The Double Silence (3 page)

As Håkan drove home he grew pensive. He ought to be looking forward to the summer holidays, but something was preventing that. Almost like dirt on the windscreen that was impossible to remove. His thoughts turned to his third wife.

Everything was different with Stina, and in many respects more complicated than with either of his ex-wives. It was because of her childhood and upbringing, her rootlessness and insecurity. He was aware that she needed to view him as a father figure. He had been fascinated by Stina from the first moment he saw her on board the plane, with her shiny, raven-black hair reaching to her shoulders in a blunt cut, her slim figure in the attractive uniform. Her soft, dark eyes had fixed on his, and after that he didn’t want to let her go. Not for anything in the world. Divorcing his second wife seemed like such an obvious decision that he wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. Helena became a mere shadow for him. In hindsight, he could see how selfishly he had behaved.

But that was all in the past.

Right now he and Stina were anticipating a long holiday. And it would start off with the annual trip with their closest friends. In reality he would have preferred to do something all on their own, just the two of them. They needed time together; for quite a while now they had spent far too little time with each other. That must be what was worrying him, causing a deep disquiet. He could hardly remember when they’d last had sex. Sometimes that was what happened with Stina. She would distance herself from him, almost as if she was avoiding him. He had tried to talk to her about it, asking her what was wrong, but she assured him that it was nothing special. She was just feeling tired.

Stina had to work a couple more weeks before she could take an extended holiday from her job. But they could at least spend a few days
together. Later their summer holiday awaited them, and they were planning to go island hopping in Greece with the children. He was looking forward to that. Since Stina had a hard time relaxing at home, they needed to go on a trip together, preferably abroad so that she could leave all her obligations behind.

He tapped in the number for home and felt both relieved and a little uneasy when he heard her voice. She didn’t sound happy, but not really sad either.

No, he didn’t need to stop for groceries. If they weren’t going away he would have bought her flowers.

But it wouldn’t be worth it just now.

HE SAW HER
from far away as she came walking towards him with her rather sauntering gait on the other side of Norra Hansegatan. Detective Superintendent Anders Knutas stopped to wait for her, observing her slender form as she approached. His colleague Karin Jacobsson always walked to work because she lived in the middle of town. She was wearing her iPod earbuds, as usual, and jeans that sat low on her hips. She had on a white T-shirt with a drum set printed on the front and trainers. The wind had tousled her cropped brown hair. Her eyes were fixed on the pavement, and she hadn’t yet noticed Knutas. He wondered what she was thinking about, wondered what he was going to do with her.

Karin was the colleague he was closest to at work, and she acted as his deputy when necessary. But it was no exaggeration to say that she had really made a mess of things. A little less than a year ago she had confided a secret that Knutas couldn’t possibly ignore. He knew that eventually he would have to do something about it – and sooner rather than later because her confession had placed him in an untenable position ever since.

Of course he was grateful that Karin had finally unburdened her heart, but he wished the circumstances had been different.

He, on the other hand, had trusted her right from the start, and she knew almost everything about him. All about his personal life as well as his professional career. Karin was always willing to listen, and Knutas considered her one of his best friends. But she had always found it difficult to talk about her own private life. She was forty-one years old, lived alone with her cockatoo in a lovely attic flat on Mellangatan, played football,
and devoted herself to her job. He had never heard her mention a man or a boyfriend in her life. Or a woman, for that matter.

Then one evening last summer, when they happened to be in Stockholm in connection with a difficult murder case, they had been sitting in a restaurant drinking wine and she had suddenly fallen apart. She told him that as a teenager she had been raped and became pregnant. By the time her pregnancy was discovered, it was too late for an abortion, so she had carried the child to term. It was a girl, and her parents had forced Karin to give the baby up for adoption. Against her will, the child was taken from her immediately after the birth, and she had never seen her again. All her life Karin had kept this sorrow to herself. But now she had decided to search for her grown-up daughter.

