gave it to you?”

I turned away to avoid looking her in the eye. “Just a patient,” I said, trying to sound absent-minded as I pretended to search for my keys. “God knows how he found out it was my birthday.”

She laughed in amazement. “I thought doctors weren’t allowed to accept gifts from their patients. Isn’t that unethical?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it,” I said, opening the door.

Simone’s gaze was burning into my back. I should have talked to her, but I was frightened of losing her. I didn’t dare. I didn’t know how to begin.

As I was about to go into the therapy room, Marek stopped me. He was barring the door and smiling an empty, odd smile at me.

“We’re having a bit of fun in here,” he said.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s a private party.”

I looked at him carefully. Suddenly, I heard screaming through the door.

“Let me in, Marek,” I said.

He grinned. “Doctor, that’s not possible at the moment.”

I pushed past him. The door opened, Marek lost his balance, grabbed for the doorknob, but ended up on the floor anyway.

“I was just joking,” he said. “It was only a joke, for God’s sake.”

All the patients were staring at us, frozen.

Marek stood up and dusted himself off.

I noted that Eva Blau had not arrived yet, and then I went over to the tripod and started adjusting the camera. I checked the wide-angle view and zoomed in; I saw Sibel wipe away tears, or so I thought. I tested the microphone through my headphones. I heard Lydia cheerfully exclaim, “Exactly! That’s always the way with children! Kasper doesn’t talk about anything else anymore; it’s just Spider-Man, Spider-Man, all the time!”

And I heard Charlotte respond, “I’ve gathered they’re all crazy about him at the moment.”

“Kasper doesn’t have a daddy. Perhaps Spider-Man acts as his male role model,” said Lydia, laughing so loudly that my headphones reverberated. “But we’re fine,” she went on. “We laugh a lot, even if we’ve had a few problems lately.” She dropped her voice confidentially. “It’s as if he’s jealous of everything I do, he wants to destroy my things, he doesn’t want me to talk on the phone, he throws my favourite book down the toilet, he yells at me … I think something must have happened, but he just won’t tell me.”

Jussi began to talk about his haunted house: his parents’ home up in Dorotea, in southern Lapland. They owned a lot of land close to an area where the Sami people lived in their traditional huts, even as late as the 1970s. “I live very close to a lake, Djuptjärnen,” he explained. “The last part of the route is old wooden tracks. In the summer, kids come there to swim. They love the myths about Nächen, the water sprite.”

“The water sprite?” I asked.

“People have seen him sitting and playing his fiddle by Djuptjärnen for over three hundred years.”

“But not you?”

“No,” he said, with a grin.

“But what do you do up there in the forest all year?” asked Pierre, half smiling.

“I buy old cars and buses, fix them up, and sell them; the place looks like a scrapyard.”

“Is it a big house?” Lydia asked.

“No, but it’s green. My dad painted the place one summer, a kind of peculiar pale green. I don’t know what he was thinking; someone must have given him the paint.” He laughed, then fell silent. It was time for a break.

Lydia produced a tin of saffron-scented biscuits that she offered around. “They’re totally organic,” she said, urging Marek to take some.

Charlotte smiled and nibbled a tiny bit from one edge.

“Did you make them yourself?” asked Jussi with an unexpected grin, which brought a gentle light to his heavy face.

“I almost didn’t have time,” said Lydia, shaking her head and smiling. “I almost got into a quarrel at the playground.”

Sibel sniggered and ate her biscuit in a couple of fierce bites.