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his best to help his sister as much as he could, but he hadn’t exactly been well off either. When both of Kicki’s parents died in a car accident at the end of the nineties, Cecilia had tried to support Kicki, but she hadn’t been able to offer much in the way of consolation.
    Just a few years later, Cecilia had begun to have difficulty holding the bottles when she was working the checkout counter. It was as if her left thumb simply gave way. She started to drop bottles, and the manager was always on her back. She was in a constant state of anxiety and blamed the fact that she was close to retirement. A lifetime in the service of Systemet with all the heavy lifting involved had taken its toll.
    Eventually her coworkers had persuaded her to visit the company’s medical center. After a series of tests she was given a diagnosis by the doctors—she was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive and incurable motor neuron disease that slowly paralyzes nerve after nerve, muscle after muscle. When the paralysis reaches the lungs, the patient dies.
    In Cecilia’s case, it was no more than a year between the diagnosis and her funeral. She simply gave up. She lay down and waited for death, slowly stiffening in the fetal position and shrinking right in front of them. She had neither the strength nor the will left to fight.
    Krister had found it very difficult to deal with his mother’s condition. He couldn’t cope with watching her fade away. He would put off visiting her in the nursing home for as long as possible and refused to talk about Cecilia’s illness. He seemed to think that everything would be all right if he just pretended that nothing was wrong.
    After the funeral he had gotten so drunk that Kicki had been afraid of what he might do. He had sat at home sniveling and weeping with a bottle in each hand. After a while he had fallen asleep fully dressed on the sofa, his face red and puffy with the alcohol. It was as if he had only just grasped the fact that his mother was dead.
    Kicki poured herself another glass of ouzo. Her hand was shaking as she put down the bottle; her unease over Krister was gnawing away in the pit of her stomach. She must call Thomas Andreasson first thing in the morning and find out what he wanted.

W EDNESDAY, THE SECOND WEEK

C HAPTER 9
    Thomas spotted Kicki Berggren even before he reached the bottom of the stairs behind the reception desk in Nacka station.
    She was wearing a white denim jacket adorned with sparkling studs. Faded jeans, a tight pink top, and high-heeled sandals completed the picture. From behind, she looked like a young girl; she had a slender figure and boyish hips. When she turned around he could see that she was a middle-aged woman, closer to fifty than forty. The blond hair was too long to be flattering. She certainly wasn’t a natural blonde; the dark roots gave that away. A fine network of lines above her upper lip revealed her to be a habitual smoker. She was very tan, almost mahogany.
    He wondered how she had managed to acquire a tan like that in the Swedish summer. He also noticed that she was fiddling nervously with a denim purse. It was obvious she was dying to light up, but the sign on the wall was very clear: “No Smoking.”
    Thomas walked up to her and held out his hand. “Good morning, I’m Thomas Andreasson. Thank you for coming in so quickly. I understand you’ve been away?”
    “I’ve been in Greece,” Kicki said. She gave the impression of being ill at ease, presumably because she was wondering why he wanted to speak to her.
    Thomas showed her to his office.
    “Coffee?” He poured two cups; coffee was a good icebreaker. “I’m afraid it doesn’t taste particularly good, but it’s all we’ve got. Please sit down.” He pointed to the chair opposite his desk.
    Kicki sat down and crossed her legs, her shoe dangling from one foot as if it might fall off at any moment.
    “Can I smoke in here?” she asked, more in hope than