Part 2 (1/2)

I must go home to Anni, I thought.

And even before I'd finished thinking, I was back at Anni's house.

The transition made me dizzy. Like when you step off a carousel.

I've got used to it now.

Anni was whisking pancake batter. Sitting on a chair by the kitchen table, whisking.

I like pancakes.

She didn't know I was dead. She was whisking away, thinking about me. She was looking forward to seeing me sitting at the table and tucking into the pancakes while she stood at the stove, cooking them. She placed a plate over the bowl containing the pancake mixture and put in to one side. But I never came. The bowl of batter went into the fridge. She couldn't let it go to waste, so in the end she cooked the pancakes and froze them. They're still in the freezer.

Now they've found me. Now she can cry.

Snow, thought District Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson, s.h.i.+vering with pleasure as she got out of her car at the house in Kurravaara.

It was 7.00 in the evening. Snow clouds enveloped the village in a pleasant, dusky haze. Martinsson could barely make out the lights from the neighbouring houses. And the snow was not just falling. Oh no, it was hurtling down. Cold, dry, fluffy flakes cascaded from the sky, as if someone up there were sweeping them down, doing the housework.

Farmor, my grandmother, of course, Martinsson thought with a trace of a smile. She must always be on the go, scrubbing the good Lord's floor, dusting, hard at work. I expect she's sent Him out to stand in the porch.

Her farmor's house, faced with grey cement-fibre panels, known in this part of the world by their trade name, Eternit, seemed to be hiding itself in the gloom. It appeared to have taken the opportunity to have a nap. Only the outside light above the green-painted steps whispered quietly: Welcome home, my girl.

Her mobile pinged. She took it out of her pocket. A text from Mns Wenngren.

”Pouring with b.l.o.o.d.y rain in Stockholm,” it said. ”Bed empty and lonely. Come back. Want to lick your b.r.e.a.s.t.s & hug you. Kiss all your lovely places.”

She felt a tingling sensation.

”b.l.o.o.d.y man,” she keyed in. ”I have to work tonight. Not think about you.”

She smiled. He was great. She missed him, enjoyed his company. A few years ago she had been working for him at Meijer & Ditzinger in Stockholm. He thought she should move back there and start working as a solicitor again.

”You'd earn three times as much as you're getting now,” he would say.

She looked over towards the river. Last summer he had knelt with her on the jetty, giving all of her farmor's rag rugs a good scrubbing. They had sweated in the suns.h.i.+ne. Salty rivulets had trickled down their backs and from their brows into their eyes. When they had finished scrubbing they had dipped the rugs into the water to rinse them. Then they had stripped off and swum naked with the rugs, like excited dogs.

She tried to explain to him that this was how she wanted to live.

”I want to stand out here re-puttying the windows, glancing out over the river from time to time. I want to drink coffee on my porch before going to work on summer mornings. I want to dig my car out of the snow in winter. I want frost patterns on my kitchen windows.”

”But you can have all that,” he tried to persuade her. ”We can come up to Kiruna as often as you want.”

But it would not be the same. She knew that. The house would never allow itself to be deceived. Nor would the river.

I need all this, she thought. I am so many difficult people. The little three-year-old, starved of love; the ice-cold lawyer; the lone wolf; and the person who longs to do crazy things again, who longs to escape into craziness. It is good to feel small beneath the sparkling Northern Lights, small beside the mighty river. Nature and the universe are so close to us up here. My troubles and difficulties just shrivel up. I like being insignificant.

I like living up here with lining paper on the shelves and spiders in the corners, and a besom to sweep the floor with, she thought. I don't want to be a guest and a stranger. Never again.

A German pointer came galloping along at full speed through the snow. Her ears were flapping at right angles to her head, and her mouth was open wide as if she were smiling. She slid along on the ice beneath the snow as she tried to stop and say h.e.l.lo.

”h.e.l.lo, Bella!” Martinsson said, her arms full of dog. ”Where's the boss?”

Now she could hear furious shouting.

”Heel, I said! Heel! Are you deaf?”

”She's here,” Martinsson shouted back.

Sivving Fjallborg gradually materialized through the falling snow. He was jogging along tentatively, afraid of falling. His weaker side was lagging slightly, his arm hanging down. His curly white hair was hidden under a green-and-white knitted hat. The hat was wearing its own little cap of snow. Martinsson did her best to suppress a smile. He looked magnificent. He was big anyway, but he was wearing a red padded jacket that made him look enormous. And everything was crowned by that little cap of snow.

”Where?” he puffed.

But Bella had vanished into the snow.

”Huh, I expect she'll turn up when she's hungry,” he said with a smile. ”What about you? I'm going to make some dumplings. There'll be plenty for both of us.”

Bella appeared just as they were about to go in, scampering down into the cellar ahead of them. Sivving Fjallborg had moved into his boiler room several years before.

”You can always find what you're looking for, and it's easy to keep tidy,” he would say.

The house above was neat and tidy, but was only used when the children and grandchildren came to visit.

The boiler room was spa.r.s.ely furnished.

Nice and cosy, Martinsson thought as she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the wooden bench next to the Formica table.

A table, a chair, a stool, a kitchen sofa what more could you want? There was a made-up bed in one corner. Rag rugs on the floor to prevent the chill seeping up.

Fjallborg was standing by the hotplate, wearing an ap.r.o.n that had once belonged to his wife tucked into the waistband of his trousers. His stomach was too big for him to knot it at his back.

Bella had lain down next to the boiler, in order to get dry. There was a smell of wet dog, wet wool, wet concrete.

”Why not have a little rest,” Fjallborg said.

Martinsson lay down on the wooden sofa. It was short, but if you piled two cus.h.i.+ons under your head and tucked up your knees it was comfortable enough.

Fjallborg cut a dumpling into thick slices. He swirled a large k.n.o.b of b.u.t.ter around the hot frying pan.

Martinsson's mobile pinged again. Another text from Mns.

”You can work some other time. I want to put my arms around your waist and kiss you, lift you up onto the kitchen table and hoist up your skirt.”

”Is it from work?” Fjallborg said.

”No, it's from Mns,” Martinsson said archly. ”He's wondering when you're going to go down to Stockholm and build him a sauna.”

”Huh, the idle fool. Tell him to come up here and do some shovelling. All this snow a bit of mild weather is all we need, and it'll be sheer h.e.l.l. Tell him that.”

”I will,” Martinsson said, and wrote: ”Mmm . . . More.”