‘Up, up, up,’ he chanted, and Patrik gave Jenny a questioning look.

‘Sure, pick him up. He obviously likes you.’

Patrik awkwardly lifted the boy onto his knee and gave him his bunch of keys to play with. The child beamed like the sun. He gave Patrik a big smile and showed two front teeth that looked like little grains of rice. Patrik gave him a big smile back. He felt a quavering in his chest. If things had turned out differently he could have had a boy of his own on his knee by this time. He cautiously stroked Max’s downy head.

‘How old is he?’

‘Eleven months. He keeps me busy, you’d better believe.’

Her face lit up with tenderness when she looked at her son, and Patrik saw at once how sweet she was behind the tired exterior. He couldn’t even imagine how much work it must take to be a single parent at her age. She should be out partying and living life with her friends. Instead she spent her evenings changing diapers and keeping house. As if to illustrate the tensions within her, she took a cigarette out of a packet lying on the table and lit it. She took a deep, pleasurable drag and then held out the packet to Patrik. He shook his head. He had definite views about smoking in the same room as a baby, but it was her business, not his. Personally he couldn’t understand how anyone could sit and suck on something that smelled as bad as a cigarette.

‘So couldn’t he have come home and then gone out again?’

‘The walls are so thin in this building that you can hear a pin drop out on the landing. Everyone who lives here knows exactly who comes and goes-and when. I’m quite sure that Anders didn’t go out again.’

Patrik realized that he wouldn’t get much further. Out of curiosity he asked, ‘What was your reaction when you heard that Anders was suspected of murder?’

‘I thought it was bullshit.’

She took another deep drag and blew the smoke out in rings. Patrik had to restrain himself from saying anything about the dangers of second-hand smoke. On his knee Max was fully occupied with sucking on his key-ring. He held it between his chubby little fingers and occasionally looked up at Patrik as if to thank him for lending him this fantastic toy.

Jenny went on, ‘Sure, Anders is a fucking wreck, but he could never kill anyone. He’s a decent guy. He rings my bell and asks to bum a cigarette now and then, and whether he’s sober or pissed he’s always decent. I’ve even let him babysit Max a few times when I had to run out to the market. But only when he was completely sober. Never otherwise.’

She stubbed out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.

‘Actually there’s nothing bad about any of the winos here. They’re just unfortunate devils, drinking away their lives together. The only people they’re hurting is themselves.’

She tossed her head to get the hair out of her face and reached for the cigarette packet again. Her fingers were yellow from nicotine, and this cigarette obviously tasted as good to her as the first one. Patrik was starting to feel smoked out and didn’t think he’d get any more useful information from Jenny. Max protested at being lifted down and handed back to his mother.

‘Thanks for the help. We’ll probably have occasion to come back again.’

‘Well, I’m always here. I’m not going anywhere.’

The cigarette now lay smouldering in the ashtray and the smoke curled towards Max, who squinted his eyes in annoyance. He was still chewing on the keys and gave Patrik a look as if challenging him to try to take them. Patrik gave a cautious pull, but the rice-grain teeth were amazingly strong. By this time the keys were covered in drool, and it was hard to get a real grip on them. He tentatively pulled a little harder and got an angry grunt in reply. Jenny, used to handling such situations, took a firm grip and managed to extract the keys and hand them to Patrik. Max shrieked at the top of his lungs to show his displeasure at how the situation had turned out. Holding the key ring between his thumb and index finger, Patrik discreetly tried to wipe it off on his trouser leg before he stuffed it back in his pocket.

Jenny and a screaming Max followed him to the door. The last thing Patrik saw before the door closed were big tears running down the boy’s round cheeks. Again he felt an ache somewhere deep in his heart.

The house was too big for him now. Henrik wandered from room to room. Everything in the house reminded him of Alexandra. She had loved and cared for every inch of this house. Sometimes he had wondered if it was for the sake of the house that she had married him. It wasn’t until he had brought her home that their relationship had turned serious, for her. As for him, he’d been serious since the first time he saw her at a university meeting for foreign students. Tall and blonde, she had an aura of aloofness that attracted him more than anything else in his whole life. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted Alex. And he was used to getting whatever he wanted.

His parents had been far too preoccupied with their own lives to have time to put any energy into his. The hours that weren’t taken up by the business had been devoured by endless social events. Charity balls, cocktail parties, dinners with business associates. Henrik had to sit nicely at home with the nanny. What he remembered most about his mother was the smell of her perfume when she kissed him good-bye, in her thoughts already on her way to some elaborate party. As compensation he had only to point at something and he would have it. Nothing material had ever been denied him, but it was given with indifference, the same way one absentmindedly scratches a dog that begs for attention.

Alex had been the first thing in Henrik’s life that he couldn’t have just for the asking. She was inaccessible and contrary and therefore irresistible. He had courted her stubbornly and intensely. Roses, dinners, presents and compliments. No effort had been spared. And she had reluctantly let herself be courted and led into a relationship. Not under protest-he never could have coerced her-but with indifference. It wasn’t until he took her home to Göteborg that first summer and they walked into the house here on the island of Särö that she began to take an active interest in the relationship. She responded to his embraces with a new-found intensity, and he was happier than ever before. They were married that same summer in Sweden after knowing each other for only a few months. After they returned to France for one last year at university and graduation, they returned to the house on Särö for good.

Now that he thought back, he realized that the only time he’d seen her really happy was when she was refurbishing the house. He sat down in one of the big Chesterfield easy chairs in the library, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Images of Alex flickered past like in an old Super 8 film. He felt the leather cool and taut under his hands and followed the winding path of an age crack with his index finger.

What he remembered best were her different smiles. When she found a piece of furniture for the house that was exactly what she’d been looking for, or when she cut away old wallpaper with a knife and found the old original wallpaper in good condition underneath, then her smile was big and genuine. When he kissed her on the nape of her neck, or caressed her cheek, or told her how much he loved her, she would also smile-sometimes. But not always. Her smile then was a smile he came to hate, a distant, preoccupied smile. Afterwards, she would always turn away, and he could see her secrets wriggling like little snakes just beneath the surface.

He had never asked any questions. Out of sheer cowardice. He’d been afraid to start a chain reaction whose consequences he was not prepared to handle. It was better at least to have her physically by his side, with the hope that she would one day be his completely. He was prepared to risk that he might never have everything, but at least he’d be sure of keeping a part of her. A fragment of Alex was enough. That’s how much he loved her.