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by another thought.
    “I know someone from the Inverness area,” he said. “A colleague, actually.”
    Anette’s dad poured her a cup and placed it in her hand. His son had been standing by the window looking out, and then he left and continued carrying things.
    Aneta sat on a stool in the bare kitchen. The table was folded up and leaning against the wall.
    “Why did you decide to come here now?” Lindsten asked.
    “I was here the other day, and it didn’t look so good,” she answered.
    “What didn’t?”
    Aneta sipped her coffee, which was hot and strong.
    “The situation.”
    “Did the neighbors call?”
    “Yes,” she answered. “And it wasn’t the first time.”
    “But it was the last,” he said.
    “At least from here,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “From this place.”
    “No,” said Lindsten, and she saw the resolve in his face. “There will be no more times.” He drank from his cup, with the same resolve. She could see that the hot coffee hurt his throat.
    “Where is Anette now?” Aneta asked.
    He didn’t answer at first.
    “In a safe place,” he said after a bit.
    “Is she staying at your house?”
    “For the time being,” he said, and looked away.
    “Do you know where her husband is?”
    “No,” he answered.
    “What we’re discussing now is very important,” said Aneta. “From a general perspective, too. There are many women who are afraid of their husbands. Or their exes. Who try to stay away. Who must go into hiding. Or who sometimes hope for a change. Who stay.”
    “Well, that’s over with in this case,” said Lindsten.
    “Who rents the apartment?” asked Aneta.
    “It’s always been in Anette’s name,” he said. “There are two months left on the lease but that’s our treat, if I can say so. It will be empty.”
    “Have you spoken with the husband? Her husband?”
    “That damn bastard? He called yesterday and I told him to stay away.”
    “Will he?”
    “If he shows up at our house, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop Peter from beating him up, and then we’d really have to deal with the police, wouldn’t we?”
    “Yes. That’s not a good way to go about it.”
    “He’d be getting a taste of his own medicine,” said Lindsten. “His own bitter medicine.”
    They heard a box thud in the hall, a curse from Peter Lindsten. The dad motioned toward the hall with his head. “The difference would be that that devil would be dealing with someone his own size.”
    Forsblad, Hans Forsblad. That was the man’s name. Aneta had seen the name in the papers at the dispatch center, and later with her colleagues in Kortedala. The matter was on its way to the coordinator for the violence against women program.
    Forsblad’s name was very Swedish too, she thought—“rapids leaf”—it came from nature, and just like his wife’s it linked something with great power to infinite lightness. An airiness. Who stood for what? Should it be interpreted physically?
    “Doesn’t he have the keys to this place?” she asked.
    “We’ve changed the locks,” said Lindsten.
    “Where are his things?”
    “He knows where he can collect them,” said Lindsten.
    Somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine, thought Aneta.
    “So you’ve made him homeless.”
    Lindsten laughed suddenly, a laugh without joy.
    “He hasn’t stayed a night in this apartment for a damn long time,” he said. “He’s been here, it’s true. But only to … to …” And suddenly it was as though his face cracked and she saw his eyes fill and how he suddenly turned toward the window, as though he were ashamed of his behavior, but it wasn’t shame.
    “She didn’t have a restraining order,” said Aneta. “Unfortunately.”
    “As though it would help,” said Lindsten in a muffled voice, with his head lowered.
    “He could have been issued a restraining order if Anette had reported him,” said Aneta. “Or someone else. I could have made the decision myself, for the short term. I was