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Back Bad Apples
Chapters (65)
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  65. Acknowledgements

The white bike looks less ghostly tonight. Everything’s turning white. It could be any other bike. I think about the person who created this roadside memorial. How they probably bought a brand-new bike for the purpose, maybe an exact copy of the one mangled in the hit-and-run accident. I think about how they must have wept, spray-painting each part of the bike in some backyard or field. White paint misting the air. Tears running down to dampen their face mask. And then loading it into a truck or a car boot. Driving out here a month or a year after the fatal crash. Choosing the spot. Resting the white bike against a tree stump. Leaving it there for eternity as a reminder. Then having to drive past it each day.

I should visit Mum and Dad in Karlstad Cemetery. I should go the day after Halloween. This week coming. All Saints Day, they call it. All Hallow’s day. A time to remember. To light a candle and check in with the deceased.

There’s a black Audi parked outside Svensson’s Saws & Axes. I hit the brakes and slow to peek inside the store and my wheels lose purchase; I have to steer into the skid to correct it. It’s the car from that awful night. The one that sped away.

Gavrik looks deserted. Why wouldn’t it be? Cold night in late October with a murderer on the loose. Everyone’s doors double-locked. Guns loaded. Windows secure. Knives taped under beds.

The twin chimneys of the liquorice factory stand tall and proud in the distance. Constant bystanders. They’ve seen it all before. They bear witness to our twisted Gavrik history.

Noora arrives at my flat shortly after I do.

‘You look exhausted.’

‘I need a shower.’

We embrace and she whispers into my ear, ‘We need a shower.’

She means we haven’t been as close this week as we usually are. Shifts and late nights. Homicide cases.

I run the water.

She lights the lemongrass candle on the sink, the one she bought me as a flat-warming gift, and then she turns off the light.

The room warms. It fills with steam. The faint rumble of an argument brewing next door. Noora walks out. A Robyn song starts up through my living-room speakers. I remove my hearing aids. Noora comes back in. Leaves the door ajar.

I just stand there.

She scrapes back the hair off my face. She smells of nutmeg. The heat in the room builds and the candle on the sink starts to crackle. Steam fogs the mirror. Noora puts her fingertips to my lips and drags them gently one way then the other. I kiss her finger. She moves forward and we kiss, with her finger still between our lips. I bend and kiss the nape of her neck. Fine down. The smell of coconut from her skin.