Free The Widows’ Cafe: A Short Story by Camilla Läckberg Page A

head.
    ‘No. No, thank you. He doesn’t like …’ Again she shook her head, allowing the rest of her sentence to fade away. Her blonde hair fell softly over her shoulders, and Marianne could see tiny scars on her face. Spidery little lines where the skin had split open and then healed.
    ‘But I’d like a Widow’s Special, please.’
    Marianne gave her a searching look. ‘Are you sure, sweetie?’
    She didn’t take her eyes off the young woman. For a moment, thousands of unspoken questions seemed to hover in the air, but they vanished as the woman slowly nodded.
    ‘Then that’s what you shall have,’ said Marianne, turning her back to her customer to fill the order with her usual efficiency.
    When the couple left half an hour later, she quickly cleared their table and went into the kitchen to wash the cups. When you ran your own business, you had to be very careful.
    ‘You’re fucking useless! Do you hear me? I could crush you and not even break into a sweat. Do you realize that?’
    He tightens his grip on her arm. Hatred and rage pour out of him. As if there’s something dark, something hollow inside of him. A hidden spot where all the hate and anger is stored – until it boils over because she doesn’t measure up, doesn’t do as he says. Fails to be the person she ought to be.
    ‘Why the hell should I keep you around if you can’t even clean things properly? Look at this! Do you see that? Do you?’
    He twists her arm into an awkward position as he forces her down on the floor. With his free hand he presses her face against the kitchen floor, right in front of the cooker.
    ‘Do you see it? Do you see it now? Is that how it’s supposed to look?’
    She looks as best she can with his fingers painfully gripping the back of her neck. But she doesn’t see a thing. The floor is gleaming after she scrubbed it for the second time today. It’s so spotless that she can see her own reflection in the wood. Not that it matters what she sees. Or doesn’t see. Because he sees something, so something must be there. She no longer asks any questions.
    The girl who sometimes helped out in the café had just gone home when the bell above the door rang.
    ‘We’re closed,’ said Marianne, without looking up.
    She was adding up the cash in the till, and she didn’t want to lose count.
    ‘I’m not here as a customer,’ said a voice, and when Marianne raised her eyes, at first all she saw was something shiny. Her glasses were perched on the tip of her nose, so she pushed them back up and realized the shiny object was a police badge.
    ‘I’m from the police. Detective Inspector Eva Wärn.’
    ‘The police?’ said Marianne, raising one eyebrow. ‘What’s this about? Don’t tell me one of the customers who was here when the boy swiped a couple of buns has bothered to report the theft. The kid looked so hungry, I don’t begrudge him a single crumb. I would have given him the buns for free, if he’d asked.’
    Eva Wärn waved her hand dismissively. ‘This is about a more serious matter.’
    The inspector nodded towards a table near the cash register. ‘Could we sit down for a moment?’
    ‘Sure. Of course. But can I offer you some coffee, since we’re going to sit down anyway? I’ve just bought this amazing machine, so I can have two cups ready in a matter of minutes.’
    Marianne tenderly patted her espresso machine, which had quickly become an invaluable addition to the café.
    ‘Well …’ Eva Wärn hesitated, but the thought of drinking something other than the wretched police station brew seemed to defeat her instinct to decline, and she nodded brusquely. ‘All right. Thanks. I suppose one cup wouldn’t hurt. Could you make it a caffe latte?’
    ‘Certainly, my dear,’ replied Marianne, and she turned around to begin fiddling with the apparatus. After the machine had steamed and sputtered for a few moments, she placed a latte on the table in front of the officer, with a dusting of cinnamon on top