Inger Frimansson - Good Night, My Darling

“No, I was in the shower, like I said.”

“He didn’t hear you in the shower?”

“I don’t know… Maybe he thought I was alone in the room. He heard the shower certainly. Maybe he thought he could rob the place while I was in there.”

“And then he discovered that someone else was there?”

“Yes.”

The questions came quickly and jarringly.

“Didn’t my daughter try to stop him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, but what do you think?”

“No… I think he caught her by surprise. They said there were no traces of a fight.”

“But wouldn’t he have fled the moment he saw someone else in the room?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, maybe she’d gone out for a minute and when she came back, he was there; maybe she had to go get something.”

“You didn’t try to defend her?”

“It was too late! It had already happened!”

“So what did you do?”

Her head was spinning. She looked at the policeman; he nodded encouragingly.

“What I did… What would you have done?”

“I would have killed him. I would have strangled him with my bare hands. I would have cut him to pieces with my bare fingers…”

“Marianne,” said Mats Andersson. “Marianne…”

”He was dangerous,” whispered Justine. “If he killed one person, he might kill another.”

“So what did you do?”

“I ran back into the shower and locked the door.”

“Why didn’t you run out of the room instead? Out to get help? It all appears very strange to me.”

“I don’t know. A reflex.”

“If she could have reached a hospital! If she could have gotten there in time!”

“It was too late already!”

“How do you know? How many dead people have you seen? How can you be so sure?”

She gripped the coffee cup but her hands were shaking so strongly that she was not able to lift it.

“May I… ask something?” said her father. “How was she that day? What was her mood? Was she happy or sad… can you…?”

“None of us were what you could call happy.”

“You have to remember what happened in the jungle,” said Hans Nästman. “The group had to break camp suddenly, one of the leaders had disappeared, probably met with an accident, most likely dead.”

“They never found him then?”

“No. When things disappear in the jungle, they tend to be lost forever.”

“She was a wandering soul, our girl. I always felt on tenterhooks whenever she was out and about on one of her trips. That something would happen to her. Sooner or later, I would think, sooner or later… but you can’t forbid them.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Do you have any children, Commissioner?”

“Yes, two boys, eighteen and twenty.”

“It’s easier with boys.”

“Don’t say that.”

The woman got up. She went over to the altar and lit the candles.

“You can go now, if you want,” she said hoarsely. “Now I know what she looks like, that person who shared a room with Martina. I don’t want to know any more. It’s enough.”

“What a strange and unpleasant woman,” said Hans Nästman, when they returned to the car. “In my job, you meet a number of bizarre people. But someone like Marianne Andersson…”

“Sorrow can affect you.”

“Whatever.”

She put the seatbelt on.

“What did she do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“She hurt you. I saw it. She bit you, didn’t she?” “No.”

“Justine, listen to me. You have to get a vaccination against lockjaw. Human bites are the most dangerous kind.” “I’m already vaccinated.”

“Of course, of course. When you’ve traveled so far.” “We got all kinds of vaccinations. Nathan, too. But you can’t vaccinate against everything.”

“That’s a wise saying.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I saw that she bit you, Justine.”

She sighed.

“I have the feeling you let her.”

“OK, OK, maybe I deserved it. Maybe I should have protected her daughter somehow.”

“Do you feel that way yourself?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the kind of thing a psychiatrist needs to sort out. Please, can you just drive me home now? This has been an awful day.”

Hans Nästman kept in touch with her.

“I imagine you want to know what’s going on in Kuala Lumpur. And whether they ever find Nathan Gendser some day. But the man they caught for hotel burglary will only confess to burglary. He also insists that he never set foot in that hotel. Nothing can be proven. There are many fingerprints on the knife, but not his. He could have been wearing gloves… but it really is fairly hot in that country.”

She didn’t know what to say to him.

“I imagine they can put him in prison anyway if he doesn’t have an air-tight alibi. A poverty-striken fellow with no money.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it that much,” said Justine. “I would prefer to forget about the whole thing.”

During the fall and winter, they left her alone.

She didn’t forget, however. Nathan kept coming to her. During the night, he would come in her dreams; during the day, he moved behind her, so close that she could almost feel his breath, but when she turned around, he slipped away into a corner and disappeared.

Yes, Nathan came to her, but less and less often.

Then all of this with Hans Peter. That winter day of mild temperatures and the shine of rain on the window, when they had made love to each other for the first time, she knew he had to go, but she didn’t want him to.

He said he had to go to work at his hotel.

They were in her kitchen. He embraced her, sat her on his lap.

“So strange… we don’t really know each other… but still.”

She threw her arms around him and burrowed her face into his neck.

“We know each other a little bit.”

“Yeah…”

“I want to… again,” she whispered.

“Just a few minutes.”

“A quickie.”

She cleared the table until it was empty, leaned forward on it and lifted her dress. She had no panties on. He stood behind her, his hands running over her thighs and hips. She moved against him so he would get a hard-on; she felt him through the cloth of his pants.

At that very moment, the telephone rang.

“Fuck!” she exclaimed. “Fuck it all.”

He had taken a few steps backward, lifted the receiver and handed it to her. She shook her head, but it was too late.

“Hello?” she said tensely.

“Hello… I’d like to speak with Justine Dalvik.”

“That’s me.”

“My name is Tor Assarsson. I’m Berit’s husband. I understand that you and Berit were schoolmates.”

“Yes, that’s right. Hi.”

“I’m nervous about her. She’s disappeared.”

“She has?”

“She hasn’t been home for over twenty-four hours.”

“Uh-huh?”

Her headache started It ate itself into her forehead and when she turned, it seemed like the skin of her cranium was being pulled, as if her entire skull had shrunk.

“I’m wondering… she was going to your place. Did she show up there?”

“Yes, yes, she did. We sat and talked for a while during the evening.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention to the clock.”

“Was it late?”

“Somewhat late perhaps.”

Hans Peter was observing her. He zipped up his pants; he smiled and shook his head. Justine tried to smile back.

“I have to admit that I am really worried.”

“I understand…”

“This is not like Berit. I’m afraid that something’s happened to her. Something bad, something awful.”