Unspoken

immediately.”
    “Sure,” said the man with the cap, and then he, too, leaned back against the wall.
    Johan Berg opened the morning paper as he sat at the kitchen table in his apartment on Heleneborgsgatan in Stockholm. The apartment was on the ground floor facing the courtyard, but that didn’t bother him. The Södermalm district was the very heart of the city, and in his eyes there was no better place to live. One side of the building faced the waters of Riddarfjärden and the old prison island of Långholm with its bathing rocks and wooded walking paths. On the other side the shops, pubs, cafés, and subway were all within easy reach. The red subway line went directly to Karlaplan, and from there it was only a five-minute walk to the editorial headquarters of Swedish TV.
    He subscribed to several daily newspapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet , and Dagens Industri . Currently Gotlands Tidningar was also in the stack that he plowed through each morning. After the events of the summer, his interest in Gotland had been given a boost. For more reasons than one.
    He scanned the headlines: “Crisis in Housing for Elderly,” “Police on Gotland Earn Less Than Officers on the Mainland,” “Farmer Risks Losing EU Subsidies.”
    Then he noticed a news item: “Man Found Dead in Gråbo. Police Suspect Foul Play.”
    As he cleared away the breakfast dishes he thought about the article. Of course it sounded like an ordinary drunken fight, but his curiosity was aroused. He took a quick look at himself in the mirror and put a little gel on his dark curly hair. He was actually in need of a shave, but there was no time for that. His dark stubble would just have to grow out a bit. He was thirty-seven but looked younger. Tall and well built, with regular features and brown eyes. Women were always falling for him—and he’d taken advantage of that fact many times in the past. But not anymore. Ever since six months ago, only one woman existed for him: Emma Winarve of Roma on the island of Gotland. They had met when he was covering the hunt for a serial killer last summer.
    She had turned his life upside down. He had never met a woman who moved him so deeply; she challenged him and made him think along whole new lines. He liked himself better when he was with her. When his friends asked him what was so special about Emma, he had a hard time explaining. Everything was just so obvious. And he knew that his feelings were reciprocated.
    Things had gone so far that he thought she was actually considering leaving her husband, that it was just a matter of time. He had started fantasizing about moving to Gotland and working for one of the newspapers or for the local radio station. They would move in together, and he would be a stepfather for her two children.
    Instead, just the opposite had happened. After the murderer was caught and the case was closed, she called it off. He was completely taken by surprise. His life fell apart. He was forced to take sick leave for several weeks, and when he recovered enough that he could take a vacation, she never left his thoughts for a moment.
    When he came home he wrote her a letter. Quite unexpectedly, she answered, and then they started seeing each other again. They mostly met whenever Johan went to Gotland on a story. Occasionally she managed to get away to meet him in Stockholm. But he could tell that she wasn’t comfortable with all the lying and that she was struggling with terrible feelings of guilt. Finally she asked for a two-month break. October and November. She explained that she needed some distance and time to think.
    Suddenly they had no communication at all. No text messages, no e-mails, no phone calls.
    But she had relented once. He was on Gotland on assignment and called her up. She happened to be feeling unhappy just then, and weak, so they met. A quick meeting that merely confirmed how strong their feelings were for each other, at least that’s what he thought.
    After that, nothing. He had made a couple of awkward attempts, but in vain. She was intractable.
    At the same time, he understood. It was difficult for her, since she was married and had young children.
    But weeks of restless nights, chain-smoking, and a constant, overwhelming longing for her had taken their toll on him, to put it mildly.
    On his way to the subway station, he called Anders Knutas in Visby.
    The police superintendent answered at once.
    “Knutas.”
    “Hi. Johan Berg from Regional News here.