It was as if a dam had burst, and Karin had wept and talked nonstop all night. She had also revealed something so serious that she risked being sacked if it ever came out. To Knutas’s horror, Karin told him that the previous year she had allowed a double murderer named Vera Petrov to escape. Part of her explanation had to do with her own trauma. The police had been hot on the heels of Petrov, but during the chase Jacobsson had discovered the woman in the throes of labour in a cabin aboard the Gotland ferry. Instead of alerting her colleagues, she had helped bring the baby into the world. Since a tragic story had prompted Petrov to commit the two murders, Jacobsson had let her go. She had kept her actions secret until confiding in Knutas on that night in Stockholm.

Knutas was shocked when the truth came out. Certainly it was a distressing case, and of course he understood feeling empathy for the killer, but what Karin had done was the most grievous dereliction of duty, and his first thought had been to suspend her immediately. But then he had relented. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Vera Petrov was still being sought by international authorities; so far no trace of her had been found. Time had passed, and now Knutas was also implicated. He still didn’t know how to solve the problem, but he realized it was inevitable that sooner or later he would be forced to do something about the matter. It was no exaggeration to say that Karin had placed him in the greatest dilemma of his life.

Yet he still felt a tenderness for her as she approached. She raised her head and looked straight at him with those eyes, nut-brown and doe-like. Her face broke into a smile, revealing the gap between her front teeth. He found it worrisome that her charm had such a powerful effect on him and that he had become dependent on her. They shared a deep bond. It had grown stronger over all the years they had worked together. Sometimes he almost mistook it for love. Even though he loved his wife, Lina, part of his heart belonged to Karin.

And no doubt it always would.

THE SHOWER WATER
poured over her sweaty body. Goose bumps appeared on her skin as Andrea Dahlberg reached for the soap container. With brisk, light movements she massaged in the expensive shower gel that Sam had brought back for her from his latest trip. He was always so thoughtful, even after twenty years of marriage. He’d been to a film festival in Berlin. Just as a spectator. None of his own films had won any prizes. Not yet.

She stepped out of the mosaic-lined shower stall and wrapped herself in a thick terrycloth towel. Then she paused in front of the mirror and noticed to her satisfaction that she was already nicely suntanned. A few aches and pains after yesterday’s evening workout at the gym, but she was in perfect bikini shape for the summer. She let go of the bath towel and it dropped to the floor. Then she turned around so she could see herself in profile in the mirror; it was the angle she liked best. She still looked just fine after passing forty and having three children. Her breasts were large and well shaped, but that was because she’d had work done on them after Mathilda was born. She couldn’t stand the thought of spending the rest of her life with those flabby, drooping sacks that her breasts had become after all the breastfeeding she’d done. Now the part of her body that made her most proud was her bosom. She smiled at herself and went through the bedroom to the walk-in closet that Sam had built just for her. There was plenty of room for all her shoes and clothes, lined up in perfect order. An enormous mirror covered one wall so she could stand there in peace as she chose what to wear. Later today they would be going out to Fårö for the Bergman festival, and then continue on to Stora Karlsö.

Andrea’s eyes paused on a photograph of Sam and herself on the yacht in Stockholm’s archipelago last summer. How handsome he was, looking so tanned in his white tennis sweater and sunglasses. He had his arm around her and was smiling at the camera. He was still the most attractive man she could imagine. She was proud to walk at his side whenever they were out socializing. Sometimes she would sit for a long time and just stare at him across the breakfast table. There they sat, on an ordinary morning, and suddenly it would seem to her so unreal that she was allowed to be there with him. Day in and day out. Of course they’d had some bad patches, just like everybody, but for the most part things had been good. They led an orderly life with few surprises – exactly the way she wanted it to be. She was looking forward to growing old with Sam.

