Larry rubbed one eye, making a low clucking sound. "That's a problem. As long as they haven't found him they aren't in-terested and as long as they aren't interested they won't find him."

Virginia shook her head. "You have to go to the police and tell them what you know."

"Oh yeah, and what exactly do you think we should tell them?" Morgan chuckled. "Hey, lay off all this s.h.i.t with the child murderer, the submarine, and everything, because we're three merry alcoholics and one of our drinking buddies has disappeared and now another of our drinking buds tells us that one night when he was really high he saw... does that sound good?"

"But what about Gosta? He was the one who saw it. He's the one who ...".

"Sure. But he's so d.a.m.ned unstable/insecure. Shake a uniform at him and he'll collapse, ready to be admitted to Beckis. He can't take it. Interrogations and s.h.i.t." Morgan shrugged. "No chance there."

"But do we really do nothing7." nothing7."

"Well, what the h.e.l.l do you suggest?"

Lacke, who had had time to down his beer while the conversation was going on, said something too low for them to hear what it was. Virginia leaned toward him and put her head on his shoulder.

"What did you say?"

Lacke stared into the foggy ink-drawn landscape on his placemat and whispered: "You said that we would get him."

Morgan thumped the table with his hand so the beer gla.s.ses jumped. Held out his hand like a claw.

"And we will. But we need something to go on first." Lacke nodded like a somnabulist and started to get up.

"Just have to .. ."

His legs gave way and he fell headfirst across the table. The loud crash of falling gla.s.s made all eight restaurant patrons turn and stare. Virginia grabbed hold of Lacke's shoulders and helped him up in the chair again. Lacke's eyes were far away.

"Sorry, I. .."

The waiter hurried over to their table while frenetically rubbing his hands on his ap.r.o.n. He bent down to Lacke and Virginia and whispered furiously: "This is a restaurant not a pig sty!"

Virginia gave him the widest smile she could muster while she helped Lacke get to his feet.

"Come on, Lacke. We're going to my place."

With an accusing look at the other men, the waiter quickly walked around Lacke and Virginia, and supported Lacke on the other side in order to show his patrons he was just as concerned as they that this disturbing element be removed.

Virginia helped Lacke put on his heavy overcoat, elegant in an oldfashioned way-which he inherited from his father who had died a few years earlier-and ferried him to the door.

Behind her she heard a few meaningful whistles from Morgan and Karlsson. With Lacke's arm over her shoulder she turned to them and made a face. Then she pulled open the front door and walked out. The snow was falling in large, slow flakes, creating a s.p.a.ce of cold and silence for the two of them. Virginia's cheeks turned pink as she led Lacke down the park path. It was better like this.

Hi. I was going to meet my dad, but he didn't show up ... may I come in and use the phone?"

"Of course."

"May I come in?"

"The telephone is over there."

The woman pointed further into the hallway; a gray telephone stood on a little table. Eli remained where she was outside the door; she hadn't yet been invited in. Right next to the door there was a cast iron hedgehog shoe wiper with p.r.i.c.kles made of pia.s.sava fibers. Eli wiped off her shoes in order to cover her inability to enter.

"Are you sure it's alright?"

"Of course. Come in, come in!' Come in, come in!'

The woman made a tired gesture; Eli was invited. The woman seemed to have lost interest and walked into the living room, where Eli could hear the static whining of a TV. A long yellow silk ribbon tied around the woman's graying hair ran down her back like a pet snake.

Eli walked into the hall, took off her shoes and jacket, lifted the telephone receiver. Dialed a number at random. Pretended to talk to someone. Put the receiver down. Drew air in through her nose. Cooking smells, cleaning agents, earth, shoe polish, winter apples, damp cloth, electricity, dust, sweat, wallpaper glue, and ... cat urine.

Yes. A soot-black cat stood in the doorway to the kitchen, growling, the ears pulled back, fur standing on end, back arched. It had a red band around its neck with a little metal cylinder on it, probably containing a slip of paper with the owner's name and address.

Eli took a step toward the cat and it bared its teeth, hissing. The body was tensed for attack. One more step.

The cat retreated, pulling itself backward while continuing to hiss, maintaining eye contact. The hate pulsating through its body caused the metal cylinder to tremble. They took measure of each other. Eli moved slowly forward, forcing the cat back until it was in the kitchen, and then she closed the door.

The cat continued to growl and mew angrily on the other side. Eli walked into the living room.

