Sail of Stone by Åke Edwardson

inherited some money and she wanted to live in her own house and she’s from down by Mölndal.”
    So that’s how it is, thought Aneta. The listener can fill in the rest.
    “When Anette was going to move away from home—it was several years ago—at the same time, an apartment that one of my cousins had been renting became available, and, well, it could be worked out.”
    “It’s quite a ways from home,” said Aneta.
    “She thought it was exciting. That’s what she said, anyway.”
    “Did she and Forsblad move in together right away?”
    “No.”
    “Were they together?”
    “Yes.”
    “What did you think of them moving in together?”
    Lindsten turned to her again.
    “Do we have to talk about that damned Forsblad the whole time?”
    “Don’t you think about him? The whole time?”
    Lindsten didn’t answer.
    “When did you last speak to him?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Repressed?”
    “What?”
    “Maybe you’ve repressed it?” she said.
    “Repressed … yes … repressed. Yes. I have.”
    She could see that Lindsten had gotten a different expression on hisface. He seemed to relax. It was something she’d said. What had she said? That he’d repressed the memory of his daughter’s husband?
    Later she would need to remember this conversation. Perhaps it would be too late then.
    They sped away from the powdery construction smoke and drove up in front of the building, which was made of one enormous section.
    Lindsten suddenly picked up the conversation from before. “Huge fucking monsters like this didn’t exist then. They were built later, when they thought that they could shove half a million slaves into a ghetto.” He looked up, as though he were trying to see the roof of the building. “First they built those piles of shit, and now they’re tearing them down. Ha!”
    She stopped in front of the door. A marked car was parked there. A colleague stepped out; one remained inside.
    “Cleaned out,” said the woman who had gotten out. Aneta didn’t recognize her.
    “Cleaned out as in cleaned out ?” said Aneta.
    “Sure is.”
    Aneta and Lindsten went up in the elevator, which seemed newer than the rest of the building.
    “I have to ask you one more thing,” she said. “Has Anette been back here since she decided to move?”
    “Now I don’t understand.”
    “When she moved back home with you, did she come here any time after that? To get anything or something like that? To check on the apartment?”
    “No.”
    “You’re sure of that?”
    “Damn it, of course I’m sure. She didn’t dare to come back here, for Christ’s sake!”
    “No one was going to take over the lease?”
    “No.”
    “A relative or something?”
    “No.”
    “Really?”
    “She didn’t own it, for Christ’s sake. And these days it’s even harder to work things like that out than it was before.”
    During their trip to the apartment she had tried to describe the two men to Lindsten. It hadn’t been of any help to her, or him. Could be any old bastard at all, any scoundrel at all. He had made a gesture in the air, as though he were sketching a face.
    They stepped out of the elevator and went to the apartment door. Aneta opened it with keys she’d gotten from her colleague. There were two locks.
    The apartment was cleaned out.
    “Well,” said Lindsten.
    “Why didn’t you move all her things when Anette moved?” she asked.
    “We were going to do it next week,” said Lindsten. He took a few steps into the hall. “Now that’s not necessary.”
    Detective Lars Bergenhem chased burglars, or the shadows of them. A wave of burglaries was washing over Gothenburg. That’s how the chief inspector at CID command had put it: a wave of burglaries.
    Homes were emptied, cleared out. Where did all their things go? There must have been space somewhere in the city for everything that was stolen. Not everything could join the camel caravan to the Continent.
    It was a search, as though in circles.
    Bergenhem was used