She moves closer to me. Heat between us. Her hip pressing between my legs. The sound of the water spraying behind. She pulls my shirt slowly over my head. I unbutton her shirt. The back of my knuckles caress her skin as I unfasten each button. The warmth of her. The shirt swings open and she wriggles out of it. We move closer together and she says, ‘I missed you.’ Heat where our skin meets. Pressure. Her lips at my earlobe. Me unbuttoning her jeans and her pulling down my trousers. She backs away and looks at my body and I let her. I open the shower door and we step inside. The water is slightly too hot. Noora takes shampoo in her hands and lathers my hair. She stands behind me, her body pushing into mine, and she rubs my scalp and rinses the foam from my hair. My neck bent. The spray pummelling the top of my spine. Her kisses touching my back, her hands on my hips, biting, pushing into me again, turning me around. I feel faint with the lack of air in here. She kisses my shoulders and moves her head down my arm. We entwine closer together. Wrapping together. Melting.

We lie on my bed in robes.

Her leg resting over mine. Flushed pink.

I’m heady. My mind free from all the thoughts of murder, and being a disappointing daughter, and whether this move back to Gavrik was the right thing to do. None of that. Not even Noora. Just me, feeling as light as a feather. Floating above the bed on a millimetre of fresh air. Released from mortal fear and angst.

We don’t talk, we just lie still.

Noora is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She is probably the person I thought I would never find.

‘Cake?’ she says.

I smile and place my hearing aids back in and kiss her cheek.

‘Thought so.’

She takes a frozen chocolate Kladkaka from the freezer and brings it to bed. We wait for it to thaw a little then eat it from the box with our hands. Dad always used to thaw it completely, then slice it up with a sharp knife and serve with lingonberries and whipped cream. Noora just tears off chunks and hands them to me.

‘It’s good,’ I say.

‘We found a tooth.’

‘You found a what?’

‘A new tooth,’ she says. ‘A loose one.’

‘I thought the set in the pan was complete. Nothing missing?’

‘That’s what’s worrying us,’ she says, sitting up straighter in bed, placing her chunk of cake down on the cardboard box. ‘Different set of teeth.’

‘Shit. What does that mean? Animal or human?’

She cringes.

‘Whose tooth is it?’

She says, ‘No idea yet. We’ve sent it off to the national-forensics lab in Linköping. It was left on top of a pocket watch.’

‘What do you mean?’