Page 139 of The Living and the Dead

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think so, given that Killian died and the landslide happened shortly thereafter. He looked to be the culprit, and when he died all the air went out of the investigation.”

“But he didn’t die.”

“No,” Vidar said. “He didn’t.”

Markus let out what sounded like a hiss.

“Yeah,” Vidar said. “I know. But this is where we’re at. They did what they could back then, that’s my sense.”

Now Vidar could hear that Markus was taking notes. “What about Filip Söderström?”

“One thing leads to another. Unfortunately, Killian and Filip crossed paths after the funeral. Maybe Filip threatened to expose him? I don’t know. We may never find out.”

“And the landslide,” Markus said.

Yes,Vidar thought.The landslide.

The blood had dried. If he rubbed his fingertips together, it flaked and fell away. It had been too late by the time Vidar knelt down beside Killian, but he’d still tried.

Vidar jumped as someone knocked on his window, frantic and loud.

“Hey,” Vidar said to Markus, “I have to go.”

Outside, he saw the dripping face of Adrian al-Hadid.

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Sander had Killian’s blood on his hands. It mixed with his own blood, which slowly seeped from the wound in his hand. Before long, he couldn’t tell which had come from his body and which was Killian’s. He turned around to look at Killian’s body over and over, convinced he would find it had vanished again, as though his friend were never more than a mirage.

Cameras flashed around him again and again like icy heartbeats. They had documented the blood and the bruises on his neck.

Sander sat on the floor in the kitchen and looked around for Felicia, but he couldn’t find her.

Instead, there was Killian’s backpack. No one had taken it. With care, he opened the bag.

—

Stuff. Just stuff. And yet: this was the worst part, as if its sole purpose were to torture him. Torture someone who could both remember and imagine. Were there more belongings of Killian’s, somewhere? It seemed reasonable; this backpack was small and didn’t hold much. Even so, he had his doubts.

This was what had belonged to Killian.

One pair of jeans, black. Lee. A hole in the left knee.

One T-shirt, dark gray. No, it had once been black but had fadedbadly. Traces of print across the chest:I Just Came for the Food.Killian’s sense of humor.

Two pairs of underwear. Björn Borg brand, threadbare. Holes in the crotch.

Socks.

A Nokia phone, an old model with buttons. Powered off, the battery dead. Slightly banged up at the edges and with a faded sticker on the back: a colorful mayflower, maybe put there by the phone’s former owner. Or did Killian buy mayflowers for the annual fundraiser? Maybe he did.

A phone charger.

A bar of beige soap the size of a pack of cigarettes, wrapped up in a sticky plastic bag. Lemon-scented.

An unlabeled bottle. Sander unscrewed the cap. Acetone.

A brown comb with skinny, closely spaced teeth. Strands of blond hair were still stuck in it; it still had a smell. Killian’s hair. Sander gently pulled one out and placed it in his palm. It was hardly visible, as fine and pale as it was.