Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

creaked as I sank on to it. The biscuit crunched between my teeth, the juice I was offered was a tad too strong. Aunt Margareta and Mamma chatted about one thing or another – the weather and other meaningless small talk. Paying no attention to any of us children, as usual, as if we didn’t exist. We were their audience. Uncle Ulf mostly sat in silence, slurping his coffee and casting resigned glances at the two gabbing women. Marcel stuffed his mouth with the biscuits piled on his plate and then left to visit a friend. As soon as he disappeared through the door, the boasting began.
    ‘Marcel is so popular, you know. He’s always surrounded by friends. We hardly even see him these days,’ Aunt Margareta clucked, looking immeasurably pleased. ‘The girls just keep phoning and phoning him, one after the other. He went steady with a girl for almost two months. Helena, so nice and sweet, a real gem, but he broke up with her, and I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent on the phone talking to that girl. She’s completely devastated, the poor thing. But now he’s met someone else. Isabelle. And to top it all, she’s two years older than him. That worries me a bit. She’s not content just to hug and kiss, if you know what I mean. I’ve talked to him about contraception, of course, but it still makes me nervous . We don’t want him to get anyone pregnant. That would be terrible. And he’s out every weekend, every Friday and Saturday. Going to parties and dances and God only knows what else. But as long as he tends to his schoolwork, we let him be. He’s so smart, gets top marks in almost everything. He talks about wanting to be a doctor. Can you imagine that? But I’m sure he’d be good at the job, he’s so warm and open and outgoing. I think he really should work in a profession dealing with people. Although I don’t know how he does it, what with ice hockey taking up so much of his time. They practise three times a week, and then there are matches at the weekend. By the way, did you know that he was chosen as the best player of the year by his hockey team? Yes, he’s really incredible. I have no idea who he gets it from. Ha, ha, ha. Ulf has never been interested in sports, have you, dear?’
    She stopped talking only to take a sip of coffee. Mamma smiled appreciatively and nodded encouragement as she stirred her coffee and murmured an occasional admiring remark. Aunt Margareta chattered on and on, talking only about Marcel, as if he were God’s gift to humanity.
    The biscuit seemed to swell inside my mouth. With every word I felt smaller and smaller. Suddenly my aunt turned to look at me, as if she’d just discovered that I was in the room.
    ‘And what about you? Do you have a girlfriend?’
    The question was so unexpected that it took a moment for me to respond, shaking my head.
    I wanted to sink into the green carpet. Allow myself to be swallowed up.
    In the car on the way home, Mamma kept on raving about how great Marcel was.
    ‘And just think – Margareta told me that he has already started shaving,’ she exclaimed. ‘He even has to do it every day!’
    I didn’t say a word.
    My siblings didn’t either.

THE RAIN WAS pouring down, so Knutas drove his beat-up old Merc to work. He still couldn’t get himself to part with the car, despite pressure from Lina to sell it. He let her take the new car, since he assumed she wouldn’t want to walk either, if the bad weather continued. He remembered her saying that they’d had lasagne for dinner the night before. Was that really part of a low-glycaemic diet? He smiled to himself. It was always the same thing with Lina. She would start out so enthusiastic and with lots of big plans whenever she decided to lose some weight. She would collect a whole bunch of information, buy exercise equipment and fill the refrigerator with the proper food. The diet usually lasted no more than two weeks.
    When Knutas entered the conference room for the meeting of the investigative team, he was eager to get going.
    ‘Good morning, everyone,’ he began.
    He raised his hand to quiet the usual morning buzz of conversation. Sometimes he felt like a schoolteacher in a classroom. Right now he wanted to tell his colleagues about what he’d discovered the previous evening. He briefly described how he happened to find Veronika Hammar’s studio at the same address as Viktor Algård’s flat.
    ‘But isn’t she at least sixty?’ Wittberg interjected. ‘I thought