‘Yeah, it’s certainly not the way you make your living. You get paid to sit on your backside and make things up all day long. Ridiculous.’

They both smiled. It was an old familiar subject for their bantering.

‘I brought along something good to warm you up.’ Erica waved the basket she held in one hand.

‘Oh, why the luxury treatment? What do you want now? My body? My soul?’

‘No thanks, you can keep both of them. Even though I’d call the latter wishful thinking in your case.’

Dan took the basket she handed to him and then helped her over the railing with a steady hand. She almost fell on her backside but was saved by Dan’s firm grip around her waist. Together they brushed the snow off the lid of one of the fish packing-cases. They sat down on top of their mittens, carefully laid out on the cases, and began unpacking the basket. Dan smiled in delight when he opened the thermos of hot chocolate and the salami sandwiches neatly wrapped in foil.

‘You’re a gem,’ he said with his mouth full of salami sandwich.

They sat in silence for a while, devoting all their attention to the food. It was peaceful to sit there in the morning sun, and Erica pushed away her guilt about her lack of work discipline. She had been working hard on the manuscript for the past week and thought she deserved a little time off.

‘Have you heard anything more about Alex Wijkner?’

‘No, the police investigation doesn’t seem to be making any headway.’

‘Well, according to what I heard in town, you have special access to inside information.’

Dan gave her a teasing smile. Erica never stopped being amazed at the speed and efficiency of the grapevine. She had no idea how the rumour of her meeting with Patrik could have already spread through town.

‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Right. So, how far did the two of you get? Go for a test drive yet, or what?’

Erica whacked him across the chest with her arm but couldn’t help laughing.

‘No, I didn’t take him on a “test drive”. I don’t really know if I’m interested or not. Or rather, I am interested, but I don’t know if I want to let it go further than that. Assuming that he’s interested, that is. Which may not be the case at all.’

‘In other words, you’re chicken.’

Erica hated the way Dan was almost always right. Sometimes she thought he knew her too well.

‘Yes, I’m feeling a little insecure, I must admit.’

‘Well, you’re the only one who can decide to take the chance. Have you thought about how it might feel if it actually worked out?’

She had given it some thought. Many times over the past few days. But at this point the question was extremely hypothetical. All they’d done was have dinner together, after all.

‘Well anyway, I think you should go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that…’

Erica quickly changed the subject. ‘Apropos Alex, I happened to find something odd.’

‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’ Dan’s voice was full of curiosity.

‘Well, I was in her house a couple of days ago and found an interesting piece of paper.’

‘You were what?’

Erica didn’t feel like replying and just waved off his shocked response.

‘It was a copy of an old article about Nils Lorentz’s disappearance. Do you have any idea why Alex would have kept an article twenty-five years old hidden at the bottom of her underwear drawer?’

‘Her underwear drawer! Erica, what the hell!’

She held up a hand to halt his protests and continued calmly. ‘My intuition tells me that this has something to do with why she was murdered. I don’t know how, but it smells fishy to me. Besides, somebody came into the house and rummaged around while I was there. Maybe that person was looking for the article.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Dan just stared at her, gaping. ‘What the hell business is it of yours? It’s the police’s job to figure out who murdered Alex.’ His voice climbed to a falsetto.

‘Yes, I know. You don’t have to shout, there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. I’m fully aware that it’s really none of my business, but first of all, I’ve already been involved through her family, and second, we were actually very close at one time, and third, I’m having a hard time forgetting about the whole thing since I was the one who found her.’

Erica omitted telling Dan about the book. Somehow it always sounded more crass and cold-blooded when she said it out loud. She also thought that Dan was over-reacting, but he had always been incredibly solicitous of her. She had to admit that it didn’t sound awfully smart to be running around in Alex’s house, considering the circumstances.

‘Erica, promise me you’ll drop all this.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to face him. His clear eyes were unusually steely for Dan.

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you, and if you keep poking about in this I’m afraid you’re going to get in over your head. Let it go.’

Dan’s grip on her shoulders tightened as he stared into her eyes. Erica opened her mouth to reply, dismayed at Dan’s reaction, but before she could say anything she heard Pernilla’s voice from up on the wharf.

‘So, the two of you are having a cosy time, I see.’

Her voice had a coldness that Erica had never heard before. Her eyes were flashing and she kept clenching and unclenching her hands. Both of them had frozen at the sound of Pernilla’s voice; Dan’s hands were still on Erica’s shoulders. Like lightning, as if he’d burned himself, he snatched his hands away and stood at attention.

‘Hello, dear. Did you finish early today? Erica just came by with a little lunch and wanted to talk for a while.’

Dan jabbered on frenetically and Erica looked back and forth between him and Pernilla in astonishment. Erica hardly recognized her. Pernilla gave her a look of pure hatred. Her hands were clenched so hard that her knuckles turned white, and for an instant Erica wondered if she was going to attack her. She didn’t know what was going on. It had been years and years since they’d cleared the air about her and Dan. Pernilla knew that they no longer had feelings for each other, or at least Erica thought she knew. Now she was no longer sure. The question was, what had brought on this reaction? She looked back and forth from Dan to Pernilla. A silent power struggle was going on, and Dan seemed to be losing. There was nothing more for Erica to say, and she decided it would be best to slip away quietly and let them handle it on their own.

She hastily gathered up the cups and thermos and put them back in the basket. When she walked down the wharf, she could hear Dan and Pernilla’s agitated voices breaking through the silence.

He was indescribably lonely. The world was empty and cold without her, and there was nothing he could do to thaw the cold. The pain had been easier to bear when he could share it with her. After she vanished it was as if he had to endure both their pain, and it was more than he thought he could bear. He dragged himself through the days minute by minute, second by second. Reality outside him did not exist; all he had was the consciousness that she was gone forever.

The guilt could be divided up into equal bits and portioned out among the guilty. He did not intend to bear it all alone. He had never intended to bear it alone.

He looked at his hands. How he hated his hands. They carried both beauty and death – an incompatibility duality that he had learned to live with. Only when he caressed her had his hands been entirely good. His skin against her skin had driven away all the evil, forced it to flee for a while. At the same time they had nourished each other’s hidden wish. Love and death, hatred and life. Opposites that turned them into moths flying in circles closer and closer to the flame. She was burned first.