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“It’s thirty thousand!” Jessica shouted.

“Wonderful,” Stig said with emphasis. “I’ll jump in the shower and then we have to talk about what we’re going to do about Miss Hindersten.”

Laura saw Jessica get up from the computer when Stig went into the kitchen. She couldn’t understand why he had arrived so much later than she had. Had he driven by the office?

Laura imagined them talking, how Stig told her everything, that he loved Laura and that his and Jessica’s relationship had no future.

After several minutes Jessica returned to the computer. She looked calm. Her hair shone in the light of the desk lamp. Stig was nowhere to be seen.

Laura stepped out of the car.

She realized there had been no confrontation. He was too cowardly, afraid of that witch. Laura had been too, before, but all fear had disappeared when she realized how life should be lived. It was as if a voice had spoken to her: It’s time to settle accounts with your old life, Laura!

She remembered how strong this voice had been and reminded herself that it was necessary because of how many difficulties she had had to overcome. Shattered, she sat at the kitchen table asking herself how she was going to carry on while the radio reported the results of the referendum on the European Monetary Union. Then, somewhere beyond the fear that twisted her innards, there came the sound of victorious music and a voice that rattled off confident proclamations: No room for doubt! Strike back!

Sometimes this voice was interrupted by a collage of Italian voices but it always returned even stronger, filtering out the static in her head. She laughed with relief, pushed away the knife, whose edge she had tested on some fruit, and walked out into the library, finally clear on how the whole thing was going to be done.

Laura walked closer to the house, bent some branches down, and stared at her rival. She had an impulse to step into the square of light thrown onto the dark lawn by the light through the window, which would illuminate her like a spotlight on an otherwise dark stage.

She stared at the hateful woman who seemed so self-sufficient in her blond beauty and her purposeful, measured movements in front of the computer.

Only one thing held Laura back. It was not yet time to strike back. It was something Ulrik had taught her, strangely enough: patience.

Nineteen

There was a gentle knock at the door. Mr. Sund, Ann thought immediately, but remembered that he was at a lecture at the Gottsunda Library. He had mentioned that the day before.

She walked over to the door and listened. Who knocked at half past eight in the evening? Perhaps the lecture was over and Sund wanted to tell her something exciting.

“Who is it?”

“The police,” said a voice on the other side.

Ann put on the security chain and gingerly cracked the door.

“Hi, hope I’m not disturbing you. I didn’t want to ring the doorbell in case your boy was sleeping.”

Charles Morgansson took up the entire landing, or so it seemed to Ann. How big he is, she thought, and unhooked the chain.

“Come in. No, you’re not disturbing anything. Erik has been asleep a long time. I’m just looking over some papers. You shouldn’t take your work home but sometimes I think better at home. It was nice of you to knock. I thought it was my neighbor, he usually knocks. Do you want anything?”

Morgansson smiled.

“That was a lot of info at once,” he said. “And one question. No, thank you.”

Ann felt herself blushing.

“Please feel free to hang up your coat,” she said, staring into her apartment.

A pair of pants and a blouse were thrown over a chair and Erik had put together his wooden train tracks in the middle of the hall floor.

“I’ll pick up a little. Erik makes these messes. He has a little cold.”

She walked rapidly around the living room, picked up the wineglass and looked around uncertainly then put it down behind a curtain. The bottle, she thought, but at the same time she remembered she had tossed it into the trash.

“You have a nice place,” Morgansson said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ann said and straightened the cushions on