If she still owed him anything, it was to bear her sense of loss on her own.
She had arrived on a landing. On the wall in front of her was the lid to a rubbish chute. People stopped there to throw their bags of waste into the basement bin. A useful place to shed your past. Her heart pounding in her chest, she opened the lid. She did not feel anxious. Her mind was filled with the liberating knowledge of doing the right thing.
If the bus service stuck to the timetable, she would be home in time to hear her neighbour's trumpet play a greeting to the setting sun.
About the Author
KARIN ALVTEGEN (b. 1966) is regarded as the most exciting new crime writer in Scandinavia. Missing was awarded the premier Scandinavian crime writing award and was also nominated for the Poloni Award and Best Crime Novel 2000 in Sweden. Alvtegen lives in Stockholm. Her great aunt was Astrid Lindgren.
ANNA PATERSON has worked as a literary translator from the Germanic languages for over a decade. She won the prestigious Bernard Shaw Prize for Literary Translation in 2000.