Naturally it wasn’t. But Jeanette’s answer was clear enough.

“You’re still young, Jeanette. Don’t do this to yourself. There’s help out there.”

“Oh really? Some fucking shrink that I have to feed lies to—I bet that’ll help. Or I could tell the truth and end up in jail.”

Kerstin shook her head in resignation and sighed.

“You know you can talk to us at least. Do that next time you feel you can’t bear it any longer. Promise me that?”

Then she put a hand on Jeanette’s shoulder—a rather unusual gesture for Kerstin, who wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of physical touching.

“Okay,” Jeanette said without looking her in the eye.

“I lie awake at night worrying about how you feel. I don’t want to find you in the same state that I did on Midsummer’s Eve again. Or worse. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I promise I’ll do it in the middle of day next time,” Jeanette said dismissively. “So that I don’t ruin your night’s sleep.”

Full of herself, as usual, Kerstin thought to herself. And evil too. Kerstin took back her hand in an unobtrusive movement.

They continued to stroll in silence. After a while, Jeanette stopped and looked at her with an expression filled with regret.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Good,” Kerstin said. “Consider it forgotten.”

You don’t even understand the meaning of the word “hurt,” she thought to herself. If only you knew what you have done to me.

“I was thinking about something,” she said softly, in order to avoid seeming too keen. “About something we might do together—to divert our thoughts elsewhere, as it were.”

“Get pissed?” Jeanette said, with the smallest grain of humour.

At least Kerstin thought so, but Jeanette didn’t move her lips.

“Always,” Kerstin said with a smile. “But I had something else in mind. Are you up for listening?”

“Why not?”

“I was thinking about the money you mentioned—the six million. Now that Peter is gone, it casts a somewhat different light on the matter, doesn’t it?”

“How do you mean?” Jeanette asked, not seeming to respond with any surprise to the choice of subject, despite it being about Peter.

“You always thought that Peter had done a runner with the cash, but now it turns out that can’t have been the case.”

“And . . .?”

“I just mean it has to be somewhere,” Kerstin explained. “You said he took care of it. Where do you think he might have hidden it?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“It’s six million kronor,” Kerstin emphasised. “It might be very useful.”

“I didn’t care about the money then, and I care even less now,” Jeanette said. “It’s caused nothing but misery.”