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amount of follow-up: ‘Nothing.’
    Ellinor nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, or at least with the fact that she had got his attention once more. Sebastian reached for a slice of melon. He ought to be able to get that down, surely.
    ‘What are you working on?’
    ‘Why?’
    An unpleasant response, positively rude, but it was just as well to put a stop to things straight away. Sebastian really didn’t want this already unpleasant breakfast experience to develop into an opportunity to get to know one another. They knew enough. He knew more about her than she did about him. She knew that his name was Sebastian Bergman, and that he was a psychologist. He had managed to evade any further personal questions by pretending to be interested in her.
    ‘You said you had to work,’ Ellinor went on. ‘It’s the middle of July, most people are on holiday, so I just wondered what you were doing.’
    ‘I’m working on a kind of . . . report.’
    ‘What’s it about?’
    ‘It’s a . . . follow-up. For the police academy.’
    ‘I thought you said you were a psychologist?’
    ‘I am, but I sometimes work with the police.’
    She nodded. Took a sip of her tea and reached for her baguette.
    ‘When does it have to be finished?’
    What a fucking question.
    ‘In about two weeks.’
    Those green eyes. She knew he was lying. It didn’t really matter to him. He couldn’t care less what she thought of him, but he wasn’t at all comfortable with this everyday breakfast situation when they both knew it was just a sham. A chimera. Enough. He pushed back his chair. ‘I have to go.’
    ‘I’ll call you.’
    ‘Sure . . .’
    The door closed behind Sebastian. Ellinor listened to his footsteps as he walked down the stairs. She smiled to herself. When she couldn’t hear him anymore, she got up and went back into the bedroom. Over to the window. If he crossed the street and turned left she would be able to see him. He didn’t.
    Ellinor sank down onto the unmade double bed. She lay down on his side. Pulled his sheet over her, buried her nose in his pillow and inhaled deeply. She held her breath, as if she were trying to keep the smell of him inside her.
    Hold on to him.

Vanja lived in an apartment on the hill above the Free Port. Sebastian was fairly sure it was a three-room apartment. As sure as he could be from his observation point on a small hillock a hundred metres away. It was a modern, pale yellow building. Seven storeys. Vanja lived on the fourth floor. No one was moving around inside the apartment, as far as he could see. Perhaps she was still asleep. Or at work. It didn’t really matter if he didn’t see her right now. He had come here mostly because he didn’t know where else to go.
    A few weeks ago it had been different.
    He had got it into his head that he had to see her. Needed to see her. See what she was doing. He had decided he had to get a better view than the hillock could provide, and to achieve this he had tried to climb one of the large leafy trees growing in the hollow below the hillock. The first metre had gone much better than expected. He managed to get a good grip on a couple of branches higher up, and kept going. Then he spotted a suitable branch even higher up, and after groping around for a while he was able to heave himself up a few more metres. The sun was shining through the leaves, which smelled wonderfully fresh. He suddenly felt like a little boy in the middle of an adventure. How long was it since he had climbed a tree? Many, many years. But he had been good at it.
    Agile.
    Fast.
    His father hadn’t encouraged him; he had always been of the opinion that Sebastian ought to be devoting his time to intellectual challenges, developing his musicality and his artistic and creative talents. His mother had been more worried about the state of his clothes. Neither of them had been happy about his tree-climbing, so he had done it often. As often as possible. And now he was once again enjoying