HANNA

3.30 P.M.

They were on their way home from school, but needed to stop at the shops. Karl had bicycled to a friend’s house, or wherever he was going. She’d actually wanted him to come home with her and Alice, but she wasn’t able to control him that way. It was sure to come back to bite her even more.

Alice looked as tired as she was. Shopping with children was always a challenge, but today it felt like a punishment.

The last thing she wanted was to run into someone who felt like airing their worries and talking about the murder. Actually, she should have gone to the store in the neighbouring village, but that would have definitely seemed suspect.

Hanna breathed deeply, taking in the aroma of fresh-baked bread.

They were just going to shop for some essentials. She hoped that Alice would be cooperative, but realised that that was going to be a challenge when the first thing she did was stop by the gumball machines in the entry.

‘Can I have some gum?’

Hanna took a shopping trolley. If she’d had any coins, she would have been happy to buy her way out of the situation. ‘Please, Alice, don’t start whining now. Can we just try to do this as painlessly as possible?’

‘But Mummy, please, just one.’

‘Not today. You know which kind of milk we usually get, right?’ She resorted to her usual tricks to facilitate the process. ‘Two regular milk cartons and one buttermilk. Can you get those and tell me how many litres it is?’

‘But, please?’

‘No, I said!’

Alice dragged her feet behind her, moaning down the aisle and over towards the dairy products. Hanna sighed heavily. Two minutes of breathing room, but her head was completely empty. What should they have for dinner? She looked around the produce department and tried to think of something nutritious. There was nothing she was in the mood for. Something quick? Fish fingers? Although they’d had those yesterday. It would have to be something ready-made.

She walked on past the freezer display cases and thought about opening one to get a little cold air, even though it was much cooler inside the store than outside. At the bread shelf, she took down two packets of her favourite flatbread and put them in the trolley. Just as a one-off, she thought. After that, a packet of wheat rusks and a packet of cardamom rusks. And a packet of Ballerina biscuits. Two, for that matter. So that there’d be some left for her after the kids had finished the first one.

‘Four,’ said Alice, who was back with the milk and the sour milk.

‘What?’

‘Joking! There are three litres. What are we having for dinner?’

‘Sandwiches.’

‘But that’s not proper dinner, is it?’

‘Yes, of course it is. Lots of children would be delighted to have sandwiches for dinner.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Okay, then it will be noodles.’

‘Blegh.’

‘Now listen, you be quiet. I’m so tired of all this whining, do you hear me?’

Alice looked at her in fright, and Hanna felt ashamed. ‘Sorry, Alice. Come on, let’s go and pay.’

Alice stared down at the floor as someone touched Hanna’s shoulder. She turned around sharply.

‘Oh, sorry! Did I scare you?’

It was a parent from the school, but Hanna couldn’t think of whose dad it was. She usually met the mums. The divisions in parenting were still hopelessly old-fashioned, despite all the bragging about how far Sweden had come on the issue of equality.

‘Oh, hi! No problem.’ It felt as if she’d been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. ‘How are things with you?’

‘Good, but we’re a bit shaken by what’s happened.’

Hanna nodded in agreement. This was just what she’d hoped to avoid. She felt sweaty and fat, and hoped that he couldn’t tell how she was feeling by looking at her. And that he didn’t look down into her shopping trolley, either.

‘But you’re daring to venture out?’

‘What do you mean?’ Hanna stiffened.

‘I mean, thinking about the murder and the warnings. If I was a woman, I would hardly dare to go outside.’

Hanna stood as if frozen and couldn’t speak a word.

‘It’s been a long time since I last ran into you. I see your son sometimes when the kids are hanging out in our garage. See you in church later? I think it can be helpful for the kids. I don’t know how things are with Karl, but Max has been very affected by what’s happened.’

Max’s dad. Did Karl and Max hang out? Max was much older than Karl, and she hadn’t heard Karl mention Max. He was one of the rowdy kids who’d had to change schools so as to get his ‘schoolboy pranks’ under control — as people tended to call them to try to downplay the whole thing. He had joined Bea’s class, and according to Alexandra, the trouble had continued — he was still the cocky one in class who wasn’t very nice to his classmates. The video they’d seen at the teachers’ meeting fluttered past in her mind.

‘Karl, too.’ She’d recovered her ability to speak. ‘And Alice. All of us, actually. What’s going on at the church?’

‘Well, it’s going to be open extra hours in light of what has happened. The police are apparently going to provide some information, and I think they have quite a bit to explain.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You probably heard that they’ve started swabbing all the men in the village?’

She didn’t understand. ‘For DNA tests?’

‘Yes, correct. Apparently, they’ve found DNA from the perpetrator, but I don’t know. You can refuse — who knows what they do with the results? I think it’s a violation, and I don’t know how the police can justify it. Of course, I have nothing to do with it.’

Suddenly the smell of baking made her nauseated, and she wanted to vomit. ‘What kind of DNA have they found?’

He leant forward towards her and whispered, ‘I think it’s sperm.’

Hanna held convulsively onto the trolley with both hands. ‘Okay. Look, sorry, but I’m not feeling too well. I think it’s hard … so close.’

‘It will be good to gather together this evening. Everyone is feeling bad.’

If he only knew. ‘See you there,’ she said, quickly pushing the trolley away.

‘Can I have this, Mummy?’ Alice dropped a My Horse magazine in the trolley.

‘Hmm …’ She tried not to think about what she’d just heard. Tried to focus on the magazines instead, while they waited their turn to pay. How to Host Your Seafood Party. Is Your Husband Unfaithful?

‘Is Daddy coming home today?’ Alice interrupted her thoughts, and Hanna wished she was brave enough to ask her about the note of apology, the phone, and everything.

She looked at her little girl, who was so wise and considerate. ‘No, sorry,’ she said, stroking her cheek.

‘I miss him.’

‘I do, too, honey.’

He probably won’t be able to come home for a long time, she thought and dropped In Shape magazine into the trolley.