How was she supposed to answer that? She couldn’t even remember a day that hadn’t been tough, and it was nothing to do with her job. Life itself was hurting her, in a way that she couldn’t fix. She didn’t want to say it out loud, though. She was keeping quiet in too many places, both at home and at work. Spencer didn’t need to wonder what was wrong; he knew. But Alex couldn’t even begin to guess.

‘It never ends,’ she said in response to Spencer’s question.

‘What never ends?’

‘The horrible stuff. It just keeps on happening.’

Spencer sighed. Was it her imagination, or had his body tensed?

‘And this is news?’

Fredrika pressed her face against his skin; she loved every millimetre of this wonderful man.

‘Do you think I’m naïve?’

He laughed. ‘Not exactly. You’re far too cynical to be naïve.’

She raised her head.

‘Cynical?’

‘Yes – that’s not news either, is it?’

Only Spencer could make such a remark sound like a compliment. Fredrika remembered what he’d said when they moved in together.

‘We mustn’t have unrealistic expectations of life, Fredrika. We mustn’t dream of a future that can’t be ours.’

He had said it as a gentle reminder that he was twenty-five years older than her, that neither of them had any right or reason to expect their life together to last forever. He probably hadn’t realised that his words would stick in her mind, that they would come back to her over and over again. The perfect future belonged to someone else. It could never be hers. To a certain extent she found comfort in accepting such a simple truth. Some people got everything, some got considerably less. Fredrika had dreamed of a career as a violinist, but her dreams had been shattered by an accident when she was a teenager. After that she had been lost, drifted from one course to another at university, embarked on a relationship with Spencer, who was her professor. She hadn’t thought for a moment that he would become the father of her children, nor that she would one day enjoy working for the police.

Fredrika had found her way home.

Then it had all turned to dust.

‘Spencer, we—’

He interrupted her immediately.

‘Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about work.’

‘There are a lot of things we ought to discuss,’ she whispered.

‘Not tonight.’

‘Okay.’

After a brief silence she asked: ‘How did the meeting go this afternoon?’

‘Fine.’ She hadn’t made it; she couldn’t have left work without drawing attention to herself. Spencer had sworn it was all right, that he was happy to go alone. All the details had been dealt with at the previous meeting when she’d been there.

That’s how we function, she thought. We don’t abandon each other.