ELLEN

7.15 A.M.

The blinds flew up with a snap, and the morning sun blinded her. It felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. Ellen was more tired than when she’d gone to bed, and she already longed for evening, when she could crawl back into bed again.

Strange dreams had lurked on the edges of the night. Some had felt real, others just awful. She was sweaty and took a quick shower to rinse off the unpleasant feelings.

When she got down to the kitchen, she heard her mother, through the open kitchen window, humming an incoherent melody out in the garden. To the untrained ear it would have sounded like she was in a good mood.

Ellen looked out.

With a big sunhat on her head, Margareta was watering her herb garden. Her movements were jerky and didn’t match the melody she was humming. It was a way to try to conceal how she was really feeling, and Ellen knew it intimately. She looked around the big kitchen. It looked exactly as it always had. Greyish cabinetry that needed to be freshened up.

‘Hi, honey, do you want coffee?’

Margareta was suddenly standing in the kitchen.

‘I can make a new pot,’ she continued. ‘That’s been on since five o’clock.’

‘No, no need. Why have you been up so long?’

‘The garden doesn’t take care of itself.’ Margareta took off her sunhat and gardening gloves and set them on the kitchen counter.

Ellen noted that the gloves were completely white and presumably hadn’t even grazed the ground.

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes, absolutely. And you?’

‘Like a log.’

How nice, then we’re both lying.

‘You should be happy that I’m taking care of everything. Soon I won’t be able to any longer, and you’ll have to take over.’ Margareta poured out the last of the coffee from the pot. ‘Because Elsa … yes, and your brother …’ She stopped before filling the pot with fresh water. ‘They’re moving to Australia. Yes, it seems they’ve bought a vineyard there. I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of mid-life crisis. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? When they have all this. But I guess that’s how it is, life is always a little greener on the other side.’ She scooped coffee into the filter.

‘When are they moving?’ Ellen asked. She’d stopped calling her big brother when she realised that all he said was How nice … Really cool … Good. It didn’t matter what she said, he wasn’t listening. If she’d moved into a shed and was on heroin he would have answered, How cool. Great. See you.

‘If they move, then I’m only going to see them ten more times before I die.’

‘What? But, Mum, you can’t think like that, can you?’

‘How should I think then, in your opinion?’

Ellen shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I need coffee before I can think.’

She went over to the cupboard with cups and opened the door. The sheet of paper on the inside of the cupboard door fluttered. She let her eyes wander among the handwritten names of friends and acquaintances. Agneta and Göran Carlsten. 2 children: Madeleine is unmarried, no children. Sofia, married to Jens, 2 children — Maria ’01 and Andreas ’05.

Margareta had been making these lists as far back as Ellen could remember. Always, before they had a visit or would go to see good friends, she read up so that she’d be able to ask the right questions.

‘So how are your grandchildren, Maria and Andreas? Maria must be, let me think now, she was born in 2001, yes, so then she’s a big girl now.’

‘Why, Margareta! What a memory you have.’

‘Why did you put Jimmy there?’ At the bottom of the list was Ellen’s boss’s name. One daughter, Bianca, was written in a different pen.

‘Yes, and why not? With my bad memory I have to write down everything. Who knows — if he comes to visit I’ll know what his daughter’s name is, and then it will be easier to make conversation.’

Ellen closed the cupboard a little too hard.

‘You know that you have an appointment with Dr Hiralgo at ten o’clock today, right? You’ll see him every other day. I’ve written down the times on a piece of paper that’s on the desk.’ Margareta looked encouragingly at her daughter before she put on her gloves and hat and went out into the garden again.

Ellen poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the round kitchen table. On the table was a pile of newspapers. She opened the one on top and found a short article about the dead woman. The police had questioned neighbours but hadn’t found any witnesses. They were now reviewing surveillance cameras from the school and petrol station.

That was all she was, a short news item, which got even smaller when compared to the centre spread about the man who was beaten to death on Sveavägen in Stockholm in connection with a derby at Friends Arena.

It was headlined DEADLY ASSAULT. They had released a picture of him. Father of three children. Self-employed. Conscientious, according to the reporter. Today a minute of silence would be held for him at Friends Arena and then at all the soccer matches in Sweden during the coming week.

