and see if the dog’s here, she thinks. She might be standing out there in the snow freezing her paws off.
It’s impossible to get back to sleep. She closes her eyes and alters her position, shifts onto her side. But her brain is wide-awake inside her tired body.
There is something peculiar about the knife. Why had it been washed? If someone wanted to put the blame on Sanna, and put the knife in her drawer, then why did that person wash the blade? Surely it would have been better to clean the handle to get rid of any possible prints, and to leave the blade covered in blood. There was a risk they might not be able to tie the weapon to the murder. There is something she isn’t seeing. Like one of those pictures that is made up of a jumble of dots. All of a sudden the image appears. That’s how it feels now. All the little dots are there. It’s just a question of finding the pattern that links them together.
She switches on the bedside light and gets up carefully. The bed creaks by way of an answer. She listens to make sure the children haven’t woken up. Slides her feet into ice-cold shoes and goes out to shout for Virku.
She stands there in the falling snow, shouting for a dog that doesn’t come.
When Rebecka comes back inside, Sara is standing in the middle of the kitchen. She turns stiffly toward Rebecka. Her thin body is swamped by the big woolly sweater and baggy pants.
“What’s the matter?” asks Rebecka. “Have you been dreaming?”
At the same time she realizes Sara is crying. It is a terrible cry. Dry and hacking. Her lower jaw is working up and down, like a clattering puppet made of wood.
“What’s the matter?" Rebecka asks again, kicking her shoes off quickly. "Is it because Virku’s gone?”
There is no answer. Her face is still distorted by the strange crying. But her arms move forward slightly, as if she would have held them out to Rebecka, if only she could.
Rebecka picks her up. Sara doesn’t resist. It is a small child Rebecka holds in her arms. Not someone who is almost a teenager. Just a little girl. And she is so light. Rebecka lays her down on the bed and crawls in behind her. She puts her arms around Sara’s body, feeling it tense as if she is aching with tears that won’t come. At last they fall asleep.
At around five Rebecka is woken by Lova, who comes tiptoeing in. She creeps into bed behind Rebecka, cuddles into her back, slips her arm under Rebecka’s sweater and falls asleep.
It is as warm as toast under all the blankets, but Rebecka lies there wide-awake, as still as stone.
Thursday, February 20
At half past five in the morning Manne the cat decided to wake Sven-Erik Stålnacke. He padded to and fro across Sven-Erik’s sleeping body, emitting a plaintive cry from time to time. When that didn’t work, he made his way up to Sven-Erik’s face and laid a tentative paw against his cheek. But Sven-Erik was in a deep sleep. Manne moved the paw to his hairline and unsheathed his claws just enough to catch the skin and scratch his master’s scalp very gently. Sven-Erik opened his eyes at once and detached the claws from his head. He stroked the cat’s gray striped back affectionately.
“Bloody cat,” he said cheerfully. “Do you think it’s time to get up, then?”
Manne meowed accusingly, jumped down from the bed and disappeared through the bedroom door. Sven-Erik heard him run to the outside door and position himself there, wailing.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
He’d taken over Manne from his daughter when she and her partner had moved to Luleå. “He’s used to his freedom,” she’d said, “you know how miserable he’d be in an apartment in the middle of town. He’s like you, Dad. Needs the forest around him to be able to live.”
Sven-Erik got up and opened the outside door for the cat. But Manne just poked his nose out into the snow, then turned and padded back into the hall. As soon as Sven-Erik closed the door, the cat let out another long, drawn-out howl.
“Well, what do you want me to do?” asked Sven-Erik. “I can’t help it if it’s snowing and you don’t like it. Either you go out, or you stay in and keep quiet.”
He went into the kitchen and got out a tin of cat food. Manne made encouraging noises, winding