Early Friday Morning
The lawn under his bare feet was cold and wet from the night dew. He did not dare look up towards the house. His head felt so frightfully heavy that he was hardly able to lift it. With an enormous effort he finally managed to turn his face up towards the light, towards the window. His cheeks were burning, despite the coolness of the night, as he let his head fall backwards, between his tense shoulders. He must also dare to open his eyes, but somehow he could not make himself look at her. He swayed in the darkness, about to lose his balance, and his eyes involuntarily opened. There she stood in the window on the upper floor – Margit, rosy and inviting, with her amazing blazing red hair like a backdrop for her soft face. She was dancing for him, only a few tentative steps, with a questioning look on her face: Will you dance with me? He answered by extending his hands towards her, but the unnatural weight of his head restrained him, pulled him backwards, and everything turned black before his eyes as he fell heavily through the dark August night.
He sat up in bed with a stifled scream. It had happened to him so many times before that even in his sleep he could prevent himself from screaming out loud. The bedding was soaked and he drew the back of his hand across his forehead and dried it off on the cover. Then he started to feel cold. He threw his arms around his bare upper body and sat shaking with cold and tension, unable to suppress a drawn-out whimper. It was more than a week since he had last been woken by the dream, but this time it had felt more real than ever. After a few minutes, when he no longer felt the pounding of his heart in his temples, he turned on the lamp fixed to the wall behind him, reached for his phone on the bedside table and entered Margit Olofsson’s mobile number.
‘Conny, what are you doing up at this hour?’
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s after three. What’s the matter with you? You sound out of breath.’
‘I suddenly got so worried.’
‘About me?’
‘Are you at work?’
‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have picked up. Where are you?’
‘I’m … on a business trip. Forgive me for calling.’
‘You can call whenever you want. I miss you.’
‘I miss you too. I got worried –’
‘I’m at work, Conny. There’s nothing to be worried about.’
‘That’s good. Forgive me … I’ll be in touch.’
He ended the call and crept under the covers with the phone still in his hand. He did not know why he had called her. A sudden impulse, some kind of acute longing for … for what? He squeezed his eyelids together and tried to shut out the unpleasantness of the dream, all the unanswered questions.
He wanted everything to be back to normal again, wished he had never met Margit, or that he at least had backbone enough to break off the relationship. He did not love Margit, he loved Åsa, but there was something about Margit that he needed, and he could not put his finger on what it was. He had to end it, he knew that, but then he would keep on going, making the wrong choices. What the reaction would be at home if he told them about his affair he dared not think. He had seen Margit four times since September; it was only a matter of four times. But four times was not a casual fling, it was a relationship. A sick, destructive relationship that could only lead … to hell.
They only ever saw each other on his initiative – she never called, never sought him out. That was how he wanted it and she seemed to read his thoughts, because they had never discussed it. Even this was something he was ashamed of. He was exploiting Margit for his own needs, whatever they may be. And that was not the sort of man he wanted to be, a man who exploits women – people – for his own satisfaction. That was not who he really was, never had been. But the damned dream had drawn something rotten out in him, something that evidently had been inside him all along but that he did not recognize. He thought he had become alienated from himself, become colder, less empathetic.
With a jerk he was wakened from his brooding or his sleep, he did not know which. It was the mobile, still in his hand under the covers, that was ringing. The lamp was still on; he cast a glance at the clock radio on the bedside table. The time was three-thirty.
‘Hi, Conny, it’s Jenny.’
That’s right, Jenny had called him earlier and he had promised to call her back. But he had forgotten that and now he’d got his punishment in the small hours. Sjöberg had known the Sandén girls since they were born. He definitely did not see himself as some kind of reserve dad, because they didn’t need one, but he was without a doubt the adult person that Jenny knew best besides her parents. But he could not figure out what business she could have in the middle of the night; nothing like this had ever happened before.
‘But my dear, what are you doing up at this hour? Don’t you have to get up for work tomorrow?’
‘Yes, but I can’t sleep.’
‘Have you slept at all?’
‘Maybe a little, but I don’t think so.’
‘Poor thing. So what’s on your mind? Has something happened?’
‘Isn’t cruelty to animals against the law?’
Sjöberg smiled, realizing what this was about. Micke and especially Lotten had turned Jenny’s head. Since she had become the owner of little Blaisy she had become mad about dogs, and she soaked up her colleagues’ craziness like a sponge.
‘Yes, it can be a punishable offence. But that depends of course on what kind of animal it is and what has been done to it,’ he answered factually.
‘There was a little boy at the station today and he told such an awful story.’
‘Oh dear. Have you told your dad?’
‘Yes, but he didn’t care. Or didn’t have time,’ she corrected herself. ‘There was a man who had a pig locked up and it was lying in its own dung.’
‘But he yelled at it and kicked it hard as anything.’
‘And the boy saw this?’
‘No, but he and a friend were hiding nearby and heard the whole thing. Isn’t it strange to keep a pig in the city?’
‘It’s probably not that common, but I don’t think it’s illegal exactly. By the way, maybe it wasn’t an ordinary pig but one of those Vietnamese potbellied pigs. They’re popular these days.’
‘He kicked it really hard anyway, lots of times. And it didn’t get proper food either, no potatoes or anything.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Sjöberg.
‘The man was laughing at the pig because it had got sick from the food.’
‘But potatoes?’ said Sjöberg, surprised. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Jenny. ‘It was the boy who said it.’
Sjöberg could not help smiling a little.
‘He’ll have to make sure he stays away from that man. He seems to be an unpleasant character.’
‘But we have to rescue the pig, Conny! If cruelty to animals is a crime and you’re a policeman, then you have to be able to do something, don’t you?’
‘I see, you’re actually phoning to report a crime?’ said Sjöberg, mildly amused.
‘Yes, because Daddy wouldn’t help me and Jamal wouldn’t either.’
‘They have a lot to do right now.’
‘But it’s important. Lotten thinks so too.’
‘Hmm, I can imagine. Let’s do this, Jenny, we’ll file an official report when I get back. But now let’s both sleep. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Jenny answered, and he heard her yawn. ‘Good night then.’
‘Good night, my dear. Sleep well.’