Chapter 68
As soon as Alice is in bed and has fallen asleep, Daniel fetches the iPad and sits down in the living room. He has to find out what Ida was talking about.
Hanna is seeing someone.
Ida’s words were like a slap across the face. He had to fight to appear unmoved, as if he already knew everything.
Why hasn’t Hanna said anything? He thought the two of them could talk about most things.
But he also thought there was plenty of time for him to examine his own feelings for her. He wanted to get the arrangements with Alice and Ida sorted, find his feet in this new life as a father with shared custody of a two-year-old.
The last year has been overwhelming and complicated.
While time was passing by.
It is ten months since he first understood that he felt far more for Hanna than he ought to feel for a colleague.
It was during the investigation into the brutal murder at Copperhill last Easter.
At the very end, to be precise, when he genuinely feared for her life.
The idea that he might never see her again was devastating.
Now it looks as if it’s too late.
What an idiot he is.
Another thought strikes him: Of course that was who she spent her birthday with at the weekend. The billionaire, as Ida referred to him. That was why Hanna sounded so vague and evasive when Daniel asked where she’d been.
Why didn’t he see what was going on?
He brings up the home page of the largest evening paper and starts to scroll through the flood of news. It isn’t long before he finds the headline about the financier and his new girlfriend. There is even a photo of the couple at Kiruna airport.
Only then does he realize the man in question is Henry Sylvester.
He sinks back in his chair.
He has met Sylvester, who was involved in the Copperhill case. That must have been when the two of them got to know each other.
And then the relationship developed.
Daniel disliked Sylvester from the start. The guy is incredibly rich, and incredibly arrogant. Back then he had concealed vital information for far too long. He hadn’t even apologized afterward, even though it had affected the whole case.
How can Hanna have fallen for someone like him?
He finds the answer further down in the article, which is about their extravagant trip to Lapland. How the hotel opened just for Sylvester and his new girlfriend.
Who can resist a gesture like that?
But Hanna isn’t that kind of person, Daniel tells himself. She doesn’t care about money or status. She never has, despite the fact that she grew up in one of Stockholm’s more prestigious suburbs.
He knows her well enough to be certain that she isn’t in the least impressed by the financial elite or their money.
And yet she is in a relationship with Sylvester.
Daniel doesn’t understand.
He stares at the picture of Hanna and her new boyfriend. Sylvester has his arm around her shoulders as they walk toward a waiting helicopter.
The image is intimate, confident. Hanna looks as if she is in love.
Happy.
The air goes out of him. Of course Hanna has chosen a man like Sylvester—who wouldn’t? He is in a completely different league. Compared with Daniel, it is like putting the American NHL next to a Swedish junior team.
He leaves the page and searches for Hanna and Henry Sylvester. It turns out that all the newspapers carry the story; the internet is full of articles about the new couple. He really must have been caught up in his work today to have missed it.
Suddenly he can’t bear it.
He tosses the iPad aside, and it bounces on the sofa. Fortunately it is saved by the armrest; otherwise it would probably have fallen on the floor and cracked the screen.
For a few minutes he sits there staring blankly at the wall. Then he goes into the kitchen and opens the top cupboard, where he keeps his small stash of wine and spirits. It might be midweek, but he pours himself a large whiskey and knocks back half of it in one gulp.
He can’t help imagining Hanna and Henry Sylvester together.
He draws her close. They kiss passionately.
Daniel knocks back the rest of the whiskey.
There is a bitter aftertaste in his mouth that has nothing to do with the alcohol. He knows exactly what has raised its ugly head.
A deep, intense jealousy.
Even though he has absolutely no right to feel that way.