Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [104]
This was reality. The attic flat in Östermalm was cold and calculated, the furniture studied and ingratiating. Sophia Grenborg’s flat was blue and stripped back; his home was warm and yellow with sleeping children and swinging streetlamps.
Then he went towards the bedroom, walking slowly on feet that grew ever heavier. He stood in the doorway and looked at his wife.
She had fallen asleep lying across the bed with her tights and top and underwear on, her mouth open just like the children’s. Her eyelashes cast long shadows across her cheeks. She was breathing deeply and evenly.
His eyes roamed across her hard body, edgy and muscular and powerful.
Sophia Grenborg was so white and soft, she whimpered all the while they made love.
Suddenly he was overcome with an unexpected feeling of complete and utter shame. It made him feel sick. He backed out of the room, leaving her there, lying across the bed without a cover.
She knows, he thought. Someone’s told her.
He sat at the kitchen table, resting his elbows on his knees, and ran his fingers through his hair.
Impossible, he thought. She wouldn’t be sleeping so soundly if she knew.
He sighed deeply, unable to escape.
He knew he would have to lie next to her, unable to sleep, listening to her breathing and longing for hair that smelled of apples and the traces of menthol cigarettes.
He stood up in the dark, confused, knocking his hip against the sink. Surely he wasn’t longing to get away?
Or was he?
A sticky little hand patted Annika on the cheek.
‘Mummy? Bye bye, Mummy.’
She blinked at the light, not sure for a moment where she was. She realized a second or so later that she had fallen asleep with half her clothes on. She looked up and saw Ellen leaning over her with limp pigtails and peanut butter round her mouth.
A broad grin broke out inside her.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘I’m going to stay at home today.’
Annika stroked her daughter’s cheek, cleared her throat and smiled. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll pick you up after lunch,’ she said, struggling up by straining her stomach muscles and kissing the girl on the mouth, licking at the peanut butter.
‘Before lunch.’
‘It’s Friday, so there’ll be ice-cream today.’
The girl pondered this. ‘After,’ she said finally, and ran out.
Thomas looked in through the door, his usual, normal face with its tired morning eyes and hair sticking out.
‘How are you feeling?’
She smiled at him, shut her eyes and stretched like a cat.
‘Okay, I think.’
‘We’re off now.’
When she opened her eyes he was gone.
Today she didn’t wait for the silence. She was in the shower before the front door had closed behind them. She washed her hair, put on a facepack, trimmed her split ends and massaged her legs with cream. She put on mascara and filed her nails smooth, and picked out a clean bra. She made coffee and a sandwich that she knew she would have trouble eating.
Then she sat at the kitchen table and felt the anxiety rush towards her, rolling out of the corners like dark clouds of smoke and poison gas, and she fled, leaving the coffee and sandwich and an unopened yogurt on the table.
Outside the snow had stopped, but the sky was still solid grey. Hard shards of ice were being blown about in the wind, along the streets and pavements, catching on her face and hair. She couldn’t make out any colours; the world had turned black and white, the sharp stone twisting in her chest.
Sophia Grenborg. Grev Turegatan.
She knew where that was. Christina Furhage used to live there. Without thinking, she started walking.
The façade was honey yellow and heavy with plaster embellishments, icicles hanging from the extremities, the glass of the bay windows shimmering unevenly, the door carved and dark brown.
Her feet and ears were freezing. She stamped the ground and adjusted her scarf better.
Wealthy middle-class, she thought, going up to the door.
The intercom was the modern sort that didn’t give away where in the building people lived. She stepped back and looked up at the façade, as though she’d be able to work out where