Last Will by Liza Marklund Page B

on the floor when he had to put his coat on.
    “I wish I was dead!” he wailed and Annika let her bag fall to the floor, sat down on the little bench and pulled her son onto her lap.
    “You know I love my special boy,” she whispered, rocking him back and forth. “You know you’re the most important thing in the world for me. Have you had a nice day?”
    “Everyone’s stupid!” the boy yelled. “Everyone’s stupid, and you’re stupidest, and I wish I was dead !”
    The first time he had announced his lack of a desire to be alive in this way Annika had been shocked into silence. A chat with a nurse at the childcare clinic had calmed her down: six-year-olds go through a minipuberty, with raging mood swings that often take extremely dramatic form.
    Now four-year-old Ellen was standing there silently, staring wide-eyed at her brother. Annika pulled her daughter to her.
    “Do you want to come shopping with me? Then you can choose some chips and candy?”
    Kalle wiped his tears and wriggled like a worm.
    “ I’m going to choose the candy!” he shouted. “And I want soda !”
    Annika took hold of him again and pulled him firmly toward her.
    “Stop shouting now,” she said, slightly too loudly. “You can choose your candy, and Ellen can choose hers. But there’ll be no soda today.”
    “I want soda!” the boy screamed, struggling to get free.
    “Kalle,” Annika said, forcing herself not to shout. “Kalle, you have to calm down now, or else there won’t be any candy at all. Are you listening? Do you remember what happened last time?”
    The boy stiffened in her arms, his eyes opened wide, and his breathing calmed down a bit.
    “I didn’t get any candy,” he said, and his lower lip started to tremble.
    “That’s right,” Annika said. “But today you can have candy, because you’ve stopped shouting and you’re not going to make a fuss about soda. Okay?”
    The child nodded and Annika turned to give her daughter some attention.
    “What sort of a day have you had, darling?” she asked, kissing her on the forehead.
    “I did a drawing for you, Mommy,” she said, wrapping her arms round Annika’s neck.
    “How lovely,” Annika whispered, feeling tears of exhaustion welling up in her eyes.
    They did their shopping in the Co-op at the corner of Kungsholmsgatan and Scheelegatan under slightly chaotic circumstances. Ellen dropped her candy on the floor, where they were promptly run over by a stroller, and Kalle had another little outburst about them not buying any soda.
    Annika’s forehead was beaded with sweat as she hauled the last bag of groceries into the hall from the elevator.
    “If you put the television on, the children’s programs will be on in a little while,” she called after the children.
    She hung up their outdoor clothes and lined their boots up under the bench in the hall, then carried the shopping into the kitchen and unpacked it on the countertop.
    Damn, she’d forgotten to get any salt.
    She peeled the potatoes, chopped some onions, and cut the pork chops into strips. As the potatoes came to the boil she fried the onions until they were transparent, then put them at the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Then she fried the meat together with some bacon, seeing asshe didn’t have any salt, then made use of the salt left in the pan by diluting it with a bit of cream.
    She’d just laid the table and lit the candles when Thomas got home.
    He came into the kitchen, his jacket flapping as he loosened his tie.
    “I think I’m halfway there,” he said, giving Annika a quick kiss. “This job’s made for me. My CV is perfect, and with my personal contacts in the department, I can’t see how anyone could beat me. Haven’t you done any salad?”
    He was standing by the table, looking at what she had made.
    “I thought we’d agreed to have something green with every meal,” he said, turning toward her.
    “We did,” Annika said.
    My day’s been absolutely great as well, she thought.