“Poor burglars. They wouldn’t stand a chance. Have you eaten anything?”

“Not since yesterday. I haven’t got any appetite, I don’t even feel like drinking champagne. That gives you some idea of how bad it is. I was thinking of asking the hospital if I can take it intravenously instead.”

Chris lay down on the sofa while Faye made coffee and looked through the fridge and pantry for something to force into her. All she could come up with were two crispbreads with cod roe. Chris took a few bites before pushing the plate away with a grimace.

“The cod roe is Johan’s. I never liked it even when I was well.”

She wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“Why didn’t you say?” Faye said. “If you’d said you didn’t like it I’d have gotten you something else.”

Chris shrugged.

“The chemo seems to have killed my tastebuds. I thought that might mean I could actually eat the stuff. But not even chemo can get my tastebuds to accept it. I’ve tried telling Johan that it’s horrible, but he refuses to listen.”

“So what are your doctors saying?” Faye asked gently as she moved the plate.

“Do we have to talk about it?”

“No. But I’m worried.”

Chris let out a deep sigh.

“It’s not looking good, Faye. Not good at all, in fact.”

The hairs on the back of Faye’s neck stood up.

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly that. The treatment hasn’t had any effect whatsoever. Well, apart from the fact that I feel sick the whole time, I keep throwing up and I’ve started to lose my hair. But at least I’m thin, so I don’t have to go to the gym anymore.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Chris waved her hand dismissively.

“Can’t we talk about something else? Act like you normally do. What’s new?”

“You’re not reading the papers anymore?”

Chris shook her head wearily. Faye went out into the hall, pulled the crumpled copy of Dagens Industri from her bag and returned with it. She put it down on Chris’s lap.

After a quick glance at Faye, Chris opened the paper and leafed through the article.

Faye ate the rest of the crispbread while Chris read. She didn’t share her friend’s opinion of cod roe.

“This is incredible,” Chris said, folding the paper. “Did you expect them to write this much?”

“No. And it gets better: the evening papers and Dagens Nyheter have joined in, along with the online media. There’s pretty much a witch hunt on Facebook and social media.”

“You must be delighted?”

“I don’t want to count any chickens.”

“You’re more boring than me, and I’m the one who’s dying! We need to celebrate this somehow. I wonder how quickly I can get hold of a drip full of cava?”

“There’s no need, Chris. We can celebrate later, when it’s over. When you’re better.” She forced herself to smile. “So how’s life as a newly engaged woman?”

“Wonderful. Well, as wonderful as it can be when you’re being sick three times an hour. Johan’s brought me breakfast in bed every day.”

“But you’re not eating?”

“No, but he doesn’t know that. And I haven’t got the heart to tell him that if I ate it I’d be throwing up his lovely breakfast half an hour later.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“That’s the problem. Johan wants to get married within a year and all that. I don’t know what it is with young people today, they really are incredibly conservative. I don’t think I can deal with that.”

Faye refrained from pointing out that Johan, who was only five years younger than Chris, could hardly be described as young. She looked at Chris sternly instead.

“You need to tell him that,” she said, in a stricter voice than she’d intended.

She didn’t want Johan to put any pressure on her friend. Chris had time. She had to have time.

“The problem is that it might not happen otherwise. I’ve got some uninvited tumors that want to gate-crash the party.”

“The treatment will help. It has to.”

“We’ll see,” Chris said, and turned her face away from Faye. Soon after that she fell asleep.

Faye laid a blanket over her and patted her knees when she tucked her in. Then she crept quietly out of the flat and locked it using her own key.

Faye felt deflated as she walked down the stairs. Chris had always been able to see the funny side of everything, but now she seemed to have resigned herself to dying.

The financial news on Swedish Television was showing a downward graph to illustrate the collapse in Compare’s share price during the day. Pictures of the entrance to Compare’s head office on Blasieholmen were intercut with shots of the gates to the house on Liding?. But no one had been able to get hold of Jack.

“Where could he be?” Kerstin murmured as she sat beside Faye, hunched toward the screen.

“He’s probably locked away with frowning PR consultants who are trying to tell him how to deal with this.”

“Will that do any good?”

“I doubt it. But the PR consultants will be able to send in some hefty invoices for all that wasted advice.” She turned to look at Kerstin. “You went to see Ragnar today, didn’t you? How was it?”

Kerstin shook her head. “You know I don’t want to talk about him.”

Faye nodded and did as Kerstin wanted. This time.

For every hour that Jack managed to evade the reporters, their frustration seemed to grow. When Julienne came into the living room, Faye discreetly changed the channel. She got ready to put her to bed, but Kerstin offered to do it instead. A special bond had grown up between Faye and Kerstin, with Julienne as the glue. These days Kerstin pretty much only used her apartment to sleep in, and Faye wouldn’t have it any other way.

The sound of laughter was coming from Julienne’s room and Faye smiled. She had Julienne and Kerstin in her life, couldn’t she be happy with that? Did she have to crush Jack? Julienne had always worshipped her dad, and children needed both their parents. Even if Jack didn’t always have time for his daughter, and even if Julienne sometimes cried before visits to her father. Faye knew that was natural for children with divorced parents. Eternal separation anxiety.

Faye honestly didn’t know if Jack loved Julienne. He had always treated her like a princess, but sometimes it felt like she was primarily a beautiful accessory that he enjoyed showing off to the world. And a father’s love wasn’t necessarily unconditional, she was all too aware of that.

Faye allowed herself brief moments of doubt, but she knew there was no alternative. Jack had ground her down, humiliated and betrayed her. He had discarded the family that she had sacrificed everything for. Men had held power over her throughout her whole life. She couldn’t let Jack get away with it.

She decided to skip the rest of the news bulletin and went out into the kitchen to get a glass of wine. When she returned to the living room and was reaching for her iPad, she got a message from Jack.

I need to see you, he wrote.

Where? she replied.

A minute passed before her mobile buzzed again.

Where we first met.

—

Rain was falling steadily as Faye shut the door of the taxi and ran at a crouch to the door on the N’See Bar. There were three guys in their twenties nursing beers at one table. Jack was sitting right at the back. The same place she and Chris had been sitting sixteen years before.

Jack was sitting with his head bowed over his half-drunk beer.

The bartender nodded to her.

“Two beers, please.” She guessed Jack’s glass would soon be empty.

The bartender filled two glasses and Faye carried them over to Jack’s table.

He looked up and she put one of the glasses down in front of him.

“Hi,” he said with a sad smile.

He looked vulnerable. Small.

His dark hair was brushed back and one wet strand was hanging forlornly over his cheek. He was pale, his skin looked puffy. His eyes bloodshot. She had never seen him this dejected. Faye had to suppress a first instinct to put her arms round him, comfort him, tell him everything was going to be all right.

“How are you?”

He shook his head slowly.

“This . . . this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Her last ounce of sympathy vanished when she realized just how sorry he felt for himself. He was absolutely wallowing in it. He hadn’t spared a thought for how it must have felt for her to lose everything. Become a social pariah, isolated, rejected. She had experienced everything he was going through now and more besides. And he hadn’t felt the slightest sympathy for her then. So why should she be any different?

But in order to get what she wanted she had to give him what he wanted.

“What are you going to do?” She made her voice soft.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.