Free The Shadow Girls by Henning Mankell Page B

son who always complains of being tired? It must be from your father.’
    Then she started talking about how tired her husband had always been and Humlin stayed until three in the morning. In order not to be woken up by Andrea when she came home he put in earplugs and lay down on the couch in the living room. It took him a long time to fall asleep. In his thoughts he returned to the memory of the young woman who called herself Tea-Bag.
    *
    The following day Humlin stopped by his publisher’s office. He was going to try to convince him that his new idea was worth taking seriously. He even brought a woollen cap with him since he expected to spend a long time in Lundin’s ice-cold office. Lundin was rowing when he walked in.
    ‘I’m just leaving the Åland islands,’ Lundin said. ‘How is that crime novel going? I’m going to need a title from you in a week. We have to start planning the marketing campaign.’
    Humlin didn’t answer. He sat down in the chair furthest away from the air ventilation unit. When Lundin had finished rowing he marked his position with a red pin on a map of the Baltic. He lit a cigarette and sat down at his desk.
    ‘I take it you’re here to give me a title,’ Lundin said.
    ‘I’m here to tell you I will never write a crime novel. But I have another idea.’
    ‘It’s not as good.’
    ‘How can you say that when I haven’t even told you what it is?’
    ‘Only crime novels and certain indelicate confessional works sell more than fifty thousand copies.’
    ‘I’m going to write a book about an immigrant girl,’ Humlin said.
    Lundin gave him an interested look.
    ‘A confessional, then? How long has this little affair been going on?’
    Humlin pulled on his woollen cap. He was so cold he was shivering.
    ‘What’s the temperature in here, anyway, for God’s sake?’
    ‘One degree Celsius.’
    ‘Unbearable. How can you work in here?’
    ‘It’s good to toughen oneself up a little. Whatever happened to your tan, by the way?’
    ‘Nothing, other than the fact that it never stops raining in this godforsaken place. Do you want to hear me out or not?’
    Lundin threw out his arms in a gesture that Humlin interpreted as a mixture of openness and boredom. Humlin went on to present his idea with the feeling that he was being judged in a court of law where all those not writing crime novels were presumed guilty. Lundin lit another cigarette and measured his blood pressure. When Humlin was done, Lundin leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
    ‘It’ll sell four thousand, three hundred and twenty copies at most.’
    ‘How can you know that?’
    ‘It’s that kind of book. But you can’t write about fat immigrant girls. What do you know about their lives?’
    ‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’
    ‘They’ll never tell you the truth.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’m just telling you. I have experience in these matters.’
    Lundin jumped up and leaned over the table.
    ‘What you should write is a crime novel. Nothing else. Leave these fat girls alone. You don’t need them and they don’t need you. What we do need is a crime novel from you and then let some young immigrant talent write the great new Swedish novel. I want a title on my desk by the end of the week.’
    Lundin stood up.
    ‘It’s always a pleasure, Humlin. But I have a meeting with the oil executives. They have already indicated their approval of your new crime novel, by the way.’
    Lundin swept out of the room. Humlin went to the nearest cafe and drank some coffee to try to regain body heat. He wondered briefly if he should talk to Viktor Leander about his latest idea, but decided against it. If the idea was as good as he thought it was Leander would immediately use it.
    He took a taxi back to his apartment and noted with relief that neither Andrea nor his mother had left any messages. After leafing through the notes he had made for his next work of poetry – tentatively titled
Torment and Antithesis
– he