“I really shouldn’t . . .”

The policewoman looked around. The other officer had gone to fetch Faye some coffee. She lowered her voice and said, “It’s not just the blood we found in the car. The satnav shows that Jack drove to a harbor on the shore of Lake V?ttern in the middle of the night. We found a boat there with traces of blood that’s probably Julienne’s.”

Faye nodded, then winced as the movement made the wounds on her face sting. The interview was being taped, so she knew she wasn’t going to hear anything they weren’t ready to release. They wanted her to trust and form a connection with the woman standing in front of her looking at her sympathetically. They wanted to get her to cooperate. They didn’t understand that they didn’t have to play any games with her. She was going to cooperate. Jack wasn’t going to get away.

“Is there anyone we can call? Anyone you’d like to come over?”

Faye shook her head. She grimaced again with the pain. She had been patched up in the hospital, and now had a number of stitches.

“We can probably leave it there for today. But I’m sure we’ll have to come back to ask some more questions.”

“You’ve got my number,” Faye mumbled.

“The vicar’s on his way. Obviously you can go home if that’s what you’d like to do. But I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to be on your own right now.”

“The vicar?”

At first Faye didn’t understand what the police officer was talking about. What did she want with a vicar?

“Well, people who . . . who have suffered a loss like yours often need comfort, someone to talk to.”

Faye looked up and met her gaze.

“People whose children have been killed, you mean?”

The police officer hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

A movement on the bed. Someone had sat down on it. Faye forced her eyes open and found herself looking directly into Chris’s. They looked simultaneously concerned and firm.

“I love you, Faye, but you’ve been lying in this bed for two weeks now. As soon as anyone mentions Jack or Julienne you start crying. This can’t go on.”

She nodded toward the door.

“If you want anything you’re going to have to come and find me. If you want food, from now on you’re going to have to go to the kitchen and make it yourself. I won’t be coming into this room again, even if you swear Denzel Washington is lying naked and tied to the bed.”

The next day Faye stumbled into the kitchen, wearing her underpants and a Nirvana T-shirt.

Chris had a cup of coffee in one hand, and Vanity Fair lay open on the table in front of her. She looked at Faye over the rim of the cup.

“There’s breakfast in the freezer. I’m sticking to the Lindsay Lohan diet.”

Faye pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Which is?”

“Coffee, cigarettes, and the morning-after pill.”

She smiled ironically.

“Get yourself something to eat. I have to get to work soon. Do you want to come along?”

Faye shook her head.

“Probably better to stay at home. Watch a film, have a cry, feel sorry for yourself. I’m just glad you’ve emerged from that room. It was starting to smell.”

Faye put her hand on Chris’s arm and looked her in the eye.

“Thanks,” she said. “For everything. For . . . oh, you know.”

“Don’t mention it. You can stay at casa de Chris until you’re back on your feet again. As long as you shower regularly.”

Faye nodded. That sounded like a deal she could live with.

—

Faye felt wretched. Almost hungover. When Chris had gone she lay on the sofa, took out her mobile and called Jack. As she had done every day. Obviously because she wanted to talk to Julienne, but perhaps even more because she wanted to hear his voice. Each time she called he sounded more irritated and their conversations grew shorter and shorter. It was like talking to a stranger.

“Yes?” he replied curtly.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“So I saw. Julienne isn’t here right now. They’ve just left for preschool.”

“They?”

Jack cleared his throat. She could hear noises, voices in the background.

“I didn’t have time to take Julienne today, there’s a lot going on, so Ylva drove her.”

Faye couldn’t believe it. Only two weeks had passed, and already Ylva and Jack were playing happy families. Faye had been replaced. Exchanged for a newer model. Like any old housekeeper or babysitter.

Not seeing Julienne had been a torment, but up until now she hadn’t felt up to it. She had persuaded herself that it was in her daughter’s best interests to be in familiar surroundings, and that it would only harm her to see her mom shattered by grief.

