Page 117 of The Living and the Dead

“Killian?”

“Been ages since I heard anyone say that name out loud. It feels kind of weird.”

He looked out the window at the driveway, Sander’s car gleaming in the sun.

“Nice to have a car. Walking everywhere really takes a toll. Especially with this heat. But at least there are sidewalks here. It’s nice.”

Something shifted in Sander’s throat, something that wanted out. He was afraid it was a scream, but it didn’t quite feel like one. He didn’t know what it would be until he opened his mouth.

Sander began to laugh. Killian just stared at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Okay,” said Sander. “Okay.”

Sander’s laughter grew louder. He made a face. The man at his kitchen table began to laugh, too, at first in a terse, bursting sort of way, like he was trying to suppress it, but then noisily and warmly as it tumbled all through his big body. Wave after wave passed through them. The sound ricocheted and echoed through the empty house. They sat there like two friends who had pulled off a massive con.

“It was you I saw,” Sander said, “wasn’t it?”

Killian stiffened. Were the words more dangerous than Sander thought? When he relaxed again, it seemed like it took a lot of effort. “Where?”

“Outside the chapel. And after the funeral. Across the field, over by the bushes where the Söderströms’ house used to be.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “It probably was. I couldn’t miss it, you know? He was my dad.” He had grown solemn, the last wordssounding awfully thick as they came out. “Yours are both still alive, aren’t they? I thought I saw them. How are they?”

Questions for an old friend you run into at the grocery store. As if the events of the past had suddenly become insignificant.

“They’re getting old. Dad uses a cane. But they’re good.”

Killian, if it really was him, didn’t respond. Maybe he was thinking of his own parents. One hand tapped lightly at his glass.

“What is going on?” Sander said, but it wasn’t entirely clear who he was addressing.

“Can we just…” Killian began, but then he hesitated, as if he, too, were beginning to realize how bizarre this was. “Can we just hang out for a little bit? You know, like we always used to. Is that okay?”

An odor rose from Killian when he moved, maybe it was his clothing. Sander inhaled it. All the other senses can fool a person, but not smell.

It was really him.

“What do you mean, what do you want to do?” was all that came out.

“Do you have any beer?”

“No.”

Killian glanced at his backpack. “Good thing I do.”

His eyes sparkled. Then he stopped to consider something and quirked his lips.

“I understand I have a grave. I’d like to see it.”

87

Siri was unprepared for this, Vidar could tell. As she walked by his side through the leafy dark shadows of Norre Katt Park, she didn’t speak for a long time, perhaps trying to get her memories in order before she fixed them into words. She was the one who had suggested they take a walk; she said she did her best thinking when she was moving her body.

“It really didn’t start with Hampus Olsson,” she said now. “I guess Hampus Olsson has probably never been a significant factor, at least in this case. Or—who knows. All I know is, this whole mess started with a raid we did in August 2002. My last big one, before I quit.”

“A raid on a homeless encampment,” Vidar said.