IRENE LILJA PULLED her juicer out of a removal box and put it on the kitchen counter, next to the dish rack. It was hardly ideal, but it was the only kitchen gadget she used every day, and there was no other free surface close enough to an outlet.
In a way, it epitomized her retreat from Hampus and their house out in Perstorp. She had no idea how she was supposed to fit all her things into a small one-bed flat in south Helsingborg. Even though she had already unpacked about fifteen boxes, she had at least as many to go.
But she would make it work, and whatever she couldn’t cram in, she would either get rid of or put in storage until she could afford something bigger. The important thing was to make sure Hampus didn’t get to keep so much as a hair that belonged to her, which is why even the hideous flamingo oven mitts her mother had given her for Christmas were buried somewhere in one of the many piles.
She was lucky to have had Klippan to help her. If not for him, she wouldn’t have made it. He hadn’t complained once, not even when everything took considerably longer than she’d anticipated. He had just calmly and methodically made sure everything got done and fitted it all in the van and he had even brought his trailer without being asked.
When the last box had finally been brought up to the flat, she’d offered to take him to Sam’s Bar across the street, and they had ordered steaks with extra Béarnaise sauce and a pint each. Then she’d gone back to her flat to try to get organized, but within half an hour she’d fallen asleep among piles of clothes on the bed.
She’d slept through the night, not waking up until eight the next morning, surprised Hampus hadn’t once tried to call her since he’d got home from the car racing in Knutstorp. She’d assumed he would reach for his phone the moment he discovered both she and all her things were gone.
Later on, she realized that was exactly what he’d done, but her phone had run out of battery. The moment it started back up, she could see that he’d called repeatedly throughout the night. Twenty-two times, to be exact. Twenty-two voicemails where he unloaded about how awful she was.
She had blocked his number now and was going to change to an unlisted one herself as soon as possible. Hampus was out of her life, and she was out of his. She was finally done with worrying about him drinking too much. About the fights and harsh words. She was finally done with grinning and bearing it. She didn’t have to give a toss any more.
The only real problem with the move was that it had taken her so long to pull the trigger. Even though she’d only been back in town for about twenty-four hours, her years with Hampus were already starting to feel like ancient history. As were her recent experiences with the diehard neo-Nazis who had broken into their home and sprayed swastikas all over the walls.
It all seemed like a different life, one she would soon remember only dimly. As though it hadn’t been her who burned down their clubhouse and threatened to frame them for all kinds of things if they so much as looked her way ever again.
For another day or two, she was determined to believe the local police’s feeble explanation that everything pointed to it being the result of internal rivalries in the criminal underworld.
She carried her toothbrush mug to the bathroom and put it on one of the shelves in the cabinet. It smelled different. Not bad, just different. Moving was always like that. New smells and new sounds to get used to.
She had signed a two-year contract. That was a long time, considering the flat was on the small side and located in the wrong part of town. The south side had never been her thing. But right now, anything was better than Perstorp, and maybe she would even learn to like her new neighbourhood.
She didn’t know much about her neighbours, but they were bound to be no different from neighbours anywhere else. An old lady lived next door to her; she had stopped by while she and Klippan were moving things in. She’d seemed nice but was apparently stone deaf when her hearing aid wasn’t on, as Klippan found out when he tried to talk to her.
On the other side of her lived P. Milwokh. She didn’t know who that was. And yet there was something familiar about the name, which she had reacted to on her very first visit to the building when Molander’s triangulation had located Assar Skanås’s phone somewhere in the vicinity.
But yesterday, when it turned out Klippan had bumped on the name too, and was equally unable to put his finger on why, she decided to clear up the mystery once and for all. To that end, she had gone over after she woke up that morning and rung the doorbell.
No one had answered, and since the doorway was blocked on the inside by a thick, dark curtain, peeking through the letter box had proved futile. She’d stood there with her finger on the small button for five whole minutes before finally giving up and going back to her boxes. They were the reason she’d taken a day off work, after all.
But now a noise made her change her mind again. The distant sound of a toilet flushing. She could hear it very clearly but had a hard time pinpointing where it was coming from. She couldn’t hear any water rushing through the pipes in the corner, which meant it wasn’t the flat above hers. Also, she seemed to recall Molander telling her sound waves spread downwards more easily than upwards, so she should be able to rule out the flat below hers as well.
That left only the flat next door.
The one with P. Milwokh on the door.
She walked over to the bath and pressed her ear against the white-tiled wall she shared with her unknown neighbour. But the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own pulse.
It was only when she pulled on the thin chain that opened the white iron ventilation hatch up near the ceiling that all doubt evaporated. Not only could she hear water streaming into a basin next door and a few seconds later the squeak of a tap being turned off, she could even hear the last few drops hit the porcelain, before everything went quiet once more.