When it dawned on me that I’d never have to meet father again the relief was so great I burst into tears. Corduroysuit said to pause but the policeman wanted to go on. He took my weeping for a confession. He asked if I had allowed father to have his way with me so that bror would have a chance to kill. By then corduroysuit said enough for today. You are talking to a child he said.

Bror sat with his arms crossed looking down at the table. In the end the police asked why he had done it and then bror looked up at him and took his time to answer.

I don’t know he said.

We had not reached the age of criminal responsibility.

Whether I had tried to kill father with a hayfork remained unproven. It amounted to my words against the healthcare services. They said father had stumbled and stabbed himself. However it 158was incontestable that bror’s blow with a spade had caused father’s instantaneous death.

I was thrilled every time I thought of his split head. A masterstroke. Like a perfect onehanded blow with a samurai sword.

159

THIRTY

I was sitting on the veranda in the sun. The wind had died down. The birds twittered. The clegs bit. I missed john.

We had not seen each other since the funerals. Apart from the drive back from the hospital. I wasn’t even sure what I missed. His body. So possibly biological and nothing more.

His painting was still untouched inside its wrapping of brown cardboard. The battalion of drunkards stood to attention where I had left them.

I sat on the steps of my childhood home and wondered about life until I concluded that pondering was pointless.

Man proposes god disposes as mother used to say. For the present there were reasons for staying in smalånger. Letters that must be read. Bror must get well. The john story must reach an end.

And what about maria. She was a mystery and I was no detective but wherever I went and whoever I talked to she came crowding into the scene. I was in competition with a deceased person. Jealous of a corpse. Maria’s power over people had not faded just because she had died.