“Enjoy the peace and quiet.”

“But it’s never quiet on the coast in the summertime. I mean, with the noisy motorboats, screeching gulls, drunk tourists...”

“But not during the winter.” Jana put the straw to her mouth and drank her smoothie. She met Per’s gaze. His eyebrows were drawn down over his different-colored eyes. He looked serious.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m seriously considering suing you,” he said.

“Am I accused of something?”

“Lack of legal excuse. You haven’t given me any reason for your absence that can explain why you have failed to appear at dinners or other friendly gatherings over a time frame of several months.”

“But that does not preclude that there could be a valid reason,” she said. “And if I am not mistaken, the consequence of legal excuse is that a cause is removed from the list, or that the cause is postponed until another time. And I believe, your honor, that yesterday was such a time that the cause could be taken up again; that is, the dinner was carried out. And in consideration of the fact that I chose to meet you again today, this should in some way be deemed good enough. Happy?”

“Happy. I still can’t stop feeling a little curious about your ‘legal excuse,’ but we’ll have to take that up another time,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of a hurry. You can be thankful I was able to meet you.”

“But didn’t you call me?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You mean that I’m the one who should be thankful?”

“Something like that.”

“Yet you were the one who wanted to meet?”

“I’m incurably overly optimistic where time is concerned.”

“Is it contagious?”

“Temporarily, maybe.”

Jana cocked her head to one side.

“Where are you hurrying off to?” she asked.

“Work,” Per said. “I got a new case. The police suspect murder. The victim is a young man in Navestad.”

“In Navestad?”

“Yep. Name is Robin Stenberg, just twenty years old.”

“What?” Jana exclaimed. She coughed and spilled her smoothie all over the table.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I swallowed wrong.”

“Do you know anything about it?” Per asked, looking at her closely.

“No, nothing at all, I just... Did you say murder?”

She took another napkin and began wiping the table, feeling her pulse increase.

Per leaned over the table, watching Jana’s hand as she wiped the last specks, and lowered his voice.

“Yes. His mother found him in his apartment. His throat had been slit. Crazy, right?”

Jana nodded slowly. She heard Per’s voice as if it were far away, heard the murmuring of other people around her, but she felt a compact silence inside her.

The flames from the candle flickered as two people walked past their table.

“Hello?” Per said. “Are you listening?”

Jana licked her lips and cleared her throat.