way out.
He started to look around the carriage. It was half full. A brunette a short distance away caught his eye. Around forty, grayish blue blouse, expensive gold earrings.
Not bad
, he thought. She was reading a book. Perfect—women in their forties reading a book only notched up a three on the difficulty scale, in his experience. It depended to a certain extent on what they were reading, but even so… He got up and walked over to her seat.
“I’m just going to the buffet car—can I get you anything?”
The woman looked up from her book with an inquiring expression. Unsure if he was speaking to her. Evidently he was, as she realized when she met his gaze.
“No, thanks, I’m fine.” She went back to her book.
“Are you sure? Not even a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.” She didn’t even look up.
“Tea? Hot chocolate?” This time she took her eyes off the book, looking up at Sebastian with a certain amount of irritation. Sebastian gave her his smile, which was practically patented.
“You can even get wine these days, but maybe it’s too early?”
The woman didn’t reply.
“Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m asking,” Sebastian went on. “I have no choice. I feel it’s my duty to save you from that book. I’ve read it. You’ll thank me one day.” The woman looked up and met his eyes. Sebastian smiled. The woman smiled back.
“A cup of coffee would be nice. Black, no sugar.”
“Coming up.” Another quick smile, which grew wider as Sebastian made his way along the carriage. Perhaps the trip to Västerås wouldn’t be so bad after all.
The Västerås police station was buzzing with activity. Kerstin Hanser glanced at the clock, her expression slightly stressed. She had to go. God knows she didn’t want to. She could easily come up with a hundred and one things she would rather do than go to the mortuary to meet Lena Eriksson. But it had to be done. Even though they were 100 percent certain that the boy they had found was Roger Eriksson, his mother still wanted to see him. Hanser had advised against it, but Lena Eriksson insisted. She wanted to see her son.
It hadn’t happened earlier in the day because Lena had put it off twice. Hanser didn’t know why. Nor did she care. She would have preferred it not to happen at all. Not with her in attendance, at any rate. This was the part of the job she hated the most, and she wasn’t all that good at it either. She tried to avoid the situation as often as possible, but it seemed as if people expected her to cope better because she was a woman. They imagined it would be easier for her to find the right words. That the relatives, the bereaved, would feel more comfortable with her presence, simply on the basis of her gender. Hanser thought this was nonsense. She never knew what to say. She could express her deepest condolences, perhaps put an arm around them, provide a shoulder to cry on, give them the number of someone to talk to, assure them over and over again that the police would do all they could to catch the person who had caused them so much suffering. She could certainly doall that, but mostly it was a matter of just standing there. Anyone could do that.
Hanser didn’t even remember who had been there from the police when she and her husband had identified Niklas. It had been a man. A man who had just stood there.
She could, in fact, send someone else with Lena. She probably would have, if the investigation thus far had looked slightly different. As it was, she couldn’t take any risks. The press was everywhere. It seemed that they already knew that the heart was missing. It was only a matter of time before they found out the boy had been gone for almost three days before the police started looking for him. Then there were the traumatized Scouts in the forest and Haraldsson’s “badly sprained ankle.” From here on, though, there would be absolutely nothing to criticize in this investigation. She would make sure of that. She