Julienne was too tired to protest. She leaned her head against the door and closed her eyes. Faye put one hand on her thigh and pulled out onto the highway again.

Twenty miles from J?nk?ping she had had enough of Whitney Houston. Keeping her eyes on the road she felt for her mobile to put a podcast on instead, but couldn’t find it. She slowed down and pulled in behind a red Volkswagen Golf, then reached for her handbag, which she had left on the back seat after stopping at the petrol station. As she felt behind her, the car veered slightly. Julienne let out a whimper, sighed groggily, then fell back to sleep again.

Faye stopped. Shivering with cold she felt through her pockets, under the seats. But her phone wasn’t there. She realized it could be anywhere, at the roadside where they had stopped, or at the petrol station. She stifled a scream so as not to wake Julienne. She hit the steering wheel with both hands in frustration. Her phone contained the number and address of the neighbor who was going to give them the keys to the house.

Faye turned around in a side road and started to head back toward Stockholm. When she was younger she never gave up, but in recent years she had had a lot of practice at it.

Matilda would never have given up. But Faye knew exactly how it was done.

—

Faye was carrying Julienne in one arm and their luggage in the other. The elevator door closed and she slid the grille across. She looked at her face in the mirror: dark rings under her eyes, puffy, pale skin. Beads of sweat on her forehead and top lip. And a look of resignation.

Julienne opened her eyes.

“Where are we?” she murmured sleepily.

“Home, darling. You weren’t feeling well, we can go to Sk?ne another time.”

Julienne smiled dully. Nodded.

“I feel sleepy,” she whispered.

“I know, sweetheart. You’ll soon be back in your own bed.”

The elevator stopped with a jolt. Faye opened the grille and hoisted Julienne up onto her hip. The weight was making her arms ache. Julienne had her arms wrapped around her like a little monkey, and protested feebly when she put her down to look for the keys.

Jack hated it if she rang the doorbell and disturbed him.

Eventually she got the door open and they stumbled into the apartment. She summoned the last of her strength to get Julienne’s coat and boots off, carry her to her bed, and kiss her good night. Then she went up into the tower to see if Jack was still working.

The study was empty and smelled stuffy. She opened the window to air it, placing a plant pot in the gap to stop the window from slamming shut.

Jack must be at work, she thought with relief as she headed toward the bedroom to shower and change her clothes. She was glad she had a chance to freshen up before he got home. She felt pathetic, and didn’t want him to see her looking like a damp rag.

Faye pulled the bedroom door open and it was as if the room in front of her was suddenly full of water. Everything stopped around her. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and a ringing in her ears that grew louder with each passing second.

Jack was standing at the foot of the bed with his back to her. Naked. Faye stared at his backside. Saw the familiar birthmark on his right buttock. The birthmark was moving back and forth as he groaned and thrust his hips. In front of him was a woman on all fours, her back arched, legs wide apart.

Faye staggered and reached out for the doorframe for support.

Everything was happening so slowly. All sound was muffled, subdued. The floor around the bed was littered with clothes, as if they had been in a hurry to get out of them.

She had no idea how long she had been standing there before they noticed her.

Maybe she let out a shriek without being aware of it. Jack turned around, Ylva Lehndorf leaped up and tried in vain to cover herself with a pillow.

“What the hell, I thought you were in Sk?ne!” Jack yelled. “What are you doing here?”

Faye tried to speak. How could he be angry? With her? She stood there speechless. Then a torrent of words tumbled out, about Julienne, her phone, the drive home. She tried to explain, tried to make excuses. Jack held one hand up and Faye fell silent at once.

Jack gestured to Ylva, his business partner, to put her clothes on, and reached for a bathrobe. He was bound to be frustrated by the fact that he hadn’t been able to come. He hated to be interrupted. He used to say that the ruined orgasm stayed in his body all day.

Jack sat down on the edge of the bed. Looked at her with a cold, steady gaze.

“I want a divorce,” he said.

The air went out of her.

“No,” she said, clutching the doorframe. “No, Jack. I forgive you. We don’t have to talk about this again, you made a mistake, that’s all. We’ll get through this.”

The words echoed in her head. Bounced between the two lobes of her brain without finding a foothold. But she heard herself say them. So she must have said them. And meant them.

Jack was shaking his head from side to side. Behind him Ylva had put her underwear on and was staring out of the window.

Jack was looking directly at Faye, studying her from top to toe, and she ran a hand nervously through her hair, all too aware of how she looked. He tied the dressing-gown tighter around his waist.

“It’s not a mistake. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t want to live with you.”

“We can get through this,” Faye repeated.

Her legs were close to giving way. Tears were running down her cheeks. She could hear the desperation in her voice.

“Can’t you hear what I’m saying? I don’t love you anymore. I . . . I love her.”

He nodded toward Ylva, who turned to look at Faye. She was still wearing nothing but her underwear. Gray La Perla. Her taut stomach, perfect breasts, narrow boyish hips all mocked Faye. She was everything that Faye no longer was.

Jack sighed and Ylva’s wary expression turned to derision as Faye sank to her knees in front of Jack. The wooden floor felt hard under her knees. They had had all the floors replaced when they moved in. Faye had wanted them to sand and oil the original floors, she thought they were beautiful, but Jack had snorted at the suggestion. Instead they had imported new floors from Italy, at a cost of several thousand kronor per square foot. But the expensive floor hurt her knees just as much as the old original floor would have. It made no difference to her humiliation.

“Please,” she begged. “Give me one more chance. I’ll change, I’ll be better. I know I’ve been hard to live with, mean . . . foolish . . . stupid. But I’ll make you happy. Please, Jack, give me a chance. You and Julienne are all I’ve got. You’re my life.”

Faye tried to take Jack’s hand but he pulled it away. He seemed disgusted. And she could understand that. She was disgusted by herself too.

He went over to Ylva, who was now sitting on the bed with one long leg crossed over the other. With a proud air of ownership he stood beside her. Put one hand on her bare shoulder. Ylva put her hand on his. Together they looked at Faye, who was still on her knees on the bespoke Italian wooden floor.

Jack shook his head and said, without the slightest tremble in his voice, “It’s over. I want you to go now.”

Slowly Faye got up from the floor. She backed out of the bedroom, unable to take her eyes from Jack’s hand on Ylva’s bare, bony shoulder. She didn’t turn around until she had passed Julienne’s closed door. She knew she ought to be thinking of her daughter, make some sort of decision, take her, not take her, say something, not say anything. But Julienne was safe and the only thought her brain was capable of formulating was that she had to get out of there. At once.

With the image of Jack’s bare backside between Ylva’s legs etched on her retinas, she stumbled out of the front door and let it swing closed behind her. Only when she was standing on the landing did she realize she’d forgotten to put any shoes on.

—

Faye was sitting on the floor outside Chris’s flat, her body racked with sobs.

Somehow she had managed to hail a taxi, and when he saw the state of her the driver had helped her into the back seat without a word.

She had banged on the door in the vain hope that Chris could save her from everything, but when there was no answer she had collapsed to the floor. Now she didn’t know if she was ever going to have the strength to get up again.

“Faye? Christ, what’s happened?”

At last.

Faye looked up and saw Chris walking cautiously toward her. Faye reached out to her, now sobbing so hard that she couldn’t speak.

“Help me” were the only words she managed to utter.

PART TWO

   -

“How can you be sure that . . . that it was him who did it?”

“I can’t go into detail about that at the moment,” the policewoman said, without meeting Faye’s gaze.

“Please, I’ve lost my daughter. But the idea that Jack . . . I mean, we’ve had our problems, but I still can’t believe . . . there must be some sort of mistake . . .”