The woman was sitting in a leather couch so well-polished the light from the TV was reflected in it. She sat bolt upright, staring unstintingly at the blue flickering screen. She had a yellow bow on one side of her head. On the other side the bow had pulled loose into a hanging length of ribbon. On the coffee table in front of her there was a bowl of crackers and a cutting board with three cheeses. An unopened bottle of wine and two gla.s.ses.

The woman did not seem to note Eli's presence; she was completely absorbed by what she saw on the screen. A nature program. Penguins at the South Pole.

"The male carries the egg on his feet so it will not come in contact with the ice." the ice."

A caravan of penguins swaying from side to side moved across an ice desert. Eli sat down on the sofa, next to the woman. She sat stiffly, as if the TV was a disapproving teacher who was telling her off.

"When the female returns after three months the male's layer of fat has been all but used up." been all but used up."

Two penguins rubbed their beaks together, greeting each other.

"Are you expecting someone?"

The woman flinched and stared without comprehension into Eli's eyes for a few seconds. The yellow bow accentuated how ravaged her face looked. She shook her head quickly.

"No, help yourself."

Eli didn't move. The picture on the TV screen changed to a panorama of the southern parts of Soviet Georgia, set to music. In the kitchen the tone of the cat's meows had turned into something ... beseeching. There was a chemical smell in the room. The woman was exuding a hospital smell.

"Is anyone going to come over?"

Again the woman flinched as if she had been woken up, turned to Eli. This time she looked irritated, with a sharp furrow between her eyebrows.

"No. No one's coming. Eat if you like." She pointed with a stiff finger at the cheeses. "Camembert, Gorgonzola, and Roquefort. Eat. Eat." She looked sternly at Eli, and Eli helped herself to a cracker, put it in her mouth, and started to chew slowly. The woman nodded and turned her gaze back to the screen. Eli spit the chewy ma.s.s of crackers into her hand and dropped it onto the floor behind the armrest.

"When are you leaving?" the woman asked. Soon.

"Stay as long as you like. It's all the same to me." Eli moved a little closer, as if to be able to see the TV better, until their arms touched. Something happened to the woman. She trembled and sank together, softened like a punctured coffee packet. Now when she looked over at Eli it was with a mild, dreamy gaze.

"Who are you?"

Eli's eyes were only a few decimeters from hers. The hospital smell wafted from the woman's mouth.

"I don't know."

The woman nodded, reached for the remote control on the coffee table, and turned off the sound.

"In the spring, southern Georgia blooms with a barren beauty..." The cat's beseeching meows could now be heard very clearly, but the woman didn't seem to care. She pointed to Eli's lap. "May I.. ."

"Of course."

Eli shifted slightly away from the woman, who pulled up her legs and rested her head on Eli's lap. Eli slowly stroked her hair. They sat like that for a while. The shimmering backs of whales broke the surface of the water, spurted out a fountain, disappeared.

"Tell me a story," said the woman.

"What do you want to hear?"

"Something beautiful."

Eli tucked a tendril of hair behind the woman's ear. She breathed slowly now and her body was completely relaxed. Eli spoke in a low voice.

"Once upon a time ... a long, long time ago, there was a poor farmer and his wife. They had three children. A boy and a girl both old enough to work together with the adults. And then a little boy, only eleven years old. Everyone who saw him said he was the most beautiful child they had ever seen.

"The father was in villeinage to the lord who owned the land, and had to work many days for him. Therefore, it often fell to the mother and her two oldest to look after the house and garden. The youngest boy wasn't good for much.

"One day the lord announced a compet.i.tion that all of the families who worked his land had to enter. Everyone who had a boy between the ages of eight and twelve. No reward was promised, no prize. Even so, it was called a compet.i.tion.

"On the day of the compet.i.tion the mother took her youngest to the lord's castle. They were not alone. Seven other children accompanied by one or both parents had gathered in the courtyard of the castle. Three more came. Poor families, the children dressed in the best clothes they had.

"They waited all day in the courtyard. When it was starting to get dark a man came out of the castle and told them they could come in." Eli listened to the woman's breathing, deep and regular. She slept. Her breath was warm against Eli's knee. Right below her ear Eli could discern the pulse ticking under loose, wrinkled skin.

The cat was quiet.

The credits for the nature program rolled on the TV. Eli put a finger on the woman's throat artery. It felt like a beating bird heart under her fingertip.

Eli braced herself against the back of the couch and carefully pushed the woman's head forward so it leaned on Eli's knees. The sharp smell of Roquefort cheese drowned out the other smells. Eli pulled out a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over the cheeses.

