6.

Emrik Jansson stood with his back to the sun, both hands on the handlebars looking toward the main road. The main connecting road for the entire island. He was at the end of it. As far out as you could get, where the asphalt came to an end in front of a few heavy concrete blocks fitted with warning reflectors. Sure, he was way out there, but couldn’t quite be discounted yet. It was as if you were allowed to sit down there on one of those concrete blocks and catch your breath for a moment before they tipped you over the edge.

Emrik usually went to sleep early and woke up early, often before night had become day. But last night he had hardly slept at all. His thoughts had kept him awake. It was silly for him to worry so much over something that, strictly speaking, wasn’t any of his business, but that was probably hard to avoid when whatever could be considered your business no longer managed to fill up your time.

He was troubled and not without good reason, but what did he really expect to see or achieve by standing there like that? Kristina Traneus’s car speeding past, a quick wave through the window, and then nothing more? That was about all he could expect to get out of this. A glimpse of Arvid Traneus in the same car?

Ridiculous old man, ought to go home and put myself to bed, went through his mind. He groped for his tobacco with yellowed fingers, but stopped himself. He felt weak from lack of sleep and wasn’t sure whether another cigarette would brace him up or knock him onto his arse by the edge of the ditch. And if he did end up on his arse, he wouldn’t be able to make it back onto his feet again without help. He knew that from experience and that was the last thing he wanted, for someone to have to come and pull him out of the ditch. Better to refrain altogether. He gripped the handlebars once more with both hands and shuffled forward a few yards. They should be popping up at any moment. Any moment now.

*   *   *

KRISTINA TRANEUS’S BIG SUV, a silver-gray Lexus, turned off the coast road at Klinte and continued on toward Hemse. If it was in fact her car, that is. She had gotten used to seeing it as her car having driven around in it for two years, but she was no longer the one behind the wheel.

Nearly half an hour had passed since she’d picked Arvid up at Visby airport. He had hugged her as soon as he had emerged from the exit for arriving passengers. Had pressed her hard against his big, solid frame, had to bend down when he whispered into her ear; a hoarse, growling whisper:

“Kristina, it’s just you and me now.”

His broad smile stretched and tugged at the skin.

She held on tightly to him, almost clung to him in order not to lose her footing. Felt how she became light headed.

“Just you and me.” What did he mean by that? What did he see?

“Don’t you have any more luggage?” she asked once she dared stand unsupported again and noticed his black leather briefcase and little carry-on bag on wheels.

“They’re sending on the rest.”

In the parking lot he held out his hand for the car keys.

“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.

He had been traveling for twenty hours straight, if one counted the delay in London.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. I’ll drive.”

She immediately started to search for the keys in her purse.

Now he was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car she had come to consider her own. They had taken the desolate route through the forest between Klinte and Levide, turned off toward Gerum and now only had the final stretch up to the farm left to go before they would be home.

“Christ, Emrik. How old is that guy gonna get?” Arvid mumbled.

Kristina hadn’t even noticed the white-bearded former teacher of theirs at the side of the road; she was preoccupied with other things, plus she was used to the sight of him, unlike Arvid.

“He can barely walk anymore,” she said absently.

They reached the sign and Arvid turned off toward the farm. Kristina laid her right hand on the armrest and drew in Arvid’s scent through her nostrils. It was part him and part something unfamiliar, as was always the case when he returned from a trip. It was as if the smell she knew as Arvid had been diluted by something else. She had sat beside him in the car like that many times before and breathed in that smell thinking that very same thought. Yet the part of it that was him had always filled her with a powerful longing that swept away any other questions that had been weighing on her mind. If she had any doubts, they evaporated like dewdrops on a sunny July morning and all she could think about was how it would feel to be in his arms again, for the first time in days, weeks, or months. His naked arms wrapped around her naked body, hungry hands, his manhood throbbing against her belly. How she could take …

He coughed a few times and slowed down in front of the big house.

This time she felt none of that. She breathed in and sensed only the smell of alcohol and stale airplane breath. A hint of sweat.

What did he feel? Did she smell differently to him? Could he scent anything out?

*   *   *

ARVID PULLED UP on the paved driveway in front of the garage. He climbed out and went to get the bags out, but stopped short with the back door half open.

The place looked different.

He let go of the door and looked out across the garden in front of the white stone house. It was almost as if he’d parked in the driveway of the wrong house, but it was clearly his home. It was the right house, only it didn’t feel right. Was it that he had been away long enough that the trees and bushes in the garden had had time to grow out? Or was it simply that he had been away for so long that his own house seemed unfamiliar to him?

“What do you think?”

Kristina. He heard her faintly, couldn’t really take her in.

No, something had changed.

Once he’d worked it out, it was a mystery to him how he couldn’t have picked up on it sooner. A stone footpath ran from the driveway over to the front door, parallel to the house. In the triangle between the path and the driveway bloomed a sea of crimson flowers, densely packed together like a thick carpet.

“What do you think?”

Kristina again. This time he heard her. Full of expectation.

“Well…”

He turned to look at her, but stopped short. For some reason he couldn’t get the words out, just as his insipient smile stalled and died.

He turned his gaze toward the footpath and the flowers. There had been a gravel pathway there before. It had run diagonally across the lawn just where the newly planted flower bed shone an angry red.

“They’re dahlias,” said Kristina.

But there was something different in her voice now. It sounded more cautious.

“What’s all this?” he said staring at the flowers.

She fingered the buttons on her blouse as she answered.

“I thought it would make a nice change.”

Her gaze clung to him, trying to convey enthusiasm, but her wan smile was already begging his forgiveness.

“Change?”

“Yes?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I see,” he said and lifted his bags from the car.

He took a few steps toward the limestone footpath, but stopped abruptly. He stood there completely still for a few seconds, and then, directed by an irresistible impulse, cut across toward the front door just as he would have done if the gravel path had still been there. He felt how it consumed him and controlled him, a combination of stinging disgust and anger. With heavy, resolute, but not overly long strides, he marched right across the flower bed. Stalks and red petals snapped and were crushed beneath his brightly polished black 47s.