kitchen. On the table stood a carton of milk and a tin of O’boy chocolate. From this morning? Or Marcus and his mates? She shook the milk carton carefully and sniffed at it. It was okay. She put it in the fridge. Just looking at the overloaded draining board made her feel tired, and she went down to the cellar. Two banana boxes full of Christmas decorations were just inside the door to the cellar stairs. Robert was supposed to be carrying them downstairs to put away.
She went down to the cellar. Kicked dirty clothes chucked down the stairs by the family in front of her as she went, carried them into the laundry room and sighed. It felt like a lifetime since she’d had the strength to stand there ironing and folding everything. The mountain of clean laundry as high as Tolpagorni in front of the workbench. Dirty laundry in stale heaps on the floor in front of the washing machine. Fluff in every corner. Well established, perfectly happy there. Wet, black, grubby suds around the drain.
When I’m on maternity leave, she thought. Then I’ll have time.
She stuffed a load of white kneesocks, underclothes, some sheets and hand towels into the machine. Turned it to sixty degrees, program B. The washing machine began to hum with exertion, and Anna-Maria waited for the usual click, like a short burst of Morse code, as the program started up, followed by the sound of the water gushing into the drum, but nothing happened. The machine kept up its monotonous hum.
“Oh, come on!” she said, banging the top of it with her fist.
Not a new washing machine. That would cost thousands.
The machine hummed painfully. Anna-Maria switched it off and then back on again. Tried a different program. In the end, she kicked it. Then the tears came.
When Robert went down to the laundry room an hour later she was sitting in front of the workbench. Folding clothes like a mad thing, tears pouring down her face.
His gentle hands moving over her back and her hair.
“What’s wrong, Mia-Mia?”
“Leave me alone!” she snapped.
But then, when he put his arms around her, she sobbed into his shoulder and told him about the washing machine.
“And everything’s such a bloody tip,” she sniveled. “As soon as I get through the door all I can see is things that need doing. And now this…” She fished a pair of blue-and-white-striped rompers out of the pile of clean washing. The blue had faded and frequent washing had made the fabric bobbly.
“Poor kid. He’s going to be wearing faded hand-me-downs for the rest of his life. He’ll get bullied at school.”
Robert smiled into her hair. After all, there hadn’t been too many storms this time around. When she’d been expecting Petter things had been worse.
“And then there’s this case,” she went on. “We’ve got a list of everyone who’s involved in the Miracle Conference. The idea was to blitz them all. But Sanna Strandgård was arrested today, and now von Post wants all resources concentrated on her. So I’ve promised Sven-Erik I’ll go through the list, because officially I’m not part of the investigation. I just don’t know when I’m going to get it done.”
“Come on,” said Robert. “Let’s go up to the kitchen and I’ll make some tea.”
They sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. Anna-Maria moved her spoon around listlessly in her mug, watching the honey dissolve in the chamomile tea. Robert peeled an apple, cut it into small pieces and passed them to her. She pushed them in her mouth without even noticing.
“Everything will work out okay,” he said.
“Don’t say everything will work out okay.”
“We’ll move, then. You and me and the baby. We’ll leave this untidy house. The kids’ll be all right for a while. And then I’m sure society will intervene and find them some decent foster parents.”
Anna-Maria laughed out loud, then blew her nose loudly on a rough piece of kitchen roll.
“Or we could ask my mother to move in here,” said Robert.
“Never.”
“She’d do the cleaning.”
Anna-Maria laughed.
“Never in a million years.”
“Empty the dishwasher. Iron my socks. Give you good advice.”
Robert got up and threw the apple peel in the sink.
Why can’t he just throw it straight in the bin? she thought tiredly.
“Come on, let’s take the kids and go for a pizza. We can drop you at the station afterward and you can go through the Miracle lot this evening.”
When Sara and Rebecka walked into Sivving’s kitchen on Friday afternoon, he and Lova were