He Who Kills the Dragon

39.

Where the fuck do they all come from? Bäckström thought, as he closed the door behind his guest. All these crazy women, each one madder than the last.

At roughly the same time as Bäckström was saying goodbye to his colleague Annika Carlsson, Hanna and Axel were seeking solace in each other and had ended up in Hanna’s bed.

Axel ejaculated as soon as he entered her. Not because it was the first time, or because Hanna was at the very least an eight. Axel had got past that stage of life when he was thirteen. It was more complicated than that. Even though it was the first time with Hanna, the only thing in Axel’s head for the past few hours was a young female police officer called Magda Hernandez. The first eleven he’d ever seen in his life, even though there weren’t supposed to be any of those on a ten-point scale.

He had tried to pull himself together for another attempt, but his thoughts of Magda Hernandez and his proximity to Hanna plunged him back into the icy water again.

‘I don’t get this,’ Axel said. ‘It’s never happened before,’ he said, feeling like nothing more than bursting into tears and running away.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hanna said, running her nails down his naked, sweaty back. ‘You must still be suffering from shock.’ Poor thing, she thought, since it wasn’t the first time for her either.

‘D’you know what?’ she went on. ‘Let’s go to sleep now, and we’ll do the other stuff in the morning. It’s not the end of the world.’ I wonder how many times that’s ever been said, she thought.

Axel had only pretended to sleep, and as soon as Hanna had fallen asleep he crept up, got dressed, and slunk out the front door.

Maybe that was for the best, Hanna thought, as she heard the door click shut. Life would go on, with or without Axel, and she had school to think about in just a few hours’ time.

Must remember to call Magda, she thought before she fell asleep. To talk about that debriefing she wanted me to go to.