A soft squeaky sound, the woman's breathing. Eli leaned over and held her nose close to the woman's artery. Soap, sweat, the smell of old skin ... and that hospital smell... something else that was the woman's own smell. And beneath all this: the blood.

The woman moaned when Eli's nose brushed against her throat, started to turn her head, but Eli gripped the woman's arms and chest with one hand, held the other one firmly around her head. Opened her mouth as much as she could, brought it down to the woman's throat until her tongue pressed against the artery and bit down. Locked her jaws. The woman jerked as if she had received an electric shock. Her limbs flung out and her feet hit the armrest with such force that the woman pushed away and Eli ended up with her back across her knees.

The blood spurted rhythmically out of the open artery and splashed against the brown leather of the couch. The woman screamed and waved her hands in the air, pulling the blanket down from the table. A waft of blue cheese filled Eli's nostrils as she threw herself over the woman, pushing her mouth against her throat and drinking deeply. The woman's screams pierced her ears and Eli let go with one arm in order to be able to place a hand over her mouth.

The screams were m.u.f.fled but the woman's free hand went out to the coffee table, grabbed the remote control, and banged it into Eli's head. The sound of plastic breaking as the sound of the TV came on again. The signature melody of Dallas Dallas floated out into the room and Eli tore her head away from the woman's throat. floated out into the room and Eli tore her head away from the woman's throat.

The blood tasted like medication. Morphine.

The woman stared up at Eli with wide eyes. Now Eli perceived yet another flavor. A rotten taste that combined with the smell of the blue cheese.

Cancer. The woman had cancer.

Her stomach turned with revulsion. She had to sit up and let go of the woman in order not to vomit.

The camera flew over Southfork while the music approached its crescendo. The woman wasn't screaming anymore, just lay still on her back while the blood pumped out of her in weaker and weaker spurts, streaming down behind the sofa cushions. Her eyes were damp and re-mote as she met Eli's gaze and said, "please . .. please . . ." Eli held back her impulse to be sick, leaned forward over the woman.

"Excuse me?"

"Please..."

"Yes, what is it you want?"

"... please ... please."

After a while the woman's eyes changed, stiffened. Became unseeing. Eli closed them. They opened again. Eli took the blanket from the floor and covered her face with it, sat up straight in the couch.

The blood was palatable even though it tasted bad, but the morphine ... There was a skysc.r.a.per of mirrors on the TV. A man dressed in a suit and a cowboy hat got out of his car, walked toward the skysc.r.a.per. Eli tried to get up out of the couch. She couldn't. The skysc.r.a.per started to lean, to turn. The mirrors reflected clouds that floated across the sky in slow motion, taking on the shape of animals, plants.

Eli burst out laughing when the man in the cowboy hat sat down behind a desk and started to speak in English. Eli understood what he was saying, but it was meaningless. Eli looked around. The whole room had started to lean in such a funny way it was strange the TV hadn't started to roll away. The cowboy-man's words echoed in her head. Eli looked for the remote control but it lay in pieces strewn across the table and floor.

Have to get the cowboy-man to stop talking.

Eli slid to the floor, crawling on all fours over to the TV with the morphine rushing through her body, laughing at the figures that dissolved into colors, colors. Didn't have the energy. Sank onto her stomach in front of the TV with the colors dancing in front of her eyes.

A few children were still sliding on their Snow Racers down the hill between Bjornsonsgatan and the little field next to the park road. Death Hill, it was called for some reason. Three shadows started out at the same time from the top and some loud swearing was heard, when one of the shadows was forced off course into the forest, as well as laughter from the other two as they continued down the slope, flew up from the dip at the bottom, and came to rest with a m.u.f.fled clatter.

Lacke stopped, looked down into the ground. Virginia tried carefully to shove him onward with her. "Come on, Lacke."

"It's just so d.a.m.ned hard."

"I can't carry you, you know."

A snort that was probably a laugh, that became a cough. Lacke dropped his arm from her shoulders, stood there with arms hanging, and turned his head toward the sledding hill.

"d.a.m.n it, here there are kids sledding, and there . . ." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the underpa.s.s that started at the far end of the hill that the slope was on."... that's where Jocke was murdered."

"Don't think about that anymore."

"How can I stop? Maybe it was one of those kids who did it?"

"I don't think so."

She took his arm in order to put it around her neck again, but Lacke pulled away. "No, I can walk on my own."

Lacke started gingerly down the path. The snow crunched under his feet. Virginia stood still and watched him. There he was, the man she loved and whom she could never live with.

She had tried.