think?”
“Have to see, it’s already three o’clock. If I get hold of them it can happen in ten minutes, otherwise tomorrow. I’ll do what I can.”
“Excellent, thanks so much for your help.”
Fredrik gave her his cell phone number in case he had left for the day by the time she produced the information.
He put down the receiver and stood up. He would be extremely surprised if it was possible to produce a sender from the payment. That is, someone besides the borrowed address to the Kvarnbäcks. Someone had chosen to hide behind Prinsgatan 8 in Gothenburg. Why that particular address? Did it mean that the actual tenant was also in Gothenburg? Or was it Alma or Elisabet Vogler, and they made a completely random selection from the Swedish phone directory?
14.
They had coffee after eating in the little bower in front of the entry. It was a mild evening; the sunlight was fast disappearing, and the shadows of the fruit trees in the high grass reached almost all the way up to the gable.
The taste of strong coffee, and strong alcohol, lingered in Malin’s mouth. Henrik had a weakness for odd, local types of liquor that he dragged home from his travels, but which unfailingly lost their charm as soon as they were put in the liquor cabinet on Fårö. Metaxa, Raki, Vietnamese coconut schnapps. Now, in any event, they had decided to drink from those bottles in small, two-centiliter portions in the middle of the week to get rid of them. And that way it was even a little bit fun.
Henrik gathered up the coffee cups and glasses and carried them all into the kitchen. He started doing the dishes while Malin checked on Axel and Ellen in the living room. They were sitting quietly and stock-still in front of the TV, close to the screen on the shaggy IKEA rug. Axel had his thumb in his mouth and was leaning his head against his sister’s arm.
Malin slipped down next to them. When she felt their warmth and the odor of children, tears suddenly started running down her cheeks. It was not because they were so sweet or because she loved them so much. She was crying because she could not escape the feeling that everything was so unbelievably fragile and somewhere also the feeling that everything was not as it should be.
She could not explain it any better to herself. Did it really need to be explained? Nothing had been as it should be since they came home from vacation and Malin stepped through the front door with Axel in her arms.
She did her best to hold back so that they wouldn’t notice she was crying. Luckily the animated film had a firm hold on their attention. The characters on the TV screen were blurry through her tears. She didn’t like herself when she was like this. Anxious and full of emotions. That wasn’t her. She was the efficient, courageous one. The one who started her own profitable café in Stockholm and then risked taking the leap to a small island in the Baltic and, without really understanding how it happened, was supporting herself as a food blogger.
Exactly. The thought reminded her. She had to post a recipe.
She carefully dried her tears behind the backs of the children and gave them a hard squeeze before she stood up. They rocked absently without taking their eyes from the screen as she pressed herself against them.
* * *
Malin uploaded a recipe for truffle mayonnaise and French fries that she had swiped at an American restaurant forum and adapted for Swedish households. Creative reuse. Then she wrote an entry about pears, that they were better suited in flan than on a cheese tray, and a lyrical outburst about the Greve Moltke pear tree they had in the garden. It went quickly. She was probably the only one who would think it sounded strained. The readers didn’t know, of course, that someone had been in their house busy symbolically poking eyes out.
When she was through blogging she took off on the Internet and completely lost track of time. It was only when Ellen came in and asked
“Have to see, it’s already three o’clock. If I get hold of them it can happen in ten minutes, otherwise tomorrow. I’ll do what I can.”
“Excellent, thanks so much for your help.”
Fredrik gave her his cell phone number in case he had left for the day by the time she produced the information.
He put down the receiver and stood up. He would be extremely surprised if it was possible to produce a sender from the payment. That is, someone besides the borrowed address to the Kvarnbäcks. Someone had chosen to hide behind Prinsgatan 8 in Gothenburg. Why that particular address? Did it mean that the actual tenant was also in Gothenburg? Or was it Alma or Elisabet Vogler, and they made a completely random selection from the Swedish phone directory?
14.
They had coffee after eating in the little bower in front of the entry. It was a mild evening; the sunlight was fast disappearing, and the shadows of the fruit trees in the high grass reached almost all the way up to the gable.
The taste of strong coffee, and strong alcohol, lingered in Malin’s mouth. Henrik had a weakness for odd, local types of liquor that he dragged home from his travels, but which unfailingly lost their charm as soon as they were put in the liquor cabinet on Fårö. Metaxa, Raki, Vietnamese coconut schnapps. Now, in any event, they had decided to drink from those bottles in small, two-centiliter portions in the middle of the week to get rid of them. And that way it was even a little bit fun.
Henrik gathered up the coffee cups and glasses and carried them all into the kitchen. He started doing the dishes while Malin checked on Axel and Ellen in the living room. They were sitting quietly and stock-still in front of the TV, close to the screen on the shaggy IKEA rug. Axel had his thumb in his mouth and was leaning his head against his sister’s arm.
Malin slipped down next to them. When she felt their warmth and the odor of children, tears suddenly started running down her cheeks. It was not because they were so sweet or because she loved them so much. She was crying because she could not escape the feeling that everything was so unbelievably fragile and somewhere also the feeling that everything was not as it should be.
She could not explain it any better to herself. Did it really need to be explained? Nothing had been as it should be since they came home from vacation and Malin stepped through the front door with Axel in her arms.
She did her best to hold back so that they wouldn’t notice she was crying. Luckily the animated film had a firm hold on their attention. The characters on the TV screen were blurry through her tears. She didn’t like herself when she was like this. Anxious and full of emotions. That wasn’t her. She was the efficient, courageous one. The one who started her own profitable café in Stockholm and then risked taking the leap to a small island in the Baltic and, without really understanding how it happened, was supporting herself as a food blogger.
Exactly. The thought reminded her. She had to post a recipe.
She carefully dried her tears behind the backs of the children and gave them a hard squeeze before she stood up. They rocked absently without taking their eyes from the screen as she pressed herself against them.
* * *
Malin uploaded a recipe for truffle mayonnaise and French fries that she had swiped at an American restaurant forum and adapted for Swedish households. Creative reuse. Then she wrote an entry about pears, that they were better suited in flan than on a cheese tray, and a lyrical outburst about the Greve Moltke pear tree they had in the garden. It went quickly. She was probably the only one who would think it sounded strained. The readers didn’t know, of course, that someone had been in their house busy symbolically poking eyes out.
When she was through blogging she took off on the Internet and completely lost track of time. It was only when Ellen came in and asked
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