It is difficult to find a real human at Silencia Defense AB. All outside lines lead to the same labyrinth of automated menus and recorded information. Finally, Saga decides to bypass it all with the number 9 and the star key. She is connected to the company secretary. She ignores this person’s questions and goes right to what she wants. The secretary says nothing for a moment and then tells Saga that she must have got the wrong number and that everyone has gone out for lunch.
“Please call back tomorrow morning between nine and eleven and—”
“Tell Pontus Salman to be ready for a visit from Säpo at two this afternoon,” Saga says in a loud, firm voice.
“I’m sorry,” the secretary says. “He’s in meetings all day.”
“Not at two o’clock,” Saga answers sweetly.
“Yes, his appointment book says that—”
“Because at two o’clock, he is meeting me,” Saga says.
“I will forward your request.”
“Thank you very much,” Saga replies. She meets Joona’s eyes across the desk.
“Two o’clock?” he confirms.
“Yes, indeed.”
“Tommy Kofoed would like a look at that photo,” Joona says. “Let’s stop by his office after lunch, before we head out.”
While Joona is having lunch with Disa, the technicians at the National Forensic Laboratory are enlarging the photograph.
The face of one person in the box is specifically being blurred so as to be unrecognisable.
Disa is smiling to herself as she removes the inset from the rice cooker. She holds it out to Joona and watches him as he moistens his hands to check if the rice is cool enough to form into small patties.
“Did you know that Södermalm used to have its own Calvary?”
“Calvary like Golgotha or cavalry like horses?”
“A place for executions.” Disa nods as she opens Joona’s kitchen cabinet, finds two glasses, pours white wine into one and water into the other.
Disa looks relaxed. Her freckles have turned darker and she’s put her dishevelled hair into a loose plait. Joona washes his hands and takes out a new kitchen towel. Disa goes up to him and puts her arms around his neck. Joona answers her embrace by putting his face next to hers and breathing in the scent of her hair even as he feels her hands gently caressing his back and neck.
“Let’s go ahead,” she whispers. “Let’s try.”
“Maybe,” he says in a low voice.
She holds him tightly, very tightly, and then she eases from his arms.
“There are times I get really mad at you,” she mutters as she turns away.
“Disa, I am who I am, but I—”
“I am very happy that we’re not living together,” she says, and then she leaves the kitchen.
He hears her lock herself in the bathroom and wonders whether he should follow and knock on the door, but he also knows that she really wants to be left alone, so he just continues making lunch. He picks up a piece of fish, places it on his palm, and then spreads a line of wasabi onto it.
A few minutes later, Disa comes back. She stands in the doorway and watches him finish making the sushi.
“Do you remember,” she says, laughing, “how your mother always took the salmon off the sushi and fried it before she put it back on the rice?”
“Of course.”
“Should I set the table?”
“Please.”
Disa carries plates and chopsticks to the big room, stops next to the window, and looks down at Wallingatan. A grove of trees lights up the view with its green late-spring leaves. Her eyes wander over the pleasant area all the way to Norra Bantorget where Joona Linna has been living for the past year.
She sets the off-white dinner table, returns to the kitchen to take a sip of wine. The wine has lost its crispness from being chilled. She dismisses the sudden urge to sit down on the lacquered wooden floor under the table and have lunch, eating with their hands as if they were still children.
Instead, she says, “I’ve been asked out.”
“Asked out?”
She nods and feels she wants to be a little bit mean, even though she doesn’t really.
“Tell me about it,” Joona says calmly as he carries the tray with sushi to the table.
Disa picks up her glass and says in an easy tone, “It’s just that there’s a man at the museum who’s been asking me out to dinner for the last six months.”
“Do people still ask people out to dinner these days?”
Disa smiles somewhat crookedly. “Are you jealous?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little,” Joona says as he walks over to her. “It’s always pleasant to be asked out to dinner.”
“That’s right.”
Disa pushes her fingers through a bit of Joona’s thick hair.
“Is he good-looking?”
“Actually, yes he is.”
“How nice.”
“But you know that I really don’t want to.” Disa smiles.
He doesn’t answer and turns his head away.
“You know what I want,” Disa says softly.
Joona’s face is now a little pale. She sees a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He slowly turns his face back to her. His eyes have darkened until they’re as black and hard as an abyss.
“Joona?” she asks. “Forget about it. I’m sorry—”
It looks like Joona is about to say something and begins to take a step when his legs buckle.
“Joona!” Disa cries and knocks her glass off the table as she hurries to his side. She holds him closely and whispers that it will be over soon.
After a few minutes, Joona’s face relaxes bit by bit from its tight expression of pain.
Disa gets up to sweep the broken glass off the floor. Then they sit at the table and eat in silence.
After a while, Disa says, “You’re not taking your medicine.”
“It makes me sleepy. I have to think. It’s important to think clearly right now.”
“You promised me that you’d continue with it.”
“I will, I will,” he reassures her.
“It’s dangerous not to. You know that,” she whispers.
“As soon as I’ve solved this case, I’ll start taking it again.”
“What if you never solve it?”
At a distance, the Nordic Museum appears to be a fancy image carved in ebony, despite being built of sandstone and limestone. It’s a Renaissance dream of elegance with its many towers and pinnacles. The museum was planned as an homage to the sovereignty of the Nordic peoples, but by the time it was inaugurated one rainy day in the summer of 1907, the union between Sweden and Norway had dissolved and the king was dying.
Joona walks swiftly through the enormous great hall of the museum and stops only after he’s climbed the stairs. He collects himself, then walks slowly past the lighted display cabinets. Nothing there catches his eye. He keeps going, his thoughts bound in memories and the sadness of loss.
The guard has seen him coming and has set a chair out for him next to one particular display case. Joona Linna takes his seat and lifts his eyes to the Sami bridal crown before him. The eight points of the crown are like linked hands, and the crown shines softly in the light behind the thin glass. Inside himself, Joona can hear a voice, and he sees a face smiling at him as he sits behind the wheel of his car. He is driving. It rained that day, but now the sun is reflecting in the puddles on the road so brightly, it’s as if they’re lit by fires below. He turns towards the backseat to make sure that Lumi has been buckled in properly.
The bridal crown appears to have been made from light branches of leather or braided hair. He drinks in its promise of love and joy and remembers how his wife looked: her serious smile, her sand-coloured hair brushing her face.
“How are you doing today?” the guard asks.
Joona looks up at the guard in surprise. The man has been working here for many years. He’s middle-aged with stubble on his cheeks and tired eyes.
“I really don’t know,” Joona replies as he gets up from the chair.