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Laura gave him a look of indifference.

“She even walked around the garden as if you were there.”

Laura shut the car door. On account of all the garbage bags in the driveway, half of the car was on the sidewalk. She opened the trunk. The pipe wrench lay in full view. Laura picked it up and weighed it in her hand.

The professor’s smile faded.

“Don’t go poking around in my life,” Laura said menacingly.

Her neighbor stared at the pipe wrench and took a couple of steps back. Laura followed.

“Don’t poke around in my life.”

The professor backed up a couple more meters, looked around quickly as if to find help, but the street was quiet as usual. There was no one to be seen.

“Are you scared, you little professor-shit?”

“Calm down,” he managed. “I haven’t done anything to you, have I?”

“Not done anything?” Laura said furiously and charged at him. “You have talked behind our backs and spied on us all these years. Shouldn’t that count?”

The professor fled while Laura laughed heartily.

“Hi Laura,” a voice said behind her and she spun around.

Laura lowered the pipe wrench and concealed it behind her legs.

“He was threatening me,” she said.

Ann Lindell nodded.

“Could we talk?” she said.

“Not today,” Laura said quickly, “I don’t have time.”

“This will only take a few minutes.”

“I don’t have time!” Laura shouted.

The professor, who had been following this exchange from his front steps, suddenly became brave, ran down the steps, and stopped on the lawn with only the slim hedge between him and Laura.

“I’m calling the police,” he said. “This can’t go on. She’s an embarass-ment to this whole neigborhood.”

“It’s not necessary,” Lindell said.

“Necessary! If you only knew how we have suffered, year after year, with this crazy family.”

“You old bastard!” Laura screamed. “You damned freak!”

“That’s enough,” Lindell said.

Laura’s face was distorted with anger.

“I am a police officer. I’m here to talk about Ulrik Hindersten’s disappearance. It’s perhaps understandable that Laura is upset right now,” she said and turned to the man.

“You’re from the police?”

“Did you think she was from your illegal cleaning service?” Laura said. “She’s here to talk to me and not to be accosted by some impotent professor.”

“No, this is going too far! Did you hear what that Neanderthal said?”

“We’re going in,” Lindell said, and took Laura by the shoulders and led her like a hapless child toward the house. As they passed the car Laura tossed the pipe wrench into the trunk.

Lindell heard the neighbor yelling behind them, that he was going to report Laura to the police for unlawful threats and Lindell for incompetency.

“He employs an illegal cleaning service?” Lindell asked.

“The whole street does,” Laura said flatly “I’m the only one who does my own cleaning.”

“And you do that with gusto,” Lindell said.

Laura smiled at her. The tics in her face had stopped and her hand was steady as she put the key in the lock.

“You can sit in the kitchen for now,” she said. “I just have to pee.”

Lindell heard splashing from the bathroom. She looked around the kitchen with interest. The old cabinets with stainless steel handles and the low countertops bore witness to the fact that nothing had been renovated for decades.

There were newspapers, bundles of paper, and a dirty pair of panties on the kitchen table and up against the wall a dozen wine bottles arranged in double rows. Lindell thought they looked like a platoon of infantry soldiers on a march.

She picked up a pile of papers and read. The text was in German.

“This is from work,” Laura said, who had snuck back in without a sound and was standing by the door.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to . . .”

“It’s not secret. It’s really boring.”

Lindell was amazed that she could switch moods so quickly.

“I see that you keep to Italian labels,” she said, indicating the bottles.

“Would you like a glass? We can celebrate a little.”

“What’s the occasion?’

“That I’ll be free soon,” Laura said and smiled. “I’ve met a man.”