‘Never say never. I’ve read a draft.’
Humlin felt a stabbing sensation in his stomach.
‘She sent you a manuscript?’
‘One page, to be more precise. Handwritten. She summarised the plot in a few paragraphs, something about cannibals and civil servants I think. I couldn’t read all of it since her handwriting is somewhat difficult but one has to have patience with ninety-year-old first-time authors.’
‘I’m telling you you’ll never see a book from her.’
‘I’ve been worried about you. Are you done with that crazy stuff in Gothenburg?’
‘No. And it’s not crazy.’
‘As long as I get my crime novel you can spend your time however you please. I’d like it to be three hundred and eighty-four pages.’
‘I was thinking of something more like three hundred and eighty-nine.’
‘No can do. We’ve already informed the book binders and ordered the paper. How far along are you? Why is the book set in Helsinki? It’s too easy for it to degenerate into a cold war spy thriller. Brazil is better.’
Humlin was taken aback.
‘Why is it better?’
‘It’s warmer.’
Humlin thought about Lundin’s ice-cold office and wondered if there was a connection.
‘I’m just joking with you,’ Humlin said. ‘I’m not in Helsinki, I’m in Gothenburg. I’m not planning to write a crime novel. I don’t know what I’m going to write next. Maybe a story about a young pickpocket, or a book about a girl who has a monkey on her back.’
‘Are you ill, Humlin?’
‘No.’
‘You are talking very strangely.’
‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about when you called yesterday?’
‘I just wanted to reassure myself that the news in the paper wasn’t true. I await your crime novel with pleasure. So do the oil executives.’
‘There’s not going to be a crime novel.’
‘The line’s breaking up. I can’t hear you.’
‘I said, there’s not going to be a crime novel.’
‘I can’t hear anything now. I’m going to hang up. Come up and see me when you get back. We need to talk. And the marketing department want to meet with you to present their ideas for your next book campaign.’
He hung up. Humlin was exhausted. The feeling of having lost his foothold in life returned like a great weight. It was as if someone had blocked all the exits out of a burning house.
An hour went by. He had just started to gather up his things, assuming that Tanya was not going to return, when the door to the cafe swung open.
Tanya was back. With Leyla.
When Humlin sat up in bed he had no idea where he was. He had just had a series of disconnected dreams in which he was strangling his mother. Slowly his memory of the recent past returned. He looked at the time. It was a quarter to eleven. Tanya had left shortly after eight and he had immediately fallen asleep since he was exhausted from his long night at the police station. His head was still throbbing; sleep had not helped that. All of the events since he had arrived by bus in Gothenburg the night before seemed painfully clear. Most of all he wanted to dive back into sleep, back into the unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar apartment in Stensgården, to try to forget. But he knew it wouldn’t work.
He tiptoed out into the kitchen and drank some water. Then he walked around the apartment and tried to identify any objects that looked like they belonged to Tanya. She had claimed that she lived here, if only temporarily and in secret. He found no traces of her. In one of the kitchen cabinets that was filled with, to him, unknown spices, he saw a brand of coffee he recognised. He boiled some water, trying not to make any noise that would draw unwanted attention from the neighbours and then sat down on a chair by the window in the living room with his cup of coffee. A wet snow was falling onto the uniform rows of apartment buildings outside. In the horizon he saw an expanse of forest, then some exposed granite bluffs and the sea.
He thought back to the moment when the girls had walked into the cafe. He had got up and started walking towards them when Tanya motioned for him to stop.
‘I just wanted to say hello,’ Humlin said when Tanya pushed him back down in his chair.
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Someone who knows her might see you. And that wouldn’t be good.’
‘I was just going to say hello. That was all.’
Humlin watched as Tanya returned to Leyla. The girls sat down at a table in the corner. From time to time they looked over at him but without interrupting their conversation. Leyla was wearing a thick shawl over her head.
Humlin was confused and this irritated him. Finally Tanya returned to his table like a messenger.
‘Why did she come here if I can’t even go over and say hello to her?’
‘Leyla wanted to see with her own eyes that you were here. That you came back.’
‘Törnblom said you had all decided to cancel the whole thing.’
‘What else could we have done when you didn’t turn up? We’re used to disappointments.’
‘I just want to state for the record that the only person to disappear in this context was Tea-Bag. No one else.’
‘She must have had her reasons. It’s always best to be careful in a country like Sweden.’
‘Why Sweden?’
