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“But his medical entries are most likely still there,” Birger Rundgren croaked. “My son, who has taken over the practice, can surely help you.”

Lindell took down the number to Lars-Erik Rundgren, thanked him for his help, dialed the number, and smiled to herself as the phone rang.

It turned out that Rundgren Jr. sounded like his father.

“I have an upper-respiratory infection and shouldn’t be speaking at all,” he managed to squeeze out.

Lindell explained what she was after, gave the doctor her e-mail address, asked him to look for Blomgren’s records, and then send her the information he felt was relevant.

The mail arrived in five minutes. Petrus Blomgren had, of his own accord, contacted Birger Rundgren, whose office was on Kungsgatan at that time, on the eighth of June 1981. They had never met before. Blomgren had cited sleeping difficulties as the reason for the visit. The reason for the problem was “that the pat. has felt anxious for a while.” The doctor had noted that “not fin., wk, rel., loss.”

Otherwise he appeared healthy, employed as a farmer and construction carpenter. He was prescribed Ansopal, one tablet per night. No follow-up visit was required.

Lars-Erik Rundgren concluded with an explanation of his father’s cryptic abbreviations. According to his father there were four main reasons for poor sleep: bad finances, unhappy at work, love problems, or the loss of someone close to you. In other words, in Blomgren’s case Rundgren senior had ruled out all four explanations.

What does that leave? Lindell wondered as she read the mail a second time. She surmised that the doctor’s conversation with Blomgren had been short, that no real examination had taken place, that no diagnosis had been made, and that Rundgren had taken the easy way out.

Eighteen

What surprised him was not Laura’s pale skin that looked as if it never saw the sun, or the exquisite body that she had always managed to conceal beneath layers of clothing that betrayed a lack of attention to color and finesse. It was the abundance of hair.

He pulled his hand down her belly, his index finger tracing a dark line down to the luxuriant tendrils and swirling it around.

“Should I braid it?” he asked, turning his head and looking at her.

He had no idea what she was thinking and right now he didn’t really care. He was still caught up in the physical rush, now mixed with a satisfied indolence, after the release of desire and a feeling of revenge.

Stig chuckled. She closed her eyes.

Laura had said at most ten words since he arrived. When he commented on the massacred bookshelves she shrugged and pulled him closer. She was dressed in a flowery dress that he imagined was very old. It reminded him of his grandmother’s summer dresses.

The ghost-like house, Laura’s silence, and the tense anticipation he felt made him talk. He talked about work, what the Germans had e-mailed and what he had replied. She did not seem interested.

Stig started to get cold.

“Laura,” he whispered, “I have to go soon.”

She opened her eyes. He saw the whites.

“We’re going to have dinner,” she said.

“I don’t have time.”

“Ribs.”

“I have to go,” he repeated.

Her eyes moved anxiously.

“Are you cold?”

He pulled up the covers and carefully draped them over her breast, got up on his knees and kissed her stomach and drew the covers further up over her body.

“You have to stay,” she said.

“I can’t.”

He got out of bed. She stretched out and grabbed his elbow, looking him in the eyes.

“It’s you and me, Stig, right?”

He nodded. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, put her ear against his crotch, and started to talk.

“I’m cleaning out my old life. If you only knew how good that felt. I was no one before. I was half a person.”

“You were a little depressed,” Stig said. “That can happen to anyone.”

“I held my tongue all these years but now I’m talking. I know many people don’t like it. You should see how the neighbor watches me. When I carried the books out in the garden he stood there staring at me through