Joe edged even closer to Carina, then made a gesture to Marie that she couldn’t quite interpret. After a few seconds she realised she was still holding the joint, and had smoked almost half of it.

Chapter 9

9

Autumn 2017

Anna has done her best to settle into her new office. Her computer is sitting on her desk, and several framed diplomas cover the worst patches bleached by the sun on the walls. The penal code, various legal handbooks, her peaked cap and a photograph of Agnes adorn the bookshelf, and she has even managed to source two mismatched visitors’ chairs. In spite of her efforts, the room still looks bare and inhospitable, and she can’t get rid of the pervasive smell of desolation. With some difficulty she forces open one of the windows to let in the fresh autumn air, then sits down to look through the latest crime statistics and notes on current cases.

She finds it difficult to concentrate. The impressions from the past few days come crowding in. Tabor, Call-me, Klein, the badger, the encounter with Mats. Henry Morell and Jens Friberg, lunch at the Italian restaurant, meeting Fabbe and Bruno, which for some reason makes her feel as if she was being manipulated. Then there’s the mural up in the chapel, and the story of Simon Vidje’s death. It’s hard to believe that only a few days ago, on Friday morning, she and Agnes were sitting in a traffic jam in Stockholm. Her solicitor hasn’t called yet, but it’s much too early to start worrying. She has followed his advice, and now it’s up to him to do his job.

Morell’s outline of the district’s challenges was largely accurate, but he left out a number of points that interest her. Just as in most communities there is a certain amount of drug dealing and, in recent years, empty houses being used for the cultivation of marijuana have been found. There have also been a couple of noisy protests by the environmental movement, directed at Glarea. She sniffs the air, but can’t smell anything today. Presumably the wind that has blown away the fog has done the same with the odour of burning clay.

After about an hour she stands up, grabs her favourite chipped mug with the NYPD emblem and goes in search of coffee. In her previous job, she and her colleagues once counted how many cups a day they drank. She ended up on six, nowhere near the top three in the team. The aroma of dark roasted beans fills the corridor, and as she approaches the kitchen she hears voices. Jens Friberg is sitting at the table with a uniformed female officer – blonde, well-built, in her early thirties. When Anna walks in they immediately stop talking.

‘Hi, Jens,’ Anna says, thinking it’s a nice way of showing him that he’s important enough for her to remember his name.