Part 30 (1/2)

His face is calm, his nose looks like it was broken at some point, his cheeks are covered by a grey beard, and there are folds in his thick neck.

'Have you been out today?' she asks, and waits a moment before going on. 'You haven't been out in the exercise yard but perhaps there are other ways of getting out.'

Rocky Kyrklund shows no reaction. His eyes are following the cars on the screen. One of the guards by the door s.h.i.+fts his weight and the keys on his belt jangle.

'Who have you been in contact with on the outside?' she asks. 'Friends, relatives, other patients?'

The turbo engines roar. They sound like chainsaws cutting through dry wood, over and over again.

Margot looks at his stockinged feet, the worn heels and clumsy darning of one sock.

'I've been told that you don't see any visitors?'

Rocky doesn't answer. His stomach rises and falls calmly under his denim s.h.i.+rt. One hand is resting between his legs, and he's leaning back against two pillows.

'But you do have personal contact with the staff? Some of them have worked here for many years ... you must have got to know each other. Haven't you?'

Rocky Kyrklund remains silent.

On the television a Ferrari driver comes into the pits at speed. Before his car has even stopped the crew are ready to change his tyres.

'You have your meals with patients from other sections, and you share the exercise yard ... Who do you like best? If you had to say a name?'

A bible with about sixty bookmarks in the form of red thread is lying on the bedside table. Beside it stands a dirty milk-gla.s.s. Light filtered by the trees comes through the vertical bars on the window.

Margot s.h.i.+fts position uncomfortably on the chair and takes the notebook containing the names of the two discharged patients out of her bag.

'Do you remember Jens Ramberg? Marek Semiovic?' she asks. 'You do, don't you?'

One car collides with another and spins round in a cloud of smoke while parts of the car fly across the track.

'Do you have any memory of what you were doing earlier today?'

She waits a while, then stands up again as the accident is replayed on the screen, its glow reflecting off Rocky's face and chest.

The guards don't meet her gaze as they leave the room together. Rocky doesn't seem to notice her departure.

As she walks back towards the car park, she can feel the technician watching her on one of the thirty cameras.

Before she drives back, she sits in the car and reads through the material about the murder of Rebecka Hansson, and thinks that Rocky Kyrklund must be involved in the new murders in some way, if only as a sort of distant rodef.

Margot sees that Erik Maria Bark was part of the team that conducted the forensic psychiatric evaluation of Kyrklund. Their conclusions, which formed the basis of the sentence, were based upon long conversations between Erik and Rocky. Erik evidently managed to gain his trust. She notes that he has taken part in almost one hundred forensic psychiatric evaluations and has been called as an expert witness during forty trials.

54.

Adam Youssef is sitting in his car next to his wife Katryna. She's ma.s.saging her hands, and the smell of her hand cream is spreading through the car. It's starting to get dark, and the traffic on Valhallavgen is fairly light. They've been to the Dramatic Inst.i.tute to watch her brother Fuad's performance about post-punk group The Cure.

The middle-aged singer, Robert Smith, was depicted sitting without any make-up on a carousel horse, talking about his years at Notre Dame Middle School.

Adam stops at a red light and looks at Katryna. She's plucked her eyebrows a bit too much, making her face look rather cruel.

'You're not saying anything,' he says.

She shrugs her shoulders. He looks at her nails. She's painted them in a colour that s.h.i.+fts from violet to pink at their tips. He ought to say something about them.

'Katryna,' he says. 'What is it?'

She looks him in the eye with a seriousness that makes him scared.

'I don't want to have the baby,' she explains.

'You don't?'

She shakes her head and the red light disappears from her face. He turns back towards the traffic light. It's turned green, but he can't bring himself to drive on.

'I'm not sure I want children at all,' she whispers.

'You've only just got pregnant,' he says helplessly. 'Can't you wait, see if you change your mind?'

'I'm not going to,' she says simply.

He nods and swallows. A car blows its horn a couple of times before overtaking on the right, and then the light goes red again. He looks at the switch for the hazard-warning lights, but can't be bothered to press it.

'OK,' he says.

'I've made up my mind, I've booked an appointment to have an abortion next week.'

'Do you want me to come with you?'

'There's no need.'

'But I could wait in the car while-'

'I don't want you there,' she interrupts.

He stares at the cars driving across the junction in front of them, then at some black birds flying overhead; they're describing a wide arc in front of Stockholm's Olympic Stadium.

He's losing her, it's already happening.

Recently he's been trying to show her he loves her every day. They love each other, after all, they really do. Or at least he thought they did.

What if she's lying when she says she's going out with her workmates at Sephora after work every Thursday? She never talks about it, and he hasn't been interested enough to ask or go along.