“No, we haven’t actually had a row. But he’s annoyed with me.”
“Why? He’s not allowed to be annoyed with you. It’s your duty to keep him happy and well fed and satisfied, so that he couldn’t care less whether or not Alea Finance has to pay a late fee of five or six thousand. I mean, they have a turnover of two million. Not to mention the loss of prestige for M. & D. – I’ve heard the lecture before. Anyway, why is he annoyed with you?”
“He thinks I’ve been too reticent. And he doesn’t like me settling in up here. What does he expect? Am I supposed to move in with him until he gets fed up with me and starts running off to the pub with the lads and screwing the trainee lawyers?”
Taube said nothing.
“You know I’m right,” Martinsson said. “Some men and some dogs are just like that. It’s only when you look the other way and signal that you’re totally uninterested that they come running up to you wagging their tails.”
“But he’s in love with you,” Taube said tamely.
But she knew that Martinsson was right. It was good for Wenngren that Martinsson had moved up to… Nowheresville. He was the sort of man who finds it hard to cope with an intimate relationship. Both she and Martinsson had seen him lose interest in attractive and gifted women who had simply become too attached to him.
“If he weren’t like that,” Taube said, “would you consider moving back here?”
“I think it would make me ill,” Martinsson said, with no trace of humour in her voice.
“Stay there, then. You’ll just have to have a hot long-distance relationship. There’s nothing to beat a bit of longing for what you can’t have.”
“Yes,” Martinsson said.
Although I don’t actually long to be with him any more, she told herself. I like him. I like it when he’s here. It works well. I might sometimes miss the sex. I like sleeping in his arms. And now that he isn’t getting in touch, I obviously feel put out and scared of losing him. But I find it hard to cope with his restlessness after he’s been up here for more than three days. When I start feeling that I need to think up some way of stopping him getting into a bad mood. When he refuses to try to understand why I need to live here. And, now, when he’s sulking. And refusing to answer his mobile.
For a fleeting moment she wondered if she ought to ask Taube if she thought Wenngren had been with someone else. If there was a suitable candidate in the office.
But I’m damned if I shall, she thought. In the old days I’d have been awake half the night, conjuring up all sorts of images in my mind’s eye. But I don’t have the strength now. I refuse to do that.
“I’m at the office now,” Taube said, panting slightly. “Can you hear me walking up the stairs instead of taking the lift?”
Martinsson was about to say, “You should keep asking yourself: What would personal trainer and media star Blossom Tainton have done?” But she couldn’t keep the banter going any longer. They often spent ages on the phone joking like this. Presumably that was why both of them sometimes hesitated to ring – things simply got out of control.
“Thank you for calling,” she said instead, and meant it.
“I miss you,” Taube panted. “Can we meet up the next time you come to Stockholm? Presumably you won’t need to be on your back the entire time?”
“Who is it that always…”
“Yes, yes. I’ll ring. Love and kisses!” Taube said, and hung up.
Vera stood up and started barking.
Sivving Fjällborg’s heavy footsteps were approaching the house. Bella was already scratching away at the front door.
Martinsson let her in. Bella immediately ran to Vera’s food bowls in the kitchen. They were empty, but she licked them just to make sure, and growled at Vera, who held back at a respectful distance. When the bowls had been licked clean, they greeted each other and sparred playfully, ruffling the rag mats in the process.
“What foul weather!” Fjällborg grunted. “The bloody snow is coming at you from 90 degrees. Look at this!”
He removed snow from his shoulders, where it had formed icy clumps.
“Mmm,” Martinsson said. “Soon they’ll be singing ‘Sweet lovers love the spring’ in Stockholm.”
“Yes, yes,” Fjällborg said impatiently. “Then they’ll get beaten up in the streets as they make their way home from the May Day celebrations.”
He didn’t like Martinsson comparing Stockholm and Kiruna to Stockholm’s advantage. He was afraid of losing her to the metropolis again.
“Have you got a moment?” he said.
Martinsson adopted an apologetic expression and was about to explain that she had to go to work.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to clear away snow or anything like that,” Fjällborg said. “But there’s someone you ought to meet. For your own good. Or rather, for the good of Wilma Persson and Simon Kyrö.”
Martinsson felt depressed the moment she and Fjällborg walked through the door of the Fjällgården care home for the elderly. They brushed off as much snow as they could in the chicken-yellow stairwell, climbed the stairs and walked across the highly polished grey plastic floor tiles. The plush painted wallpaper and neat, practical pine furniture cried out INSTITUTION.
Two residents in wheelchairs were leaning forward over their breakfast in the kitchen. One of them was propped up with cushions to make sure he did not fall sideways. The other kept repeating “Yes, yes, yes!” in an increasingly loud voice until a carer placed a calming hand on his shoulder. Fjällborg and Martinsson hurried past, trying not to look.
Please spare me this, Martinsson said to herself. Spare me from ending up in a day room with worn-out, incontinent old folk. Spare me from needing to have my bottom wiped, from sitting parked in front of a television surrounded by staff with shrill voices and bad backs.
Fjällborg led the way as fast as he could along a corridor with doors either side leading into individual rooms. He also seemed far from happy with what he was seeing.
“The man we’re going to meet is called Karl-Åke Pantzare,” he said quietly. “My cousin used to know him. They saw a lot of each other when they were young. I know he was a member of a resistance group during the war, and I know my cousin was a member as well – but he’s dead now. It wasn’t something he talked about. This is Pantzare’s room.”
He stopped in front of a door. There was a photo of an elderly man and a nameplate that announced: “Bullet lives here”.
“Just a minute,” Fjällborg said, holding on to the rail running along the wall so that the old folk still able to walk had something to hang on to. “I need to pull myself together.”
He rubbed his hand over his face and took a deep breath.
“It’s so damned depressing,” he said to Martinsson. “Bloody hell! And this is one of the better places. All the girls who work here are really friendly and caring – there are homes that are much worse. But even so! Is this what we have to look forward to? Promise to shoot me before I get to this stage. Oh dear, I’m sorry…”
“It’s O.K.,” Martinsson said.
“I forget, I’m afraid. I know you had no choice but to shoot… Huh, it’s like talking about ropes in a house where a man’s hanged himself.”
“You don’t need to muzzle yourself. I understand.”
“I get so damned depressed,” Fjällborg said. “Please understand that I think about this even though I try hard not to. Especially with my arm and all that.”
He nodded towards his dysfunctional side. The one that could not keep up. The side whose hand could not be trusted, and kept dropping things.
“As long as I can…” Martinsson said.
“I know, I know.” Fjällborg waved a hand dismissively.