The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [77]
She opened the door wearing an apron, with flour sprinkled on her chest and hands.
“Come in, I’m in the middle of baking,” she said and didn’t seem at all surprised by his unannounced visit. “My parents are coming up for the holidays so now I have to prove my competence in the housewifely arts.”
“Quite a sight, in other words,” Haver said, and immediately felt the warmth and ease that characterized his relations with Ann.
He watched her while she finished kneading the dough. She had gained a little weight since having Erik, but not much. The extra kilos suited her. She placed a cloth over the bowl.
“There. Now it has to rise for a while,” she said. “How are you doing?”
She sat down across from him. He resisted an impulse to touch her, but it knocked him off-kilter.
“You have flour on your cheek,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically, then brushed her cheek with her hand, with the result that it became even whiter.
“Better?”
Haver shook his head. He was happy to hear her voice again. Her bare, flour-covered arms were arousing him. She may have noticed, because an expression of confusion crossed her face. Both of their states of confusion created an electrified atmosphere. He had never felt anything like this for Ann before. Where did this desire come from? He had always thought her attractive, but he had never felt this rising warmth and pulsing desire.
Ann, on the other hand, couldn’t place his look and expression at all. She knew him so well that she thought she knew all his moods, but this was something new.
“How is the Little John case coming along?”
“We think there’s money behind it,” he said and told her about questioning the witnesses to John’s big poker win.
“Was he an habitual poker player?”
“Seems like it, according to several people he often played, but never for this much money.”
“You have to be brave, dumb, or rich—or a combination of all three—to be willing to bet such amounts,” Ann said.
Haver had been thinking along the same lines.
“He must have had some money tucked away to play a game like that,” Ann continued.
Haver was enjoying hearing her talk. Colleagues mean so much, he thought. Ann is the one who pulls our team together.
“Yes, he does seem to have accumulated some. He lent ten thousand to a friend in September, for example.”
“That’s not an exceptional amount.”
“It is if you’ve been unemployed for a while.”
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough coffee today. But something to drink would be nice.”
Ann put some Christmas beer on the table. She knew he liked dark beer.
“Do you remember that conference out in Grisslehamn?” he said, then drank some beer straight from the bottle.
“I remember Ryde drinking too much and losing his temper with Ottosson.”
“You said something back then, something that stayed in my mind. Something about the limits and conditions love places on us.”
Ann was momentarily thrown for a loop, but answered in a lighthearted tone.
“Did I? I must have been tipsy myself.”
“You had a glass or two of wine,” Haver said, and regretted bringing it up, but he couldn’t stop these thoughts that had been threatening to break out the past few weeks.
“I don’t remember talking about anything like that,” Ann said defensively.
“It was when you met Edvard.”
Ann got up, walked over to the kitchen counter, and peeked under the towel.
“It probably needs more time to rise,” Haver said.
Ann leaned against the counter and looked at him.
“I was confused then,” she said, “and vulnerable. Both in my professional and private life after Rolf had left me.”
“You don’t have any luck with men, Ann. That’s not a criticism, by the way,” he hastened to add when he saw her expression. “You probably give too