He sat down on the chair. The barman wiped the counter in front of him and gave him a quick look.
‘Fucking riffraff.’
It was the same barman as the night before. The one who had served him and Linda. A tiny opportunity opened up.
‘A beer. Not a light one.’
‘A lager?’
‘Whatever.’
‘I’ll get you a Harp.’
‘OK.’
The barman reached for a glass from the rack above his head, filled it halfway and put it in front of him.
‘Forty-two.’
Jonas took out his wallet and put a fifty-krona note on the bar. The barman went off to serve some other customers and Jonas took a few quick gulps before he emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass. The foam ran over the edge and made a little pool on the bar. He dipped his index finger in the liquid and wrote an L on the newly wiped surface.
He had to ask. It was his only chance. He would drink a little more, get a little buzz on so the compulsion wouldn’t come at him if everything went to hell.
He was paying attention half an hour later. The barman was standing right in front of him, hanging up some clean glasses. Jonas was on to his third beer and was once again full of resolve.
‘Say, I wonder if you could help me with something?’
‘Sure.’
Glass after glass was moved from the tray to the overhead rack.
‘It’s like this: I met a girl here yesterday. I don’t know if you remember that I was here last night.’
‘Yeah, I remember. You were sitting over there.’
He nodded towards the short end of the bar.
Jonas nodded.
‘Well, that girl . . .’
He broke off and looked down at the bar, then glanced up and smiled.
‘Well, you know. We went home together and all that. And then I got her phone number and promised to call her, but I lost the piece of paper. This is embarrassing as hell.’
The barman smiled.
‘Well, that’s not so cool.’
‘Do you remember her too?’
It was a really dumb question. Obviously he’d remember. No one who ever saw her would forget.
‘You mean the one you bought a cider for?’
Jonas nodded.
‘Linda is her name. Does she come here often?’
‘Not as far as I know, at least I’ve never seen her before.’
Jonas felt his hope sink. This man and this place were his only link.
‘So you don’t know what her last name is?’
The barman shook his head.
‘No idea. Sorry.’
Jonas swallowed.
The barman looked at him briefly and hung up his last glass, took the tray and left. Jonas pulled out his phone; the display was still blank. She knew his name and where he lived but she still hadn’t called. He looked around – at all the unfamiliar mouths talking and laughing, all the eyes gazing at each other, all the hands. Where was she now? Was she sitting in some other bar, a place like this but somewhere else? The thought that she was with other people right now, that someone else’s eyes at this moment were allowed to look on her, that her body might be on someone else’s retina, inside someone else.
‘Listen, maybe I can help you after all.’
He turned back to the bar. The barman stood in front of him with a receipt in his hand.
‘She paid for her first glass with a credit card. Before you got here.’
His heart turned a somersault inside his chest. He reached out his hand and took the receipt.
‘Take it easy. I need that back.’
He read the white slip of paper.
Handelsbanken.
She had added a tip of ten kronor and then she had signed it.
The barman was watching him.
‘But didn’t you say her name was Linda?’
He read the signature again. Refused to understand.
‘This must be the wrong receipt.’
‘No, I remember, it’s hers. The pen ran out of ink halfway through, see.’
He nodded at the receipt. The last letters were written in different ink.
‘This is definitely the woman you bought the cider for. But it might not be such a good idea to get in touch with her.’
The barman gave him a wry smile.
Jonas couldn’t take his eyes off the utterly incomprehensible signature. The woman who had made him betray Anna, who helped her to carry out her unjust revenge, had lied to him. The name he had learned to love over the past twenty-four hours was a lie, a lie that pierced him to the core.
Her name was Eva.
Eva Wirenström-Berg.
Pork tenderloin au gratin and roasted garlic butter potatoes. And a nice Rioja from ’89. A hundred and seventy-two kronor she had paid for it.
She might just as well have served the liquid from the toilet brush holder. The fact was, she had once thought about doing just that.
They didn’t say a word to each other during the meal; all necessary communication was relayed through Axel. He was allowed to light the candles on the table and now he sat there in his special chair and thought they were having a cosy evening. He had no idea that the cosy evenings were over for good in this house, and that the man who had taken them away from him was sitting at his right side and gulping down his food, all so he could go back to his den as quickly as possible.
Henrik gave her a quick look, stood up and took his plate.
‘Are you done?’
She nodded.
With his other hand he lifted up the oven-proof dish with the pork tenderloin and went over to the counter.
She just sat there, amazed that he hadn’t burned himself; surely the dish was still hot.
With mute efficiency he began clearing the table, rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.
The family dinner was over.
It had lasted seven minutes.
‘Axel, your programme’s starting. Come on, I’ll turn on the TV.’
Axel slid down from his chair and they went into the living room.
She sat there with her wine glass; he had forgotten to take it from her when he cleared the table. The wine bottle was more than half full, he had hardly touched it.
The first time the phone rang it was a quarter to twelve. Axel had fallen asleep in front of the TV at about eight, and Eva carried him in to the double bed. The rest of the evening she had spent alone on the sofa, sitting there staring at the flickering pictures on the screen. When the phone rang, Henrik happened to be out of his fortress and in the bathroom. She reached the phone first.
‘Eva,’ she said.
Not a sound.
‘Hello?’
Someone hung up.
She stood there with the receiver to her ear and felt the rage building. That fucking slut! She couldn’t even leave them in peace on a Friday night when he was home with his family.
She heard him flush the toilet and the bathroom door opened. He stood in the doorway.
‘Who was that?’
She put down the receiver and did her best to seem calm, leafing through a catalogue that lay on the kitchen counter.
‘I don’t know, they hung up.’
A shadow of uneasiness flitted across his face.
And then he vanished into his office again. The door was scarcely shut before the phone rang again, cutting through the silence.
She reached it first this time too.
‘Yes?’
Again a click. And then another ring as soon as she put down the phone. This time she didn’t say a word, she just stood there listening to someone breathing.
And then suddenly there was a voice.
‘Hello?’
‘Yes, this is Eva.’
‘Hi, this is Annika Ekberg.’
Jakob’s mother.
‘Jakob’s mother from day-care. Sorry for calling so late, you weren’t in bed already, I hope.’
‘No, no problem.’
‘I just have to ask you something. This may sound crazy, but Åsa, Simon’s mother, just called me and said that Lasse had received a strange email from Linda Persson at the day-care centre.’