Lily refused to walk. Anna told her she had to, but Lily had made up her mind and was sitting down on the steps of a store that was closed. “No,” she declared and stuck out her lower lip in defiance. “You have to walk,” Anna repeated. Søren was about to say something, but Anna turned to him when she sensed his lips moving.
“She has to walk. If she doesn’t, we can’t get home. I can’t carry all those bags, my books, and a child. I’m not strong enough.” She was on the brink of tears. Søren emptied his groceries into Anna’s least full bag, tied the two remaining ones together, and hung them over his shoulders like a yoke. Without asking for permission, he lifted Lily and put her on his shoulders.
“Keep your feet still, or you’ll break the eggs,” he told her.
“Okay,” Lily said, proudly.
Søren started walking and he soon heard Anna’s footsteps behind them. A gleeful Lily called out from her vantage point, “I can see all the cars in the whole world, I can see all the houses and all the boys and girls.”
Anna didn’t utter a word the whole way back, but when they reached the stairwell, she said, “Thanks for your help, I’ll take it from here.”
“Anna,” Søren said, as he let Lily down. “I’m coming upstairs with you.” He was in no mood for an argument.
Lily, now rested, started to climb the stairs. Anna faced Søren, her eyes brimming with tears.
“I know what you’ve come to tell me, and I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it!”
“Anna,” he said gently, “it’s not going to go away just because I don’t tell you, and I have to talk to you. What the hell were you doing outside Johannes’s apartment? And why did you run?”
“Mooom,” Lily called out from the first floor landing. “I’m having a pee-pee in my snowsuit.”
“Shit,” Anna exclaimed. She raced up the stairs and tried running all the way to the top with Lily. Lily laughed. Søren followed with the bags.
Mrs. Snedker was waiting for them on the fourth floor.
“Hi, Maggie,” Søren heard Anna say. “Emergency. Lily needs the bathroom.”
“Aha,” Maggie said. “Is that nice cop with you?”
Søren arrived in time to see Anna give Mrs. Snedker a baffled look, then she unlocked her front door and disappeared into the flat with Lily.
“Did you remember my bread?” Maggie asked him sternly.
“Yes, of course,” Søren replied. He untied the knots on the shopping bags and handed her a paper bag from the bakery. Anna appeared in the doorway.
“Maggie, why don’t you go back to your own apartment? I’ll come and see you later, okay?”
The old lady nodded, disappointed, and left.
“Why did you give her your bread?” Anna asked while she unpacked her shopping.
“I bought it for her.”
Anna raised her eyebrows.
“I was waiting for you. In her apartment. We saw you from the window and when you didn’t come back, Mrs. Snedker thought you must have gone shopping, so I followed you,” he confessed.
“And she asked you to get her some bread?”
Søren nodded.
“And you did?”
Søren nodded again. A tenth of a second later Søren heard Anna laugh for the first time. It didn’t last long, but it suited her.
“We’ll have dinner first,” Anna said. “Then Lily needs to have a bath, and at seven o’clock I put her to bed. You’ll have to wait. I don’t want Lily seeing me when…. You can wait in the living room.”
Søren watched her briefly. Could you do that? Postpone dealing with terrible news until a more convenient time cropped up? He went into the living room and sat down in a chair. Wasn’t that precisely what he had done, when he put the four baby pictures of Maja in a box in the basement? Pressed on as though nothing had happened? Lily peeked at him from the doorway, and he smiled at her. Anna came into the living room to fetch a bowl and glanced at him quickly.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
“I called you yesterday. Twice. Why didn’t you answer?” Søren said, ignoring her question.
“I was… out,” Anna replied swiftly and headed back to the kitchen with the bowl.
“Where?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
Søren sighed, then he wrinkled his nose.
It was the second time today he had been given the brushoff.
Chapter 11
Anna knew perfectly well she hadn’t bumped into the World’s Most Irritating Detective in the supermarket by accident. She had spotted him outside the entrance to Johannes’s stairwell, been aware he had run after her, and had seen him throw up his hands in frustration when the bus pulled out. How he had ended up in her living room doing a jigsaw puzzle with Lily while she was cooking dinner was beyond her. When the potatoes had boiled, she mashed them with angry movements and slammed the plates down on the kitchen table. She hated him! Since he had entered her life, less than a week ago, everything had started to unravel. How dare he buy a loaf of bread for Maggie; how dare he carry her daughter? She wanted him to leave her alone, and she didn’t want to hear what he had come to say. Johannes must not be dead. Tears started rolling down her cheeks. The steamy mashed potatoes were in a bowl in the sink, and suddenly she slumped forward as if she had been stabbed.
When she had composed herself, she fetched Lily from the living room.
“Dinner’s ready, Lily,” she said and shot the World’s Most Irritating Detective a look of disapproval. If he thought she would invite him to eat with them, he could think again. Once he was off duty, he would undoubtedly go home to his trophy wife with her shiny white teeth and her golden skin, and they would cuddle up on their designer sofa and he would think how lucky he was with his Pernille or his Sanne or whatever her name was, everything so picture perfect. But now, while he was still on duty, he was playing at being a social Robin Hood, watching her, poor struggling Anna, with his dark brown eyes and his healthy freckles; he might at least have the decency to leave his freckles in his locker when he arrived for work in the morning; his farm-boy freckles were an insult to criminals everywhere and to Anna in particular. How she hated him!
Later, when Lily had fallen asleep, she went to the living room and found the World’s Most Irritating Detective in a chair by the window. He was looking down at the street.
“It’s very cold and dark outside,” he remarked.
“Really!”
The World’s Most Irritating Detective slowly turned his head and looked at Anna, who had sat down on the sofa, as far away from him as possible.
“Why are you so angry?” he asked.
Anna scowled at him. The scent of Lily still lingered on her clothes; putting her to bed had been a struggle and when she had finally nodded off, Anna had sat on the floor watching her. Eventually, she had got up and left the bedroom, suddenly pleased Søren was there, glad she wasn’t alone.
“I’m so angry I could kill someone,” she hissed, and looked first at her hands and then at him. Søren leaned forward and looked compassionately at her.
“Johannes is dead. But I imagine you’ve already figured that out. He was murdered.”
Anna stared at him blankly.
“Anna, did you kill him?” Søren said gravely.
“Yes, of course I did. Heaven forbid I should have a single friend left in the world,” she said, sounding forlorn.
“Is that a no?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s a no.” The tears started falling and she wiped them away with an irritated movement.