The vehicles passed their parked car. Two men in the first car, a lone woman in the second one. It wasn’t possible to determine the gender of the motorcyclist. All three vehicles turned left at the junction a short distance away.
“They’re very conscientious with their exit checks,” Julia muttered. She looked at the time. Quarter past five. Probably a change of shift. Suddenly she had an idea. She turned the key in the ignition and roared off, following the three other vehicles.
They caught up with the motorcycle just before the small village that consisted of little more than a cluster of bungalows and a gas station. The motorcycle turned off at the gas station and pulled up at its little hot dog stand. Without saying anything to Amante, Julia got out of the car. She walked toward the stand, but when she was almost there she pulled out her phone and pretended to take a call. The biker, a man in his fifties, had taken his helmet off and was chatting to the attractive woman in the stand—she was maybe half his age—before she put together his order. The smell of fast food reminded Julia that it had been a while since she had eaten anything.
She waited until the man had gotten his food, put his helmet back on, and driven off before walking up to the window.
“Hello,” she said.
The woman behind the counter returned the greeting.
“Regulars, eh?” Julia said, nodding toward the disappearing motorbike. “I’ve just come from the nursing home. It was the staff who told me to come here.”
She smiled, trying to come across as friendly and unthreatening as she read the menu.
“Well …” The young woman hesitated over her reply, but Julia’s smile seemed to convince her. “You could say that. Some of them stop off here practically every night.”
“Best place for an evening burger, the girl in the gatehouse said. You probably know her: fair hair, keeps herself in shape. Maybe a little grumpy?”
“Mia. Yes, she can be a bit sullen.” The young woman gave a wry smile and Julia reflected it back to her.
“Mia—that was it. Smart too. You seem to know what’s going on as well. Who works where and so on.”
“This is a pretty small place: everyone knows everyone else. The doctors live in town, but most of the other staff up there come from around here.”
“You don’t happen to know if anyone’s left recently?” Julia said. “Someone who maybe lost their job last winter, something like that?”
Another long shot, based on something Security Mia had said. People have lost their job for less. But Julia could tell from the evasive look in the young woman’s eyes that she’d guessed right.
She leaned over the counter and held out her police ID. She saw the woman’s eyes open wide.
“It’s vital that we talk to that person, right away.”
* * *
The man looking out from the gap in the door was wearing underpants, a T-shirt, and a grubby dressing gown, even though it was late afternoon. His eyes were red and a cloying, burned smell that Julia recognized all too well drifted out across the crooked front steps. She cautiously took hold of the door handle from the outside.
“Eskil Svensson?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Food delivery from Isa in the kiosk.” She held up the plastic bag and let it dangle from her forefinger. The smell from it made her stomach rumble.
The man in the robe seemed just as hungry as she was. He reached out one hand for the bag without letting go of the door with the other.
At that moment Julia tugged the door toward her, which made the man lose his balance and tumble out onto the porch, where he landed at their feet. Before he had time to react, she put one knee against the back of his neck and twisted his arm behind his back. Then she winked at Amante.
“Police,” he said, sounding rather breathless. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“The girls are watching television. I was thinking of going for a run round the Altorp track. I’ll be gone an hour at the most. Then I thought we could have a nice, cozy evening together.”
Stenberg’s wife came into his study with a cup of coffee in her hand. She put it down at a safe distance from the keyboard, leaned over, and kissed him on the head.
“You look tired.” She ran her hand through his hair, forcing him to look up from the screen. “Is it anything in particular? Anything you want to talk about?”
“No,” Stenberg muttered. “Just a lot going on.”
“Is the prosecutor general causing trouble again?”
He nodded absentmindedly and looked at the screen again.
“The prime minister trusts you, Jesper, now more than ever. The fact is that the whole party trusts you, so you can’t let little things like that get in your way. We need a modernized justice system; we’ve needed one for ages. Otherwise people will gradually lose faith in the system. The contract between citizens and the state, all the things we discussed ad infinitum at law school. You already had a vision back then, a conviction that made people take notice of you. It made me notice you.”
“I know, darling. But trying to reform state institutions is a constant uphill struggle: various government and other entities everywhere having their say on things, with everyone terrified of losing influence.”
“What about Wallin? Can’t you let him do some of the heavy lifting?”
Stenberg felt his jaw tighten. Even here at home in his study, his inner sanctum, Wallin cast his baleful shadow.
Karolina raised her eyebrows. “Is it Wallin who’s the problem?”
Damn. She knew him far too well. Noticed the slightest change in his expression. She could even hear things he didn’t say. Keeping his affair with Sophie Thorning secret all those years had taken all his willpower and concentration. Yet he knew he probably wouldn’t have been able to lie if Karolina had confronted him, if she’d asked straight out if he was being unfaithful and looked at him the way she was right now. Fortunately she never had.
He filled his lungs, then slowly breathed out through his mouth.
“What’s this all about?” Her tone of voice was perfect, a fitting combination of concern and empathy. Karolina would have been a brilliant lawyer, but instead she had put his career ahead of her own. Taken on the role of supportive wife and mother to his children. Her grandfather had been foreign minister; her father, Karl-Erik, was a member of the party’s inner circle. She had opened doors for him that he could never even have dreamed of. And how had he thanked her? With betrayal, lies, and infidelity.
For a couple of moments the feeling he had had last winter was back, the conviction that he ought to tell her everything. Beg for her forgiveness. But he couldn’t ask that of her. It wasn’t Karolina’s responsibility to lighten his burden.
“Oscar Wallin …” He took a sip of his coffee to make what he was thinking of saying sound less loaded. “He’s very ambitious. You saw him with John Thorning. Wallin is forming new alliances, and, to be honest, I’ve started to have doubts about his loyalty.”
Karolina leaned against the edge of the desk.
“Wallin couldn’t be national police chief.