SATURDAY 18 JULY

The wall-lice are thriving in the heat.

There is a bang on the other side of Mosebacke Square as a man in a gas mask flings a window wide open. The reek of hydrogen cyanide spills out into the high-summer air in bitter coils that skulk around the tree trunks in the park, play in the lilies, chase chaffinches and sparrows in flight. They travel farther on a light easterly breeze towards a uniformed Lindholmian seeking shade under the foliage of a tree, causing him to fan his chubby mug with a bundle of National Socialist flyers.

The sharp smell prickles in my nostrils as I sit on a big beast of a radio set in the shade of the doorway to house number 9. I light an eight-öre Meteor cigar to clean out my lungs.

In the flower bed a peacock butterfly is cavorting in the honeysuckle; down at Stadsgård wharf the steam-winches are puffing in the heat. Sweat streams from my forehead, finds channels in the scars on my face and flows down my cheeks.

With the cigar in the corner of my mouth, I take off my hat and wipe the inside rim with a handkerchief. It's hell wearing the same hat all year round. If only I had a straw one for the summer I wouldn't be bathing in sweat the moment I step out the door. The posh blokes in Östermalm flaunt theirs. Wide-brimmed and fashionable. Preferably worn with sunglasses. Well-fed swine.

I put my hat back on. Walking around without it is unthinkable. The heat melts the pomade in my hair and it's not fifteen pissing minutes before it looks like someone has poured a jug of melted lard over my head. It is hotter now than back when I used to heave coal in ships' boiler rooms during my years at sea, and from what I hear it's going to continue for weeks to come.

We are not built for this sort of heat in this country. It drives people to madness. Old folk are dropping like flies, and babies too.

I fiddle lazily with the radio dial, turning through the names of different cities' medium-wave stations with the stump of my severed little finger. I have painted the town red in Marseilles, Bremen and a few of the other cities many times.

I have been cursing the weight of this damned radio since lunchtime. I was sent to collect a debt from a blacksmith in Kungsholmen. He had no money. I worked him over with the handle of an axe I found in the yard and took the radio for my trouble.

'Damn, do I have to sell this thing now?'

My voice echoes in the shade of the empty doorway. I already have a radio. A rather nifty AGA sitting at home in my flat in Sibirien. I look up again and survey the square. A travelling tradesman drives his coarse-limbed mare up the hill on Svartensgatan to the left of the park. The iron-shod hooves strike the paving stones. Lather lines the horse's shoulders like the foam on a Pilsner. The driver snaps the whip across its hindquarters. A cloud of small flies rises from the animal. Horse and carriage turn right at the elementary school, its windows vacant during the holidays, and disappear down Östgötagatan with a two-metre-long dust tail behind them.

The Katarina Church clock tower strikes the quarter-hour. The girl was supposed to be home by two. I hope she hasn't stopped somewhere along the way.

'Five more minutes,' I mumble to myself.

Then it's about damn time for a Pilsner.

I fish out my pocket watch, lift it up and tap the glass with my fingernail. It has been broken for half an eternity but I'm not giving up on it.

I loosen my tie a little and run my forefinger along the inside of my shirt collar. I flick the sweat off my hand, take out the photograph from the inner pocket of my jacket and inspect it for the fifth time.

In the foreground stands the boss himself, squinting into the camera. He is a corpulent fellow in a light summer suit holding a walking cane. His wife stands beside him. She has half a poultry farm on her hat and looks as if her bodice is too tight.

In the background, off to one side, is the housekeeper Evy Granér. Her gaze is downcast and she stands with her hands clasped at the height of what other men would call her glory. Perhaps that is why she appears as exposed as poverty itself.

'Twenty-five years old as I understand it.'

The Lindholmian surrenders to the July heat and sinks down onto his backside against the tree trunk. He puts the flyers down and unfastens the leather strap stretching across his belly and chest.

A woman comes hurrying across the park. I stand up and take one last look at the photograph before putting it back in my pocket.

It must be her.

I kill the cigar under the heel of my shoe.

Miss Granér has left her hat behind, tied a handkerchief around her hair and pinned up her dress. Twists of newspapers and the tops of various root vegetables stick out of the woven basket in her slender hand. Her movements are light and lithe.

No one would be able to tell.

I heave the damn radio onto my shoulder with a sigh. Evy slows down as she catches sight of me and slips into the doorway quietly and slowly like a ferry boat into the dock.

'Miss Granér?'

She stands as still as a picture. Her bright blue eyes are struck with fear. She smells faintly of female sweat. I wrench the basket from her hand, kick open the door and put the groceries down in the stairwell. My back cricks painfully when I straighten up again. 'You're late. You had an appointment with Jensen. Two o'clock.'

'But ... my dear sir ...'

Her voice trembles like a violin string.

'Your boss has put his foot down. Nothing else to be done.'

Her eyes tear up. My overworked shoulder joint aches under the weight of the radio. I grab hold of her wrist and pull her out into the heat.

Evy's shoes clatter as she stumbles behind me. A few stifled sobs escape her lips. I drag her behind me down Östgötagatan, lined by rental shacks with flaking plaster and beat-up little wooden houses. Sheer curtains billow sleepily from the wide-open windows. Women in aprons can be seen inside, standing at wood stoves like phantoms glistening with sweat. A flock of small birds tweet in an elderflower bush where the blossoms are already withered.

'If he would just listen ...'

'Nothing else to be done.'

Two soot-black police cars drive up Högbergsgatan in the direction of the church farther up the hill. I pull Evy alongside me as we wait for them to pass. I fix my gaze on the furniture workshop on the other side of the road. The pulse in Evy's wrist is trilling as intensely as the birds in the elderflower bush. She gasps for breath, and I squeeze her tighter.

'Calm down, lass.'

It would be quicker to take a shortcut via Katarina Church, but I don't want to risk bumping into Reverend August Gabrielsson. We have known each other for twenty-five years, ever since he was a naval chaplain, but if he saw me now he would no doubt lecture me with chidings and the Word of God. Besides, I still owe the sod a few hundred kronor. He would relieve me of a bundle of dough and give me pangs of conscience to boot.

The squad cars pass by, sunshine bouncing off the black lacquer. I drag Evy across the street and continue along the cemetery wall down towards Tjärhovsgatan.

She is crying loudly now, sobbing and sniffling. I push her around the corner just as the Katarina bells hammer out their half-hour strikes. I drive her forward with shoves and...