“We’re going to do it,” Sandra said. “But for now, I wonder whether you could help me out with something?”

“Help you?” Kerstin said in surprise.

“Consider it a job offer. I’ve got a couple of questions I need answers to as well.”

45. Kerstin

45

Kerstin

THE CONVERSATION WITH Sandra had brought Kerstin new hope in her otherwise rather grim situation, but her daily existence remained the same. Jeanette was back on the bench outside the city wall by the East Gate, and people from all over were attentively checking in on her. People were sensitive enough not to mention what had happened, but it still permeated the atmosphere. The tenderness she was being shown was pretty conspicuous, and warmed Kerstin’s stony heart as she sat there watching it all.

It wasn’t the only feeling she was experiencing. Of course she was happy on the one hand about the unalloyed empathy in her friends’ behaviour, but on the other hand she was slightly affronted by Jeanette’s way of taking it for granted, and her inability to show gratitude.

But Jeanette was depressed, she reminded herself. Just a few days ago, she had made a serious attempt to take her own life, and it was down to pure chance that she hadn’t succeeded. Kerstin’s intuition, to be specific. No one else knew as much about Jeanette as Kerstin did, and it hadn’t occurred to any of the others that things were so bad.

It was nothing but base instinct that had made her wake Lubbi from his beauty sleep and drag him to the neighbourhood where Jeanette lived in her small rented flat. Kerstin had had misgivings ever since she had first heard about the body that had been found, and she had set her alarm clock early in the morning to ensure that—if possible—she heard the news before Jeanette did. That way, she could deliver it personally and catch Jeanette if she fell.

Why she had done this for Jeanette’s sake Kerstin didn’t really know. Jeanette had been—if one believed her account—a reluctant participant in the theft and everything that it involved, which was a form of mitigation. But she had allowed herself to be persuaded into leaving Karl-Erik to die, and she could have chosen differently. It didn’t seem to have been all that hard to persuade her either—blinded by love as she had been. Kerstin’s own interpretation was that Jeanette had lost her senses because of her need to be loved. And by an unscrupulous individual who only thought about himself, at that.