“Hello?” Jack said.

“I need to come and get some things,” Faye said, forcing her voice to sound normal. “And I want to see Julienne.”

“Now isn’t a good time.”

“For what?”

“For you to come and get your things. Everything’s a bit upside down here. We . . . I’ve bought a house. We’re in the middle of moving.”

Faye closed her eyes. Focused on her breathing. She mustn’t let herself go to pieces.

“Where are you moving?”

“G?shaga. Close to Henrik and Alice, actually. It wasn’t planned, but we . . . well, we saw a wonderful property online.”

We. He was talking about them as we. Jack and Ylva. Since 2001 it had been Jack and Faye, but now he was we with someone else entirely. Faye held the phone away from her ear to stop herself hearing. She had nagged him for years about moving to a house, saying it would be good for Julienne, but he hadn’t wanted to. He liked being close to the city and his office. But now evidently he and Ylva had seen a “wonderful property online.” Just like that.

“. . . text me a list of what you need, and I’ll have it couriered over.”

“Okay,” she said through clenched teeth. “What about Julienne? I need to see her.”

“I really think that could wait until you’ve got yourself somewhere to live, but okay. You can come next week, once the move is over,” he declared magnanimously, and ended the call.

In her mind’s eye Faye could see Ylva making nice with Julienne, spoiling her, dressing her up, indulging her, watching films, plaiting her hair. She was probably an expert at French plaits. Even the inverted type Julienne always asked for but Faye had never managed to get right.

And every time she closed her eyes she saw Jack and Ylva in front of her. Ylva with her perfect lips and pert breasts. Jack penetrating her, telling her how beautiful she was, groaning her name when he came.

The biggest irony of all was that Ylva Lehndorf was everything Faye could have been if Jack hadn’t said he wanted a housewife who’d be there for him when he needed it. Why had he changed his mind?

He was the one who had transformed her into a different person, after all. Someone she no longer recognized. And if she wasn’t Jack Adelheim’s wife, who was she? During her years with Jack she had peeled everything else away, layer by layer. There was nothing left.

Faye had borrowed Chris’s car. Her hands were shaking so hard that she could barely hold onto the steering wheel. She was going to see Julienne again. At last.

There was hardly any traffic on the road out to Liding?. The sun was shining, and thin clouds were chasing across the blue sky. She followed the satnav’s instructions and stopped in front of a hill. At the top lay a large stone building that looked like a palace. A wonderful property. The sort of house she herself had dreamed of.

Jack’s Tesla was parked in the drive. Some men were lifting moving boxes from a large truck.

She rang a bell at the gate, looked into a camera and had to wait a few seconds before it opened with a gentle rumble. She drove in and parked behind the truck.

A bald foreman yelled at her to move her car so it wasn’t in the way. Faye raised her hand apologetically and did as he asked.

Julienne came running out, and Faye undid her belt and jumped from the car. She clutched her daughter to her, breathing in her smell. Tears were burning behind her eyelids despite the promise she’d made to herself that she wasn’t going to cry. She would grit her teeth and bear it, no matter what.

Jack came out onto the steps. He was wearing beige chinos and a green sweater with a pale-blue shirt collar sticking out of it. He was more handsome than ever.

“Darling, I’ve missed you so much,” Faye said, kissing the top of Julienne’s head. “I just have to have a little talk with Daddy. Can you go and play, and I’ll come and find you?”

Julienne nodded, gave her a kiss on the cheek, then ran back inside the house.

Jack smiled nonchalantly at Faye. She looked in vain for some sign of guilt, but couldn’t find anything. Part of her wanted to claw at his face. Another part wanted to fall into his arms and bury her face in his sweater.

“What do you think?” he said, with a broad gesture toward the building behind him.

It was utterly bizarre. He was behaving as if nothing had happened.

“We need to talk,” she said curtly.

Adrenalin was coursing through her body, making her rock back and forth on the soles of her feet.