The Andalucian Friend Read Free

for observation. Hector was in his mid-forties, good-looking without being handsome, large without being fat. He was Spanish, but she thought she could see hints of something Nordic in his features. His hair was fairly dark, with a few lighter hints. His nose, cheekbones, and chin were sharp and his skin verged on the sandy brown. He spoke fluent Swedish and he was imposing — perhaps because of the observant eyes that lit up his face, possibly because of the lightness of his movements even though he was a large man. Or possibly because of the natural indifference that made him smile every time she went in to him — as if he knew that she knew, which she did, and which made her smile back at him.
    He pretended to be absorbed in a book as he sat up in bed with his reading glasses on his nose. He was always doing things like that when she went in to him, pretending not to see her, pretending to be busy.
    She sorted out the pills and put them in little plastic cups, then handed him one. He took it without looking up from his book, tipped the pills into his mouth, accepted a glass of water and swallowed them, all without taking his eyes from the book. She gave him the second dose and he did the same with that.
    “Always just as tasty,” he said quietly, then looked up. “You’re wearing different earrings today, Sophie.”
    She caught herself about to raise one hand to her ear.
    “I might be,” she said.
    “No, not might be, you are. They suit you.”
    She headed for the door and pulled it open.
    “Can I have some juice? If that’s OK?”
    “It’s OK,” Sophie said.
    In the doorway she bumped into the man who had introduced himself as Hector’s cousin. He wasn’t like Hector — thin but muscular, black-haired, taller than average, with alert blue eyes that seemed to notice everything going on around him. The cousin nodded to her curtly. He said something to Hector in Spanish, Hector said something back, and they both started to laugh. Sophie got the feeling that she was part of the joke, and forgot about the juice.
    Gunilla Strandberg was sitting in the corridor holding a bunch of flowers, watching the nurse come out of Hector Guzman’s room. Gunilla studied her as she came toward her. Was that happiness she could see? The sort of happiness that a person doesn’t themselves know about? The woman went past her. On her left breast pocket was the little pin that showed that she was a “Sophia Sister” — a graduate of Sophiahemmet University College. Beside the pin was a name badge. Gunilla had time to make out the name Sophie .
    She watched Sophie go. The woman’s face was beautiful. Beautiful in the way that privilege bestowed: narrow, discreet … and fresh. The nurse moved easily, as if she let each foot merely graze the floor before taking the next step. It was an attractive way of walking, Gunilla thought. She watched until Sophie disappeared into another patient’s room.
    Gunilla was left thinking, her thoughts based on emotional equations. She looked once more in the direction where Sophie had just disappeared, then toward Room 11, in which Hector Guzman lay. There was something there. An energy … an emphasized form of something invisible to the naked eye. Something that woman, Sophie, had brought out of the room with her.
    Gunilla got up and walked down the corridor, then peered into the staff room. It was empty. The week’s roster was on the wall. She looked around the corridor before going in, then went over to the roster and ran her finger down it as she checked the names.
    Helena …
    Roger …
    Anne …
    Carro …
    Nicke …
    Sophie … Sophie Brinkmann, she read.
    Stuffing the bunch of flowers in an empty vase on a portable table, she left the ward. In the elevator she pulled out her cell, called the office, and asked for an address for a Sophie Brinkmann.
    Instead of heading back to the station on Brahegatan, she drove over the highway from Danderyd Hospital and turned off into the