45

       saturday, december 12: evening

      Simone stands at the window, perceiving her face as a transparent shadow in the evening darkness. When she sees her father’s old Nissan Primera double-parked outside the door, she has to force back the tears. She is already standing in the hallway when he knocks on the door; she opens it with the security chain on, closes it again, unhooks the chain, and tries to smile.

      “Dad,” she says, as the tears begin to flow.

      Kennet puts his arms around her, and when she smells the familiar aroma of leather and tobacco from his jacket she is transported back to her childhood for a few seconds.

      “I’m here now, darling,” says Kennet. He sits down on the chair in the hallway and perches Simone on his knee. “Isn’t Erik home?”

      “We’ve separated.”

      “Oh, my,” says Kennet.

      He fishes out a handkerchief, and she slides off his knee and blows her nose several times. Then he hangs up his jacket, noticing that Benjamin’s outdoor clothes are untouched, his shoes are in the shoe rack, and his backpack is leaning against the wall by the front door.

      He puts his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, wipes the tears from beneath her eyes with his thumb, and leads her into the kitchen. He sits her down on a chair, gets out a filter and the tin of coffee, and switches on the machine.

      “Tell me everything,” he says calmly, as he gets out the mugs. “Start from the beginning.”

      So Simone tells him in detail about the first night when she woke up and was convinced there was someone in the apartment. She tells him about the smell of cigarette smoke in the kitchen, about the open front door, about the misty light flooding out of the fridge and freezer.

      “And Erik?” asks Kennet, his tone challenging. “What did Erik do?”

      She hesitates before she looks her father in the eye. “He didn’t believe me. He said one of us must have been sleepwalking.”

      “For God’s sake,” says Kennet.

      Simone feels her face beginning to crumple again. Kennet pours them both a cup of coffee, makes a note of something on a piece of paper, and asks her to continue.

      She tells him about the jab in her arm that woke her up the following night, how she got up and heard strange noises coming from Benjamin’s room.

      “What kind of noises?” asks Kennet.

      “Cooing,” she says hesitantly. “Whispering. I don’t know.”

      “And then?”

      “I asked what was happening, and that’s when I saw someone was there, someone leaning over Benjamin and—”

      “Yes?”

      “Then my legs gave way, I couldn’t move; I just fell over. All I could do was lie there on the floor. I watched Benjamin being dragged out … Oh God, his face; he was so scared! He called out to me and tried to reach me with his hand, but I was completely incapable of moving by then.” She sits in silence, staring straight ahead.

      “Do you remember anything else?”

      “What?”

      “What did he look like? The man who got in?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Did you notice anything distinguishing about him?”

      “He moved in a peculiar way, kind of stooping, as if he were in pain.”

      Kennet makes a note. “Think,” he encourages her.

      “It was dark, Dad.”

      “And Erik?” Kennet asks. “What was he doing?”

      “He was asleep.”

      “Asleep?”

      She nods. “He’s been taking a lot of pills over the past few years,” she says. “He was in the spare room, and he didn’t hear a thing.”

      Kennet’s expression is full of contempt, and Simone suddenly understands, at least in part, why Erik has left.

      “Pills?” says Kennet thoughtfully. “What kind? Do you know the name? Or names?”

      She takes her father’s hands. “Dad, it’s not Erik who’s the suspect here.”

      He pulls his hands away. “Violence against children is almost exclusively perpetrated by someone within the family.”

      “I know that, but—”

      Kennet calmly interrupts her. “Let’s look at the facts. The perpetrator clearly has medical knowledge and access to drugs.”

      She nods.

      “You didn’t see Erik asleep in the spare room?”

      “The door was closed.”

      “But you didn’t see him, did you? And you aren’t certain that he took sleeping pills that night, are you?”

      “No,” she has to admit.

      “All we can do is look at the facts and try to ascertain a kind of truth from them. I’m just looking at what we know, Sixan,” he says. “We know that you didn’t see him asleep. He might have been, but we don’t know that.”

      Kennet gets up, pulls out a loaf of bread, and takes butter and cheese from the fridge. He makes a sandwich and hands it to Simone. After a while he clears his throat. “Why would Erik open the door for Josef Ek?”

      She stares at him. “What do you mean?”

      “If he did it, what would his reasons be?”

      “I think this is a stupid conversation.”

      “Why?”

      “Erik loves Benjamin.”

      “Yes, but maybe something went wrong. Perhaps Erik just wanted to talk to Josef, get him to call the police or—”

      “Stop it, Dad.”

      “We