He turned off the moon-shaped bedside light and quietly closed the door to Felix’s room.
It took him fifteen minutes to brush his teeth, use floss and then rinse with exactly the recommended amount of mouth-rinse. He studied his face in the mirror and noticed that another couple of hairs on his left temple had turned gray. But he didn’t bother to remove them. Was too tired for that. So he left the bathroom and went into the bedroom.
The TV had been turned off. Emma lay in bed in a pink T-shirt with the covers up to her waist, deeply involved in a book. Henrik got undressed, folded his clothes and put them on the chair next to his side of the bed. With a yawn, he sunk down with his head on the pillow, put one arm under his head and looked up at the ceiling. The other arm was under the covers and his hand felt its way into his underpants and grasped his intimate bits. As if to make them comfortable.
Emma put her book down and looked at him. He felt her gaze. It hit him like an electric prod.
“What is it?” he said.
She didn’t answer.
He pulled his hand out from his pants and lay on his side next to her.
“Well, we haven’t...” she started.
“What haven’t we?”
“Had sex so much lately.”
“No.”
“And it isn’t because of you.”
“Okay?”
“It’s because of me.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” said Henrik and immediately wondered why on earth he had said that. It certainly did matter. It mattered an awful lot. In fact it was everything.
She leaned forward and gave him a long kiss. He responded likewise. They kissed again. A bit predictable one might say. His hand on her breast. Her hands on his back. She scratched him a little. Then harder and Henrik got the feeling that this was an invitation. At last, he thought, and pulled Emma closer to him. But then he remembered the words she had only just a few moments earlier uttered. That there was something that had made her not want to as much as before. With a gentle hand he pushed her away. She looked at him with her big blue eyes and her gaze was full of desire.
“I’m just wondering what the reason was,” said Henrik. “You said it was because of you.”
Emma smiled and the lines of laughter around her eyes showed up immediately. He loved every one of them.
Then she bit her lip, still with the smile there. She had a mischievous look. Her fingers played over the sheet and drew an invisible heart.
Afterwards he had wanted to freeze that moment. He would have given anything for time to have stood still, just there and then. Because she looked so happy.
Then she said it.
“I’m pregnant.”
He immediately regretted having asked. Why hadn’t he just given his desire a free rein, and they could have got on with it? Why had he been so stupid and asked?
Emma cast herself over him.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Yes, really.”
“Are you pleased?”
“Well, yes. I’m pleased.”
“I hadn’t wanted to say anything. You’ve been so busy at work and there simply wasn’t a good occasion. Until now.”
Henrik didn’t move. He lay there under Emma, as if he had turned into stone. She moved slowly, rubbing her body against his. His thoughts spun around and around: pregnant? Pregnant! Now there would be no more sex at all. Not for nine months. That’s what it had been like when she was pregnant with Felix and Vilma. Then he hadn’t wanted to at all. It hadn’t felt right to do it with Emma when she had a baby in her tummy. And now she had one again.
A baby.
In her tummy.
Yet again, he pushed her away.
“What’s the matter,” she said. “Don’t you want to?”
“No,” he answered curtly and held up his arm against her. “Come on, lie down here.”
She looked at him with surprise.
“Come on,” he said. “I just want to hold you a while.”
She lay her head on his chest. He let his arm sink down onto her shoulders.
“So you’re pregnant.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Great. Really great.”
Emma didn’t answer.
Henrik knew that she was disappointed that they weren’t having sex. Now she could presumably feel what he had felt every time she hadn’t wanted to. Now the roles were reversed, he thought, before he closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to fall asleep, he knew that. And he was right.
He didn’t get any sleep at all that night.
*
“So he’s going to be moved tomorrow,” Danilo repeated. He stood in the middle of Jana’s living room with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on a point far away outside the window.
She sat on the couch with her hands cupping a glass of water. It had taken her twenty minutes to tell Danilo what had happened. The whole time, he had stood up in the same position.
“Where is he going to be moved to?” he said. “Do you know?”
“No, I’ve no idea,” said Jana.
Danilo paced back and forth over the floor.
“What a fucking mess,” he said.
“What should we do?”
Danilo was silent, pacing all the faster. Then he suddenly stopped and looked at Jana.
“So you’ve no idea about where they’re going to put him?” he said.
“No, like I said. It’s confidential,” said Jana.
“Then there’s only one way to find out.”
“What’s that?”
“With a tracking device.”
“That’s a good plan. Really.”
“I’m serious. A GPS tracker is the only alternative.”
“Or we could simply follow the police cars? What do you think about that? A bit simpler perhaps?”
“And risk being seen? I don’t think so. With a tracker we can follow them from a distance.”
“But we still risk being discovered.”
“Not if we do it right.”
“How do we get hold of a tracker?”
“I’ll fix it.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
“But haven’t you forgotten an important detail? Like that Gavril is locked up? In the detention center? How do you think you’re going to install a tracker on him?”
Danilo sat down beside Jana.
“I’m not going to do it,” he said.
“You’re not?”
“There’s only one person who can fasten it on him. One who can always get inside the detention center. One who the police will never suspect.”
“Who is that?”
“You.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
Tuesday, May 1
THE CORRIDOR SEEMED to go on forever. Her heels echoed all around her. To maintain her focus, she counted her steps. She had been counting ever since she stepped out of the elevator on the floor with the detention center, and now she was up to fifty-seven. She looked at her Rolex.
08:40.
She fixed her gaze on the door and squeezed the handle of her briefcase. Seventy-two steps in all, she thought as she put her briefcase down on the floor. She rang the bell to be let in and then heard a voice telling her to say her name to the microphone on the wall.
“Jana Berzelius, the prosecutor’s office. I’m going to have a talk with my client, Lena Wikstr?m,” she said.
The door opened and Jana picked up her briefcase and went inside. A warder with a name tag that said Bengt Dansson and with a neck that was barely visible and earlobes big as wings smirked a stupid smile of recognition when she approached him.
Bengt looked at her identity card and smiled even wider when he handed it back to her, which made his chin pour out over his collar.
“A quick search too,” he said.
Jana stretched out her arms and felt Bengt’s hands move from her armpits down over her ribs and hips.
He panted when he crouched down in front of her and she rolled her eyes in irritation when he continued to search her from her hips down her legs.
“Which do you prefer? Metal detector or a body search?” he said and looked up at her with a desirous gaze.
“What do you mean?” said Jana.
“That you can choose. Detector or naked.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“You can’t be too careful when it comes to security.”
Jana was speechless.
Bengt broke out into such loud laughter that his cheeks bobbed up and down. He put one hand on his knee and pushed himself up but couldn’t stop laughing.
“Ha, ha, ha, haaa! You should have seen your face!”