The Man Who Watched Women (16 page)

When she got home, around three, she crept into Bella's room. Bella slept there sometimes when she was back from Uppsala and needed a place to stay. Ursula almost hoped that their daughter might have surprised them with an unannounced visit, but the room was empty. Bella hadn't been home for several weeks. She and her boyfriend Andreas had slept there for a few days at the beginning of June, before heading off to Norway to spend the summer working in a restaurant and getting some money together before the start of the new academic year. Ursula moved the pile of Bella's clothes to one side and sat down on the desk chair. She gazed at the neatly made bed. Bella's favourite top still lay on the shelf of the bedside cabinet – a black Green Day T-shirt from a concert she had been to when she was fifteen. Ursula had driven her there. There had been a lengthy discussion in the car about the purchase of the T-shirt, with Ursula maintaining that it was far too expensive and Bella making it clear that it was absolutely necessary, in fact essential, that she should have it.

Her daughter was so good, so conscientious. At university, at work, when she played volleyball, everywhere. She reminded Ursula of herself. A high achiever at school, always with a book in her hand, as if knowledge were the only thing necessary in order to understand life. Ursula felt that she really should try to get closer to Bella; they were so alike, with the same strengths, the same flaws. There was a lot she could teach her daughter. The fact that there were things you couldn't learn through reading, through discussion or logical reasoning. Closeness to other people was one of those things. That was the most difficult. Without it you chose distance, that position a little removed from the centre of life; a position Ursula knew well. But perhaps it was too late for her to approach Bella; her daughter demanded the same distance that Ursula needed. This had become clear to Ursula during Bella's last few years at home. Ursula picked up the neatly folded T-shirt and buried her nose in it. Freshly washed, but Ursula thought she could just detect the scent of her daughter. In her mind were the words she ought to say whenever she had the chance, but never did: ‘I love you. I'm not very good at showing it, but I do love you.' She sniffed the T-shirt one last time, then put it back on the shelf and went into the bathroom.

She had another wash. Although she had already showered at Torkel's, it felt like the natural thing to do. Then she brushed her teeth before quietly slipping into bed next to Mikael. She lay on her side and gazed at the back of his head and his frizzy hair as he lay turned away from her. He seemed to be in a deep sleep. She relaxed; she didn't feel whole, but she did feel contented. She knew that she spent all of her time just taking bits and pieces from the people around her. Just bits and pieces, never the whole.

And she gave back only bits and pieces. She wasn't capable of anything else. It was like the business with the T-shirt in Bella's room just now.

She loved her daughter, but she said the words to her T-shirt.

Sabine came to him in the dream. He was holding her hand. As always.

The swirling water. The power. The noise. He let go and she was swept away by the wave.

As always.

He lost her.

Forever.

Sebastian woke up with a start, as usual unsure of where he was. Then he saw Annette. Still in her black dress. The dark lipstick was smudged and had left marks on the pillow. She was pretty. He hadn't really noticed yesterday. Like a flower that opens only at night, when no one can see. Imagine if she could be just half of that person when she stepped out of the door and faced the world. He pushed the thought away. It wasn't up to him to understand her or help her. He had enough to cope with – himself. He crept out of bed feeling stiff; the mattress was too soft and the bed was too narrow. In addition, the dream always left him tense, and his right hand was aching. Next to his clothes on the floor lay a brown teddy bear with a rosette and writing on its tummy: ‘To the best mum in the world'. He wondered whether she had bought it for herself. He found it difficult to imagine that the sleeping woman was the best at anything. He picked up the bear and placed it beside her as a greeting. He looked at her one last time, then quickly and silently got dressed and left the apartment.

It was hot. Really hot. The heat enveloped him as soon as he stepped out into the street, even though it wasn't yet five o'clock in the morning. He had heard somewhere that Stockholm was in the middle of a tropical heat wave. He didn't know what was required in order for the heat to qualify as tropical; he just thought it was too bloody hot. All the time. Night and day. The sweat was pouring down his back before he had gone a hundred metres from Annette's door. He didn't really know where he was or how to get to the centre of Liljeholmen, and ambled along at random until the streets began to look familiar.

There was a coffee shop and newsagent's next door to the subway station. He pushed open the door, went straight over to the coffee machine and filled a large cup with cappuccino.

‘For another six kronor you can have a Danish pastry as well,' the young man behind the counter said when Sebastian put the cup down in front of him.

‘I don't want a Danish pastry.'

The lad gave Sebastian a searching look then ventured an understanding smile. ‘Hard night?'

‘Mind your own fucking business.'

Sebastian took his coffee and walked out. Turned right. A fair distance to go. Across the Liljeholm Bridge, Hornsgatan, Slussen, Skeppsbron, Strömbron, Stallgatan, then Strandvägen and home. He would be drenched in sweat by the time he got there. But he didn't want to use the subway. If the heat got too much he could always hail a taxi.

