Silence falls. All Anna can hear are the raindrops, finding their way through the old roof in odd places.

‘The mural,’ she says, without really thinking. ‘I’ve seen what it actually represents.’ This time Klein’s mask remains in place. Nothing in his expression reveals what he is thinking, but she can feel it bubbling away beneath the surface. There is something about him that draws her in, makes her want to crack that stony face and find out whatever it is that he’s hiding. ‘Karl-Johan never accepted that it was an accident either,’ she goes on. ‘That was why he spent ten years on that painting, even though he must have been almost completely blind by the end.’

‘That’s nothing to do with you,’ Klein says quietly. The artificial civility from before has vanished. ‘You didn’t know him; you have no idea—’

He stops in mid-sentence, wipes away a drop of spit that has come out with the words and landed on his chin.

‘Excuse me, Anna.’ He makes a point of looking at his watch. ‘I’m afraid I have to go.’

She accompanies him outside and stands beside him while he secures the side door with a sturdy padlock. His embarrassment is palpable, even when he has his back to her. He gives her a brief farewell nod, then jumps in the pickup truck and drives off in the rain.

Anna can’t help wondering what he was doing in the outbuilding. She takes a walk around. There are two garage doors on the front, a few metres apart, both secured with a metal bar and a padlock. The one on the left must lead to the room with the slide and all the rubbish, and the one on the right to the room from which Klein emerged. The doors are the same size, so she assumes the rooms are too. She searches for a gap to peer through, and finds a loose plank of wood around the back. She jiggles it around until she has made a hole big enough to get her hand through. The smell is even mustier than in the first room – damp, rust, and something else. Something burned. The gap lets in only a small amount of light, but she switches on the torch on her phone and pushes her arm in as far as she can. The beam illuminates several metres of concrete floor, then a dark shape. It takes her a few seconds to work out what she’s looking at. It is the charred remains of what must once have been a sports car.

Chapter 29

29

Autumn 2017