Jenny thought for a moment and shook her head. “I had my wallet in my jeans, and my keys, too. It was an old jacket, and I’d just washed it, so I’d taken everything out of the pockets. They … they said to wear dark clothing. So we wouldn’t be seen. I thought we were going to hang … those posters.”
“I know, sweetheart. But it’s worked out okay. Everything’s fine now. Just promise me you’ll never get in touch with them again. Do you think they might turn you in?”
Jenny shook her head violently. “We never talk to the pigs. Never!”
The mother pig smiled and stroked her militant daughter’s face above the bruise now turning blue.
IRENE WAS IN bed when she heard Katarina sneak in through the front door. She heard Katarina try to muffle Sammie’s joyful barks, hissing, “Shh, Sammie. You’ll wake them all up. Stop.”
The sounds of careful tiptoeing up the stairs. Irene closed her eyes and pretended to sleep as her daughter peeked through Irene’s half-open bedroom door. She must have put on a good act, because Katarina slowly closed the door and slipped into the bathroom. Irene glanced at the clock on her nightstand: 23:08.
Katarina ran water from the faucet, flushed the toilet, and then crossed through the television room to go to her bedroom.
Irene lay for a long time and stared into the darkness. It did not feel right to have secrets from the family. But right now Krister was under tremendous pressure at work. He didn’t need to know about this latest adventure. Perhaps this would be the end of Jenny’s foray into the animal-rights movement. She could be a vegan as much as she wanted, which would be enough of an irritant for her father. This just wasn’t necessary for him to know.
A new worry began to rattle around in her brain. Why was Katarina out so late? Of course, the girls were in the last year of their basic schooling and would be fifteen next month, but coming home after 11:00 P.M. on a normal weeknight was much too late. Perhaps she hadn’t even been at Anna’s house at all. What was she up to? Did she have a boyfriend? Irene was wide awake now and imagining one scenario after the other. Had she warned the girls enough about HIV and using condoms under any circumstance? Had she talked to them about other sexually transmitted diseases? What kind of birth control would be best for fifteen-year-old girls? Finally she calmed herself down. She would have to trust her daughters a bit. They probably knew more about all this than she did. But she would make sure to have another chat with them anyway.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Katarina had come home late. Nothing need be brought up about what had gone on this evening. They all seemed to have their own little secrets.
• • •
THE EVENING MOVIE on Channel 5 was over. Siv Persson felt content and even somewhat tired. The movie had been a romantic comedy, not one of those unpleasantly graphic mysteries with all those deaths and murders. Nothing to remind her of the previous week. She’d come out of that fairly well, she thought. Her anxiety was no longer so bad, and there were even stretches of time when she hardly thought about the hospital at all. Now she’d do her best to relax in the days before her cataract surgery.
The memories of that terrible night were still vivid, especially when she tried to fall asleep. Then the images became as sharp as those on her big-screen TV. Cold moonlight. The tall blond woman in the nurse’s uniform, her face turned away. Then the woman began to turn her face back.… Siv shut down the memory as quickly as she could.
She got up to go into the kitchen. It was almost eleven in the evening and time to get her medicine ready. She usually put the tablet into an egg cup and brought the cup and a glass of water to her nightstand. Now that she could no longer read before sleeping, she had taken up the habit of listening to the music on the radio’s Channel 2. At midnight she’d take her medicine. Then she’d be able to sleep until eight.
Siv Persson had just put her little white pill in the porcelain cup when she heard a soft knocking at the door. At first she doubted her ears and stood still in the kitchen with the open bottle in her hand. A moment later the knock repeated, just as quietly as before. Her heart began to thud, and she felt her fear grow. She heard the male policeman’s voice inside her head: You are now the only surviving witness. This is a dangerous killer.
Whoever would knock on the door at this time of night? She certainly wasn’t expecting visitors.
Her mouth was dry, and her tongue stuck to her teeth. She could hardly breathe. Screaming would not help, and she wouldn’t have been able to make a sound anyway. Who could she call for help? She hardly knew the neighbors. They’d exchange greetings when they ran into each other on the stairs, but that was it. The police? They already thought she was crazy. She walked to her door quietly and looked through the peephole.
Empty. No one was on the other side. She almost laughed out loud from relief, but her laugh lodged in her throat. Even if she didn’t see well, there was nothing wrong with her hearing. The sound out there was barely audible, detectable only by someone whose senses were on high alert. Clothes rustling. Someone was pressed next to the wall beside her door. Someone was hoping that she’d open it.
Her heart leaped, and her ears hummed. Don’t faint! Don’t faint! she told herself as she took deep breaths. She tried to calm down. Her door was sturdy and equipped with dead-bolt locks. She’d locked them all, even with the risk of being caught inside in case of fire. She’d been doing this ever since Marianne Svärd had been killed.
Her pulse had calmed somewhat when she noticed that the lid of the mail slot was slowly opening. There was a slight creak. To her horror, Siv realized that the killer could probably see her ankles and her feet. She quickly moved back. Slowly, the lid closed again. Hasty footsteps away from the door clicked toward the stairs. At first Siv Persson stood paralyzed, but once she heard the footsteps in the stairwell, she rushed to the peephole.
She caught a glimpse of a black hat with its brim turned down. Underneath the hat she could see blond hair.
Chapter 17
COLD RAIN TEEMED from the dark gray skies; it was a day when the curtains of downpour would never part.
Irene stared gloomily into her first cup of coffee of the day. The injury on the back of her head was throbbing and aching, but she still slept until six-thirty.
She felt sick as soon as she woke up. Her skull hurt, and her eyes felt filled with a shovel of sand. A badger also seemed to have crawled into her mouth and died. Judging by the smell of her breath, he’d been rotting for some time now. That’s what I get for not brushing my teeth before I went to bed, Irene condemned herself in no uncertain terms.
Krister was asleep beside her and didn’t notice as she slowly got up. After a brief shower and a quick application of makeup, Irene went downstairs to make breakfast. The twins managed to show up by seven. Katarina appeared to swallow the story that Jenny had fallen down the stairs. She started to chatter about anything else but the events of last night, just as Irene had expected.
Göteborgs-Posten had a huge headline on the first page: MILITANT VEGANS BURN TRUCK. Underneath that, a subhead: POLICE BELIEVE ARSONIST CAUGHT. Jenny quickly folded the paper with the first page inside.
AT THE STATION everyone’s spirits were down. The investigative group held a brief morning prayer. Andersson announced that the technicians had found a few new leads. One of the suitcases had long blond strands of hair. The strands were fresh. They hadn’t been permed or bleached, and they were about four inches long. It was possible that they might have come from a wig. Hair samples from all blond female suspects would be collected and tested. Fingerprints, fresh and clear, had been found on the inside edge of the second suitcase. Fredrik had been given the task of collecting the samples.