Unspoken

oak trees hadn’t yet fallen. They were in constant motion, sensitive to the slightest gust of wind. In the yard next to the school, shaggy gray sheep stood huddled together, grazing. Their jaws were grinding as they ceaselessly chewed their cud. Roma’s stone church with eight hundred years of history behind it stood there as steadfast as always.
    Everything was going on as usual, no matter what storms might be raging inside of someone. It was incomprehensible that she could sit here, seemingly unperturbed, sipping endless cups of coffee, and no one even noticed a thing. Such as the fact that her mind was in the grip of a psychological battle. Or that her whole life was in the process of going to hell. But her colleagues merely sat around her, carrying on subdued conversations. As if nothing were happening.
    In her mind’s eye, video clips were playing in rapid succession: her daughter Sara’s birthday when all Emma could do was cry; she and Johan rolling around in a hotel bed; her mother-in-law’s searching eyes; Filip’s cello concert, which had totally slipped her mind; her husband Olle’s face when she once again rejected him.
    She had gotten herself into an impossible situation.
    Six months earlier she had met a man who had ended up changing everything. They got to know each other in connection with last summer’s police hunt, when Emma’s best friend became one of the killer’s victims, and she herself came very close to meeting the same fate.
    Johan had stepped into her path, and she couldn’t just walk by him. He was so unlike everyone else she had ever known; so alive and intense about everything he did. She had never laughed so much with anyone else or felt so calm, almost spiritual. He made her discover sides of herself that she didn’t even know existed.
    She quickly fell madly in love with him, and before she knew it, he had totally invaded her life. When they made love she was filled with a sensuality that she had never experienced before. He made her relax. For the first time she didn’t give a thought to how she looked or how he might judge her expertise in bed.
    To be one hundred percent in the moment was something that she had known only from giving birth to her children.
    Yet eventually she chose to break it off with him. For the children’s sake, she decided to stay with Olle. When the drama of the serial murders was over and she woke up in the hospital with her family around her, she realized that she lacked the will to go through with a divorce, even though she felt that Johan was the great love of her life. Security counted more, at least at the time. With much anguish she put an end to their affair.
    The whole family went to Greece on vacation because she needed to get away and have some distance from everything. But it hadn’t turned out to be that simple.
    When they were back home, Johan had written to her. At first she considered throwing out the letter, unread. But her curiosity got the better of her. Afterward she regretted it.
    It would have been best for all parties concerned if she hadn’t read even one line of that letter.
    Karin Jacobsson and Thomas Wittberg walked down to Östercentrum as soon as the investigative meeting was over. The pedestrian street between the shops was almost deserted. The wind and rain were having their effect. They hurried into the mall at Obs supermarket and shook off the worst of the rain as they stood inside the glass doors.
    The shopping center was quite modest: H&M, Guldfynd, a couple of beauty parlors, a health food store, a bulletin board. Obs with its rows of cashiers, then the bakery and pastry shop, the customer service counter, the Tips & Tobak betting parlor and tobacco shop. Restrooms in the back, a recycling station for bottles, and the exit leading to the parking lot. Along with weary retirees and the parents of small children, needing to rest their feet, drunks occupied the benches in the mall whenever the weather was bad.
    Most of them kept a hip flask in a bag or pocket, but as long as they didn’t do any drinking inside, the security guards left them in peace.
    Jacobsson recognized two local winos sitting on the bench nearest the exit. They were filthy and unshaven, dressed in worn-out clothes. The younger man was leaning his head against the wall behind him and staring indifferently at the people walking past. He wore a black leather jacket and tattered running shoes. The older man had on a blue down jacket and knit cap.