Page 58 of Hidden in Memories
Monica reaches for the empty glasses to hide her confusion. When she leans forward, she feels his fingertips brush the side of her breast, his touch as light as a feather. It happens so fast that she doesn’t realize what’s happened until it’s over.
“Two Martells,” she says, and hurries away.
46
There aren’t many people around when Anton gets back to the station at about two o’clock. Most of the offices are empty, and there are no uniformed colleagues sitting in the kitchen.
He is still confused after the encounter with Carl. All the feelings he has so carefully tried to obliterate over the past year are back with a vengeance.
Why can’t he just get over him?
During the entire drive from Järpen, he pictured Carl in his mind’s eye. He longed desperately to touch him. He almost turned around and drove back.
Ridiculous idea.
There is no point in brooding over what they once had. Carl has clearly moved on, and Anton should do the same.
It’s just so difficult.
He hangs up his jacket and finds Raffe in the conference room, concentrating on a series of printouts spread across the table. He scratches his slightly crooked nose, a legacy from a snowboarding competition when the board hit him hard. Back in the day, Raffe competed at elite level in the national junior team. Even today he can perform in Åre’s Snow Park in a way that makes Anton dizzy.
Personally he prefers skis.
“Hi—how’s it going?”
“I’m looking at Copperhill’s finances—the hotel has struggled over the past year.”
“I guess the whole industry has,” Anton says. “The question is whether it’s been so bad that they can’t cope with increased competition. Whether someone was prepared to commit murder in order to put a stop to a luxury hotel in Storlien.”
Raffe grins. “Between you and me, I’m not convinced that idea is worth pursuing. It’s Hanna who wants us to go through the finances.”
He stretches both arms out in front of him and straightens his spine. There is an audible cracking sound as he follows up by linking his fingers to release the air from the joints.
“How did it go at the council?”
The question takes Anton by surprise. Raffe can’t possibly know that he happened to bump into Carl. Or is he aware of the situation, even though Anton has been so careful?
Then he realizes that of course Raffe is simply asking about his conversation with Bengt Hedin. He has no idea about Anton’s disastrous love life. How paranoid can you get? He tries to marshal his thoughts.
“I don’t think Charlotte Wretlind got her planning permission without pulling a few strings,” he says slowly. “The whole thing seems pretty mysterious. Hedin wasn’t very helpful—in fact I’d say he was uncomfortable.”
Raffe pushes away the laptop to concentrate on what Anton is saying.
“How do you mean?”
Anton sits down and focuses on formulating his conclusions. Hedin was defensive from the get-go, and Anton has a lingering feeling that something was wrong.
“It was hard to get clear answers out of him. He came up with a whole lot of platitudes, talked about the future prospects for the area, the importance of creating new jobs in Storlien.”
Everything he said had sounded ... rehearsed. Almost as if he didn’t really believe it himself.
“I took a look at what happened the last time the Storlien mountain hotel was sold, back in 2011,” he goes on. “The council placed stringent restrictions on what could be done, and was very clear about what had to be preserved. There was no question of demolishing the entire building. I very much doubt if the view of the planning authority has changed so much since then. In fact I’d say the general attitude has gone in the opposite direction—it’s seen as more important than ever to hold on to cultural and historical values.”
“You mean there’s something suspicious about the planning permission?”
“Exactly.”
Anton is almost certain that Hedin is hiding something. He was too keen to explain every detail, and yet there was no real substance in anything he said. The tension in his voice, those restless movements, the raised chin, the beads of sweat on his forehead—it all bothered Anton, and it still does.
