“Sure,” said Kerstin. “Good luck with it all.”

Sandra ended the call and looked up at the nurses.

“My name’s Maria and I’m the night nurse tonight,” said one of them. “I just wanted to introduce myself. Branca here is an assistant nurse and is going to check your little one’s blood pressure and temperature. Do you have any questions?”

Sandra thought about this while the assistant nurse raised the bed and stuck the thermometer in Erik’s ear.

“Thirty-seven point two,” she said, wrapping the blood pressure sleeve around Erik’s arm and attaching a clamp to his finger. “It’s beginning to normalise.”

Erik wasn’t disturbed in his sleep; he had no idea that he was the subject of a range of medical checks.

“Ninety-five over sixty,” said Branca. “Saturation ninety-seven percent, pulse eighty-nine.”

“Those are excellent figures,” Maria explained. “Erik is definitely on the mend, so you can sleep soundly tonight.”

Then they vanished with the trolley, leaving Sandra with a number of questions spinning around her head despite their best intentions. One of them related to security at the hospital. Could she really sleep soundly tonight? For some reason, she didn’t feel convinced.

There was barely a sound to be heard from the corridor, and the town outside the window was calm too. Erik looked peaceful lying there on his back in the adjustable bed, which was still propped up following the checks. The soft glow of the night-light cast secretive shadows over his face. What exactly had happened to him? Would she ever find out?

Right now, it didn’t matter. Erik had been restored to life; he was in safety and under the watchful eye of hordes of uniformed health personnel with sound skills and kind voices. All eyes on Gotland were looking towards Erik; it was unthinkable that anything would happen.

Yet there was something inside her that kicked back. Sandra didn’t go in for premonitions and omens very much, so she didn’t allow herself to take the ominous feeling so seriously that she did anything tangible to prevent what she imagined might happen. She didn’t make a hysterical call to the police to demand police protection, nor did she ask her parents to keep her company during the night.

Her only plan was to stay awake all through the night and to press the alarm button if necessary. After everything that had happened, she was just overwrought. The worst that could happen had already happened, and it wouldn’t happen again.

She shook off the baseless unease, settled down in bed with the laptop on her knee, took a deep breath, and began to write again.

68. Kerstin

68

Kerstin