I can’t do it. Not again. It wouldn’t be fair to the child, she thinks and sits down at the kitchen table. I wouldn’t be a good mother.

She swallows hard and forces herself. Can’t be allowed to avoid the next thought.

Was I ever? A good mother? On top of things? Did I really think I was? Did I really think nothing would happen to us, that we would just continue to live together? That we would be the ones spared? How could I ever have thought that? All it took was me looking the wrong way once.

One time.

I couldn’t do it then, and I can’t do it now. There’s only one option. Only one responsible solution. No matter how hard it’s going to be. No matter how much it’s going to hurt. I’ll call tomorrow morning and schedule an appointment. Get it over with; it’ll get harder the longer I wait. Take the day off, no need to tell anyone why. Then it’s over.

And then Marike’s voice. You can’t lose another child. That’s what you can’t do, Karen.

The wave of grief can’t be held back any longer. It crashes over her like a tsunami, washes away all thoughts, smashes them to pieces, pulls them out to sea, and leaves her in lonely silence.

And then, at half past ten in the evening, she does what she has promised herself she wouldn’t do. The phone rings five times before Eleanor Eiken picks up, her drowsy voice full of worry.

‘Karen, lambkin? What’s wrong?’

*

Afterwards, she knows exactly why she called. Why she told the only person who would never accept the responsible solution. The only one who knows what it’s like to lose the greatest of loves and who has never even dared to dream of a second chance.

If she tells her, there’s no turning back.

That’s why she called.

*

But it’s not the fact that there’s no turning back that wakes Karen Eiken Hornby up just forty-five minutes after she finally manages to fall asleep.

A picture of Leo, leaning against the railing, smoking, hangs before her in the dark. And from behind it, another emerges. Rises all the way to the surface, this time.

Isn’t that what Loa Marklund wrote in her email, complaining about her neighbour?

Now he’s back on that balcony, smoking again.

Chapter 32

32

Karl Björken doesn’t seem as excited as her when she explains her theory to him the next morning. They’ve sat down in one of the smaller meeting rooms so they can be undisturbed.

‘Isn’t that just an expression, though? Something you say.’