Page 47 of The Living and the Dead

Karl-Henrik had heard about the break-in, but he couldn’t say how or from whom. It was just something that registered with him but didn’t prompt a reaction. Like the weather. Had it been when Bengt called to offer his condolences? No, probably not. Not even Bengt Lindell was that tactless. Bengt was just like everyone else out here: green with envy. No surprise, really. Whoever had the most money attracted not only the most respect, but the most disdain. You couldn’t have one without the other, Karl-Henrik knew, and he had lived his life without bothering to care.

But Bengt hadn’t mentioned the burglary. He was probably ashamed—who wouldn’t be? He had only himself to blame, withdrawing his savings from the bank and stashing it in the kitchen bench.

“Apparently it came up during the party,” Siri said. “The money, that is. Jakob and Mikael had a fight. Do you know if they fought often?”

“About money?”

“No, in general.”

“No. No, Mikael, he was…”

“Yes,” Siri said. “I know. But could it have happened even so?”

“Yes,” said Karl-Henrik, suddenly helpless. He was only in control of insignificant things now. The important stuff had slipped from his grasp without his even noticing. “Yes, I guess it could have. But Jakoband Mikael got along. All the boys out here are friends. They like each other, and they like their parents.”

It sounded simpler than it was, but it felt true.

“Speaking of,” said Siri. “Do you think Mikael looked up to you?”

Karl-Henrik would have liked to reach for his cup, but he couldn’t. The question had made his arms go limp.

“Yes. He did. I know he did.”

Mikael never said so. As a father, you just know.

“And he liked Felicia a little extra, didn’t he? In fact,” she added, “that was what you were trying to say after the Advent service.”

Felicia. The other Grenberg. All these goddamn Grenberg women, as if they were the answer to the riddle, the solution to everything.

“Yes,” he managed to say. “He sure did.”

It was true. No doubt about it. Each time Felicia’s name came up recently, Mikael had gone all quiet and red in the face. Again: as a father, there are some things you just know.

Siri shared her theory: Mikael had called Felicia from Pierre’s house, maybe to see how she was doing, maybe to convince her to come to the party.

“When she said she was going to stay home, Mikael went to her place instead, after the party,” the policewoman continued.

“Do you know this, or are you guessing?”

“I’m trying to understand. I’m sure Mikael was eager to see her.”

The words burned inside Karl-Henrik, acid in his blood. When he thought about Mikael, what his boy wanted and wished for and dreamed of, all the things he wanted Mikael to experience. The world was his oyster, just out there waiting for him. He remembered what it was like to be eighteen and in love, that ache in your body and your heart when you were apart. He’d felt that way about Lillemor once upon a time. That was how Mikael felt about Felicia. What was so strange about that?

Then Karl-Henrik thought about Mikael’s hands, how soft and small they had once been, and how deft and capable they’d become as they held the Nintendo controller a few years later; how rough theyhad started to get in recent times. It had been years since those hands were soft now, but it didn’t feel like it. He could still feel that little hand in his own, dimpled knuckles and tiny fingers. He missed Mikael’s hair, how it smelled when he was warm and how he laughed too loud when he was on the phone, until Karl-Henrik and Lillemor had to turn up the TV to hear the news. It was almost unbearable, and he wanted to shout in Siri’s face, but he couldn’t. So he just sat quietly.

Karl-Henrik realized he wouldn’t be able to go on. An endpoint was approaching, when everything would stop. He couldn’t see it yet, didn’t know where it lurked, or when it would happen, but it was there and it was close.

He had a box of dynamite in the basement. The boys had brought it home last fall to blow up a boulder so they could expand the west pasture a little more. They’d only needed a fraction of the supply; most of it was still downstairs. He thought of it more and more often these days, that dynamite—every time he went to the basement. One fantasy that he’d begun to entertain was to walk down there with a lit match. Drop it, or maybe just fumble it by accident, and watch as the fire caught and grew, then close the door and go back upstairs. He would sit in the kitchen with one last cup and smell the smoke rising from the basement, yes, just smoke at first. Then the heat. And finally—it probably wouldn’t take long—the explosion beneath him as the dynamite ignited.

He went to the basement for more liquor. There was the dynamite, in its box.

“Are you getting any sleep, Karl-Henrik?”

It was Siri again. Was she back? He looked around when he reached the top of the stairs. No, it was just his memory. What a traitor, the mind; he could no longer be sure what was real. He drank more.

“I’m not sleeping at all.”

“I thought as much. How do you spend your nights?”