Kennedy's Brain Page 0,1

quarter past eight, an hour earlier in Sweden. She reached for the telephone and dialled the number of her son in Stockholm.

She could hear the ringing, but nobody answered. When the answering machine cut in, she listened to his voice with her eyes closed.

It was a voice that calmed her down. 'Det här är en telefonsvarare och du vet vad du ska göra. I'll repeat that in English. This is an answering machine and you know what to do. Henrik.'

She left her message. 'Don't forget that I'm coming home. I shall be in Visby for two days, discussing the Bronze Age. Then I'll go to Stockholm. I love you. See you soon. I might ring you later. If not, I'll be in touch from Visby.

She fetched the ceramic fragment that had injured her foot. One of her closest colleagues, a very keen female student from Lund, had found it. It was a shard like millions of others, a piece of Attic pottery that she guessed came from a pot or jar made just before the colour red started to dominate.

She enjoyed piecing together ceramic fragments, imagining the original object that she would probably be unable to reconstruct. She would give this one to Henrik as a present. She put it on top of her packed suitcase that was waiting for the lid to be closed.

As usual, she was feeling restless before leaving. She was finding it hard to curb her increasing impatience, and decided to change her plans for the evening. Until she had cut her foot, she had intended to spend a few hours on the paper she was writing about Attic pottery. Instead, she turned off her desk lamp, switched on the CD player and sank back in the rocking chair.

As usual when she was listening to music, the dogs started barking in the darkness outside. They belonged to her nearest neighbour, Mitsos, who was part-owner of an excavator. He was also the owner of the little house she rented. Most of her colleagues lived in Argolis, but she had preferred to stay close to the dig.

She had almost dozed off when she sat up with a start. It had struck her that she did not want to spend the night on her own. She turned down the volume and phoned Vassilis. He had promised to take her to the airport in Athens the next morning. As the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt left very early, they would need to set off at five o'clock. She'd rather have company when she knew she would not be able to sleep soundly anyway.

She looked at the clock and realised that Vassilis was probably still at the office. One of their rare quarrels had concerned his job. She thought she had been a bit insensitive in saying that the accounting profession must be the most combustible in existence. She could still recall her exact words, which sounded much nastier than she had intended.

'The most combustible profession there is. So dry and lifeless that it could burst into flames at any minute.'

He had been surprised, perhaps saddened, but most of all angry. At that moment it dawned on her there was more to their relationship than just sex. She enjoyed his company despite the fact – or because of it – that he had no interest whatsoever in archaeology. She had been afraid that he would be so offended that he would break off their affair on the spot. But she had managed to convince him that she was only joking.

'The world is driven by cash books,' she had said. 'Cash books are the liturgy of our time, and accountants are our high priests.'

Louise dialled the number. Engaged. She rocked gently back and forth in the chair. She had met Vassilis by chance. But aren't all important meetings in this life chance happenings?

Her first love, the ginger-haired man who hunted bears, built houses and could sink into long periods of depression, had once given her a lift when she'd been to visit a friend in Hede and missed the train back to Sveg. Emil had stopped his old lorry for her. She was seventeen at the time and still not worldly wise. He drove her home. That was in the late autumn of 1967. They were together for six months before she could summon up the strength to escape from his bear-like embrace. She then moved from Sveg to Östersund, started at college and one day decided to become an archaeologist. There were