She had spent just over half her life finding out what a mature sex life had to offer. She had lost her virginity when she was fourteen and spent the rest of her teen years experimenting with horny classmates and older high schoolers. She had a heavy make-out session with a teacher at an end-of-the-year party when she was in ninth grade, had a threesome with two guys in a bathroom and had on one occasion given blow jobs to three heavy metal dudes at a house party. In her twenties, she had tried bondage with a tattooed man from Falun. She had dressed up as a flight attendant, a nurse and an innocent girl wearing a corset. Whipped and been whipped. Had sex at secret clubs and in public places. Her sex life required a constant stream of new men.

She was, therefore, not interested in a long-term relationship, and had never understood how someone could be with the same person year after year. She had sat in the police department cafeteria and listened to her female colleagues gush about how their male partners were wonderful, insightful, exciting, generous, warm and romantic one day, then bitch the next day about their bad habits and how they left beard hairs on the sink and shit-stained boxers on the bedroom floor for days. She had heard them say that they had met the man they wanted to grow old with, have children with, that he was The One. Mia had never felt that way. She didn’t want just one.

She wanted many.

Preferably.

She looked out the window at the darkness outside. She rubbed her hands across her face and thought about brushing her teeth, but she felt too lazy and instead put her feet up on the table.

Her thoughts wandered to the two-hour morning meeting with the National Crime Squad. She’d had a hard time deciding in the last half hour if she should do something, say something. Anders Wester was an unpleasant man. He had criticized their work and been really hard on Gunnar. She had never seen Gunnar so irritated and tense.

But he had been the only one who had defended them, and the only one from the investigation who had said anything during the meeting. Maybe she should have said something, stood up for herself and her colleagues. But no one else had, either. It wasn’t only her responsibility.

Carin could have been more assertive in the conversation. But she surely didn’t dare, Mia thought. Not having just received a new position—in the new Police Authority, where everything would be changed for the better and everyone would take part and live happily-ever-after. What bullshit!

She lay down on the sofa, crossed her arms over her head and stayed there for a long time before picking up her cell phone.

She knew she shouldn’t. She knew she’d regret it.

Still, she looked for Martin Strömberg’s number.