On Hornsgatan his shoelace came undone. Sebastian put down his coffee on an electricity box, bent down and retied it. As he straightened up he caught sight of his reflection in the tinted window of a shop selling shirts. He could see that the question as to whether it had been a hard night had been justified. He looked older than his fifty years this morning. More worn out. His slightly too long hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. Unshaven, exhausted, hollow-eyed. Alone with a paper cup of lukewarm coffee at five o'clock in the morning. On his way from yet another night with a woman. On his way to …? Where was he actually on his way to? Home. But to what? The spare room in the flat on Grev Magnigatan; it was the only room he used in the elegant apartment, except for the kitchen and bathroom. Four rooms were unused, untouched and silent in permanent semi-darkness behind closed blinds. Where was he actually going? Where had he been going since Boxing Day 2004? The simple answer was: nowhere. He had convinced himself that this was perfectly okay. That this was how he wanted things, that he had made a conscious choice to let life pass him by.

He knew why. He was afraid he would have to give up Sabine in order to come back. And Lily. That the price of being able to live again was to forget his daughter and his wife. He didn't want that. He knew that plenty of people, the majority, found their way back to their lives after losing someone close. Life went on, with only a fragment missing. Not completely shattered, like his. He knew that. But he just hadn't been able to repair it. He hadn't even tried.

But Vanja had let a strip of light, of meaning, into his existence once more, and he had found the courage to take the first steps towards change. If Trolle just did what he was supposed to do, Sebastian would be able to drive a wedge between Valdemar and his daughter. The only question was how to proceed after that? If he managed to turn Vanja's world upside down, shouldn't he be there to catch her when she fell? It would be even better if he was a part of her everyday life before disaster struck. An unpopular part, perhaps, but still a person who was close enough to be able to approach her in a perfectly natural way when she needed it.

He might actually derive a double benefit from that particular strategy.

Become a part of her everyday life. Her everyday life was Riksmord. Riksmord was Sebastian's former workplace. The place where he had once experienced a feeling of belonging, where he had been able to make use of his expertise. Where he had made a contribution. Worked. Had a life.

Get a life before you can be part of a life.

He made a decision.

He would be close to Vanja and make a life for himself once more.

One last glance in the dark shop window, then he turned and went back the way he had come.

Torkel pulled into his space in the car park beneath police headquarters, switched off the engine and got out of the car. The Audi's air-conditioning system had kept the temperature at a pleasant seventeen degrees, and he felt rested and refreshed as he locked the car and walked towards the lift, in spite of the fact that he had had only a few hours' sleep. He was trying not to think too much about last night. Not to create false hopes. Lying in his bed afterwards, he realised how much he had missed her. For a while he thought about shuffling nearer and simply holding her, but he didn't dare. He knew that wasn't what she wanted. But she had been closer to him last night than ever before. They had been in his apartment. She had come back. Chosen him. Not completely, but still.

Ursula was probably incapable of choosing someone completely.

And he was mature enough to be able to live with that.

She had already gone when he woke up in the morning. He hadn't heard her leave. She hadn't woken him to say goodbye. But what had he expected? After all, this was Ursula.

Torkel walked into reception, nodded to the uniformed officer who handed him the morning papers, and fished out his key card for the internal door. However, before he had time to use it he heard: ‘Good morning.'

Torkel's first impression when he turned around was that he had been hailed by a homeless person, but a fraction of a second later he recognised his visitor. Sebastian got up from one of the two sofas at the other end of the reception area and walked across the stone floor towards Torkel.

‘Sebastian. What are you doing here?' Torkel suppressed an impulse to hug the man and held out his hand instead. Sebastian shook it briefly.

‘I've come to see you. I haven't made an appointment, but maybe you could spare five minutes anyway?'

That was absolutely typical of Sebastian, Torkel thought. Just turning up. When it was convenient for him, it had to be convenient for everybody else. After they had solved the case in Västerås together back in April, Sebastian had simply disappeared again. He had shown no desire whatsoever to resume the friendship that had lain fallow for so many years. God knows Torkel had given him the opportunity, but Sebastian was adept at evading every attempt at a deeper contact.

For a few seconds Torkel actually considered sending him away. Experience told him that Sebastian's sudden appearance couldn't possibly be good news. And yet Torkel found himself nodding, swiping his key card and letting Sebastian into Riksmord.

‘You look tired,' Torkel said as they stood in the lift.

‘That's because I am tired.'

‘Were you waiting long?'

‘An hour or so.'

Torkel glanced at his watch. Ten to seven. ‘You're up early.'

‘I haven't really been to bed.'

‘Do I want to know where you've been?'

‘Even I don't really want to know where I've been.'

They fell silent. An anonymous female voice informed them that they had reached the fourth floor, and the doors slid open. Sebastian stepped out first, and they walked down the corridor.

‘So what are you up to these days?' Torkel asked in a neutral tone of voice as they headed towards his office. Sebastian was impressed; a polite reception in spite of everything.

‘Oh, you know – the usual.'

‘Nothing, in other words.'

Sebastian didn't reply. Torkel waved Sebastian into his office. He left the door open, shrugged off his jacket and hung it up. Sebastian sank down onto a two-seater sofa.

‘Coffee?' Torkel asked as he sat down behind his desk and gave the mouse a little push to wake the computer from energy-saving mode.