Free Hour of the Wolf by Håkan Nesser Page B

flowers on his grave. And so on. It feels as if . . . as if I was practising for what’s happened. It’s reality now, and during those years I knew that it would be, one of these days. Or thought so, at least. I had almost managed to forget it, but we’re there now. Erich is dead.’
    He fell silent again. The newspaper boy or some neighbour or other passed by on the landing outside. Ulrike made as if to say something, but changed her mind.
    ‘I tried to get into Keymerkyrkan while I was out walking,’ Van Veeteren continued, ‘but it was locked. Can you tell me why we need to keep our churches locked up?’
    She stroked his hands gently. A minute passed. Two minutes. She was sitting there digesting his words, he realized that.
    ‘Erich didn’t die because he wanted to die,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s an important difference.’
    He didn’t answer. Let go of her with his right hand and took a sip of tea.
    ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps that does make an important difference. I find it hard to decide that just now.’
    Then silence again. The grey light of dawn had begun to creep in through the window. It was a few minutes past seven. The street and the town had woken up. To yet another November day. Life was about to start moving again.
    ‘I don’t have the strength to talk about it any more,’ said Van Veeteren. ‘I can’t see the point of wrapping it up in a mass of words. Forgive me if I say nothing. I’m very grateful that you are here. Eternally grateful.’
    ‘I know,’ said Ulrike Fremdli. ‘No, it’s not about words. It’s not about you and me at all. Shall we go back to bed for a while?’
    ‘I wish it was me instead.’
    ‘It’s futile, thinking like that.’
    ‘I know. Futility is the playing field of desire.’
    He emptied his cup and followed her into the bedroom.
    Renate rang at lunchtime: his ex-wife, the mother of his dead son. The call lasted twenty minutes: sometimes she was speaking, sometimes crying. When he replaced the receiver, he thought about what Ulrike had said.
    It’s not about you and me at all.
    He decided he would try to bear that comment in mind. Ulrike had lost her husband in circumstances reminiscent of these: that was three years ago, and that was how they had first met. Van Veeteren and Ulrike Fremdli. There was a lot to suggest that she knew what she was talking about.
    In so far as it was possible to know. At two o’clock he got into his car and drove out to Maardam’s airport to collect Jess. She was overcome by despair even as she walked towards him in the arrivals hall: they fell into each other’s arms and remained standing in the middle of the floor like that – for what seemed hours. Just stood there, in the midst of the usual hustle and bustle that was the norm at Sechshafen, swaying back and forth in wordless, timeless, mutual sorrow.
    He and his daughter Jess. Jess with the seven-year-old twins and a husband in Rouen. Erich’s sister. His only remaining child.
    ‘I don’t want to meet Mum yet,’ she admitted when they came to the car park. ‘Can we just drive somewhere and sit down for a bit?’
    He drove to Zeeport, the little pub out at Egerstadt. Phoned Renate and explained that they would be a little late, then they spent the rest of the afternoon sitting opposite each other at one of the tables with a view over the dunes and the rain. And of the lead-grey sky that formed a sort of weighty dome over the windswept, barren stretch of coast. She insisted on keeping the fingers of one hand intertwined with his, even while they were eating; and like Ulrike Fremdli she seemed to have understood that what was needed was not words.
    That it wasn’t about the two of them. That it was Erich, and what mattered was clinging on to him.
    ‘Have you seen him?’ she asked eventually.
    Yes, he had been to the Forensic Science Clinic briefly on Sunday. He thought Jess should also go there. If she felt she wanted to. Possibly the next day – he