Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

turn on my heel.
    And with heavy steps, I walk away.

WHEN KNUTAS CAME downstairs to the hotel breakfast room, he found Karin sitting next to the window with a cup of coffee and the morning paper in front of her. She had dark smudges under her eyes and she was frowning. As usual, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. Around one wrist was a leather strap with a green stone. On her feet, which stuck out from under the table, she wore purple trainers. She was deeply immersed in the article she was reading and didn’t notice when he paused in the doorway to study her.
    Knutas was overcome with tenderness for the slight figure sitting near the window. He felt a prickling in his hands and legs, as if tiny needles were sticking into his skin. For a second everything went black, and he had to hold on to the doorpost. He hadn’t slept a wink and his body ached with fatigue. When he left his hotel room, he had made up his mind. There was nothing else to do. He had to ask Karin to resign. To leave the police force. He took a step forward, then another. The distance to her table was about 10 metres. Moving like a sleepwalker, he continued forward, his eyes fixed on her face. Suddenly she felt his approach and looked up. Their eyes met.
    No, he thought. I can’t make a decision right now. I need more time to think things through.
    ‘Good morning,’ he said.
    ‘Good morning.’
    ‘Listen, I’d rather not discuss what we talked about last night. I need time to think.’
    ‘OK. But when we get home, I plan to hand in my resignation. Just so you know. I don’t want to cause you any problems, Anders.’
    Her words made him feel panic-stricken. Once before she had almost quit her job, and he didn’t want to go through that again.
    ‘Let’s not do anything hasty. You’re not responsible for my bloody welfare. Whatever I decide, it’ll be my decision. Please give me some time to think it over,’ he pleaded. He could hear for himself how insistent he sounded. ‘You’ve had to carry too much on your own. Try to let it all go for the time being.’
    She gave him a wan smile.
    They got the rental car from the Katarina garage, just a stone’s throw from the hotel. They did their best to ignore what they were both thinking about and tried to focus on the task ahead of them. Their personal problems would have to wait until later.
    Knutas found it surprisingly easy to make his way through the city. At first he kept to the shoreline, driving along Skeppsbron and Strandvägen, past the TV and radio building on Oxenstiernsgatan. Then he turned on to Valhallavägen, one of Stockholm’s most fashionable streets, which was designed like a French boulevard, very wide with a double row of trees down the middle. It came to an end at Roslagtull, and from there they continued straight ahead along Norrtäljevägen. Presumably he could have taken a more direct route through the city, but at least he had found the right road. And the view was spectacular, with the water glittering in between all of Stockholm’s islands and the magnificent buildings of the royal palace, the National Museum, the Dramaten theatre, and the Nordic Museum on Djurgården, which resembled a renaissance palace with its turrets and towers.
    As the investigation had progressed, Knutas had grown more curious about Mikaela Hammar. She had created a whole new life for herself away from Gotland. She had married a mainlander and moved to Stockholm’s archipelago. There she started a riding school, which she and her husband ran together. At the same time, she worked for a humanitarian aid organization.
    It was quite a drive. Knutas checked his watch as they passed Norrtälje, with at least 10 kilometres still ahead of them. It was just past eleven. Their plane home left at three thirty. They had plenty of time.
    When they drove across the bridge to the island of Vätö, he was reminded how different the archipelago was from Gotland. An entirely different kind of landscape. No long sand dunes here. Instead, he saw cliffs, boulders and skerries. Vätö was one of the bigger islands in Stockholm’s archipelago, with about a thousand permanent residents, shops, a post office, library and school. Many people who lived on the island commuted to Stockholm or Norrtälje. Mikaela Hammar and her family lived in Harg, at the centre of the island.
    They came to a big old gate at a curve in the road and turned into a horse pasture. The car bumped along on the narrow tractor track, and then