Their home was just as flawless as her appearance. She loved decorating and furnishing the rooms, and she insisted that everything should be perfectly arranged. Sam laughed at her for pressing their bed sheets and ironing his underwear. Every six months she would remove all the books from the shelves so she could dust behind them. Once a month she would take the rugs and cushions out to beat the dust out of them with an impressive frenzy. She changed the bed linens every week, and during the summer months even more often, since she thought that everyone sweated more during the night at that time of year. She arranged the tinned goods and pasta packages according to a specific pattern in the pantry, which was always well stocked.

Every Sunday morning she would sit down at the kitchen table and fill out the family calendar with the activities and meetings scheduled for the coming week. She wrote down a menu for each day, checked to see what they had in the cupboards, and then went out to shop for the rest of the groceries they would need. Preferably with one of the neighbouring wives. She loved her predictable life. It made her feel secure; she always knew what to expect.

Right now she needed to finish packing for the trip they were taking with friends. She hummed to herself as she placed Sam’s shirts in a neat pile inside his bag. She cast a glance out of the window. Sandra was walking past with the pram, as usual. That poor woman. Andrea didn’t
envy her. At the age of forty-two, dealing with young children was now part of the distant past, and she wouldn’t for the life of her want to start again. Her neighbour already had two teenagers when she got pregnant again. Even though she and her husband claimed it was wonderful to add a latecomer to their family, Andrea didn’t really believe them. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being tied down again. That was probably why Sandra seemed so stressed lately.

The sight of her made Andrea think about the strange experience she’d just had. That inexplicable feeling of being watched, and the fact that she’d not only forgotten to lock the front door but left it slightly ajar. It was so unlike her. Maybe she was starting the menopause, which could make a woman a bit absent-minded. Hormones and so on. But wasn’t she too young for that? Didn’t the change happen to women in their fifties? The ‘change’ – what an unpleasant word. She had no desire to change and enter another stage in life. She would be happy if time stood still for twenty years. She had never felt so good.

She went into the kitchen and put on the coffee. It would be several hours before Sam came home so they could leave on the trip.

This holiday was coming just at the right time. Sam had been busy with a lengthy film shoot that was finally done, and now he could take some time off before starting on the editing. He’d been away from home a lot lately, but that was always the case when he was shooting. During those periods he was ‘married to the film’, as he put it. That didn’t really bother her because she was busy too. She ran a trendy clothing shop on Adelsgatan, and there was always plenty to do. It was with relief that she had turned over responsibility to her colleague, the other part-owner, several days earlier than she had planned. She’d wanted to take it easy and get in the mood for the trip. And take care of Sam after he’d worked so hard. They would enjoy relaxing together, watch movies that they’d seen before but that were worth another viewing. And enjoy the company of good friends and other people interested in film on Fårö.

She was also looking forward to spending more time with Stina. Maybe they could take morning walks together on Fårö. Have a proper talk. It had been a while, for they were both so busy with their own lives. She realized
how much she had missed her friend. They knew everything about each other, had shared so much over the years, and there was a strong bond between them. In fact, Stina was the one she felt closest to, aside from Sam and the children. Now they would finally have the opportunity to be together for a few days. After that the nature trip to Stora Karlsö awaited them. She smiled to herself. They were so good about tending to their marriage, she and Sam. They had always been that way. When the kids were little, they had regularly hired a babysitter so that several times a year they could take a long weekend together, just the two of them. It was undoubtedly the sort of thing that had helped to keep their love alive. Over the years they had evolved into a single unit that was rock-solid. As she filled her coffee cup, she thought: We belong together. That’s how it had been ever since they first met, and that’s how it would always be.

JOHAN BERG REACHED
for the package of nappies on the shelf in the bathroom. Anton lay on the changing table, gurgling happily. His round, sunny face was turned towards Johan, and his brown eyes sparkled with contentment. He chattered nonstop, constantly producing new sounds. Right now he lay there, waving his chubby little arms about. All of a sudden a stream shot up into the air. Johan felt it drenching his shoulder.