She folded up the newspaper and picked up the phone.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Margareta, who appeared to have been watching her like a hawk and was back in the kitchen again. ‘If you’re thinking about working, then we can forget about all this.’

‘I’m not working,’ said Ellen, going out into the hall so she could speak undisturbed. She waited a few seconds to be sure that Margareta wasn’t following her and then entered the number for Börje Swahn of Nyköping Police.

‘I have nothing new to offer since we spoke yesterday.’

‘Oh, no?’ she said. ‘You mean, besides the fact that you think Liv Lind got what she deserved? I thought perhaps you might like to comment on that before I quote you in today’s newscast.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You forgot to hang up yesterday, and I heard some of you at the station talking about Liv Lind, and it wasn’t especially pretty. She’d been sleeping around and …’

‘What! I never said that! Who do you think you are, calling and accusing me of something like this? This is madness …’

‘I have it recorded. Do you want to hear it?’ Ellen had prepared the file and now pressed play. ‘Can you hear?’

Börje was silent a moment. ‘What do you want? We’re trying to investigate a homicide here and you’re out to expose us. You ought to be ashamed!’

Click.

So I’m the one who ought to be ashamed? thought Ellen and could imagine him standing there all red-faced and angry at the station. She was glad she wasn’t having to hear what he was saying about her. After a while she entered the number again and was surprised when he answered.

‘I have no comment.’

‘How good a job can you be doing if you think that Liv Lind got what she deserved? I have to say, I feel worried.’

‘Listen, I’m going to make sure that this is the last thing you do as a journalist!’

‘Is that a threat?’ She wished she’d recorded this call as well.

‘This is madness, are you hearing me? What do you want?’

‘I want the murder of Liv Lind to be investigated properly and I want her to be treated with respect. Is that so odd? Do you have anything to say about your little chat or do you want me to play it on News Morning with no comment?’

He hung up again.

Without thinking, she called Ove. He answered almost immediately, as if he’d been sitting there waiting for a call.

‘Wait a minute.’ It sounded like he moved away from the phone and closed a door. ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all summer.’

‘I’m here now.’

‘Are you out of your tree, or what? You haven’t been in touch for two months and now you call me on my regular number.’

She didn’t have time to answer before he continued. ‘We can no longer cooperate.’

‘Yes, of course we can.’

What was he up to? Had everyone lost it? Ove was the media spokesperson for the police in Stockholm. They had an arrangement. Ellen paid Ove to give her information about ongoing criminal investigations and happenings within the police. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but it was what most journalists were forced to do to get information that they in turn made good use of. In most cases.

‘We challenged fate the last time,’ he continued.

‘You challenged fate. And if I were you, I’d be a little more accommodating as I’m guessing you’d rather it didn’t get out how you and your wife tried to grab the reward for yourselves. Do you want to know what I did with it? Lycke’s father insisted that I ought to have it, so I decided that the family would start a foundation in Lycke’s name, to support BRIS and other organisations. Lycke’s mother and stepmother were given shared management of the foundation.’ Ellen was very satisfied with her solution. This way, they all got to pay for how they’d treated their daughter, and at the same time it supported work so that other children wouldn’t fare so badly.

‘Yes, I know, I read about it. And what? Do you think that makes you Mother Teresa or something? You can’t send me to prison — you’re sitting in the same boat, and I would drag you down in the fall. I don’t have to tell you that it’s illegal to pay bribes, do I?’

‘I was just speaking to one of your colleagues in Nyköping, and they’ve embarrassed themselves. Listen to this.’

‘What are you doing in Nyköping?’

‘The murder of Liv Lind.’ He doesn’t need to know more than that, she thought, finding the audio file. ‘This is the preliminary investigation leader there, Börje Swahn.’ She played him the whole audio file. Before Ove had time to respond, she continued: ‘He also threatened me. What do you think about the way your colleagues express themselves? Is it reasonable that they’re investigating a murder with that attitude? Do you think that Liv Lind is going to get the attention she deserves?’

‘She’s dead.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Calm down, now.’

‘What?’

‘Knock it off, that’s just police shoptalk. It’d be fun to hear what you lot say in the newsroom.’

‘Do you think the Swedish people will buy that as shoptalk?’

‘What do you want, Ellen?’

‘I want to know everything about the murder of Liv Lind.’