He no longer knows whether his eyes are open or closed, but he can see them. Julia, laughing and running towards him, coming out of the nursery door; she shrieks when he catches her and swings her up into the air.

  He wants to carve their names into the wall so that they understand. He doesn’t have the energy right now, but later.

  GG shakes out the last few drops from the third can, doesn’t quite know what it was. He then crawls back into his nook between the shelves, confident that he won’t notice when the wave rolls in and pulls out. Death, when it comes to take back his life. He’ll go to sleep then. Like a dream that simply stops: it was there, and then it wasn’t.

  Her fair hair above the sea of flowers in the summer meadow. A bouquet of buttercups and thistles, the girl’s hand is so small when she holds it out to him. Is that for me, it’s beautiful, did you pick it yourself? He can’t see his son, he shouts and looks around the summerhouse, is it getting dark already, isn’t it summer? For a moment he is the one hiding, but he doesn’t know where. Then he spots the boy, hunched over something crawling through the grass, they’re getting wings, Dad, Erik whispers, his face lighting up, look Dad, they’re getting wings, and the father gets onto his knees, feels the grass and the nettles stinging his bare legs, he is wearing shorts.

  And the ants lift off from the ground.

  Eira set off for Nolaskogs early that morning. It wasn’t like she could sleep, after all. Restlessness clawed at her.

  Seven days now.

  She pulled over at the truckers’ café in Docksta for breakfast. The huge shadow of Skuleberget loomed in the darkness, the mountain rising sharply, the caves where robbers had once holed up. All the tourists were gone for the season. The café served both hot dogs and meatballs, but Eira could only manage a yogurt. Outside, the lorries were lined up, their drivers sleeping their regulated hours. She had always liked curling up behind the driver’s seat, those few occasions she was allowed to join her father on the road. With the music on the evening radio, the headlights of approaching lorries like flying Christmas trees above the dark roads, signs warning of towns she had never visited.

  The heat in the cab, his stories about the places they were passing.

  The area to the north of Skuleskogen National Park differed from the more industrialized region to the south. There were factories right along the Norrland coast, of course, but the farmers there were richer, the farms themselves more impressive. She didn’t know why the people living up Nolaskogs way had, at some point in time, been granted special permission by the king to trade with both the Sámi in the north and the merchants to the south, but it had given them a unique position in the country.

  Sunrise was still hours away as she pulled into Själevad. One of the oldest settlements, a small church village that was now more a suburb of Örnsköldsvik than anything. Eira looked up the address of the care home where Lilly Melin lived. It was still too early, so she tipped back her seat to get a few minutes’ sleep.

  Dozing just beneath the surface, strange dreams that felt so real, GG following her in to talk to the old woman; Sanna Melin was there too, offering them coffee and chatting as though everything were normal.

  Eira woke when her head slumped forward. The clock on the dashboard read 7:14. She had only been asleep for fifteen minutes, but her body was stiff. She checked her phone and saw that Silje had sent her a message, a moment or so earlier.

  A photograph, of a young couple.

  Damir Avdic laughing at the camera. It looked like summer, blue skies and water. The girl by his side was smiling softly, perhaps shyly, looking away.

  Do you see who that is?

  Eira enlarged the image. Sanna Melin hadn’t changed much. She was younger than in her passport photo, of course, but otherwise the main difference was her hair. It was longer here, a little wilder, possibly because the wind was blowing.

  She called Silje.

  “Can you believe,” said her colleague, “that just one year later, she’d ram a knife into his back, hitting his liver?”

  “Have they finished the autopsy?”

  “We’ve got a preliminary report.”

  “Who took the picture?”

  “Not sure, but we got it from his sister in Sarajevo. She had it on an old backup, spent all night looking for it. They met when he lived in Örnsköldsvik, Damir was in love and his sister was angry because he didn’t want to move back home—after the war, it was just the two of them left.”

  “So they were a couple, him and Sanna Melin?”

  “Not for long,” said Silje. “According to the sister, they broke up before he moved to Härnösand and started his interpreting course. That was what Damir told her, anyway. She remembered him wanting to get away from Sanna, but that it was hard.”

  Eira closed her eyes, tried to make sense of the timeline. Sanna had also moved to Härnösand in 2005, to a two-bed apartment. And in February 2006, Damir was reported missing.

  “Did she follow him there? Is that why she moved south?”

  “I’m going to meet his last girlfriend this morning,” said Silje. “Damir had told her it was over with Sanna, and she believed him.”

  “Why wasn’t there any mention of this in the files from his disappearance?”

  “You know how it works—a grown man disappears, no evidence of a crime, some suggestion that he might have wanted to leave. Would you have gone round all his old girlfriends? I don’t know whether the officer who dealt with the report even reacted to it, because we can’t get hold of him.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Bosse Ring.”

  “Shit.” Eira hadn’t realized that her old colleague was working in Härnösand back then, over fifteen years ago, though on the other hand she didn’t know much about him at all, because he never talked about himself.

  “And now he’s up in his cabin in Myckelgensjö and can’t be reached,” Silje went on. “I’ve heard his stupid voice mail message ten times since yesterday, and his in-box is on auto-reply. If it was anyone else I wouldn’t even consider driving to the middle of nowhere, but this is Bosse Ring, and he doesn’t forget a thing—as someone once said . . .” She trailed off, growing serious. “I think it was GG. They’ve worked together for a long time. I wonder if he knows.”

  “Myckelgensjö isn’t so far from here,” said Eira. “Sixty, seventy kilometers, tops.”

  She saw someone getting off a bike by the entrance to the care home, the day staff were starting to arrive. Experience told her that the most lucid moments usually came in the morning.

  Before the day came barging in, confusing everything.

  “I have to go.”

  Lilly Melin had managed on her own for a long time, only moving into care at the age of ninety, when the home help raised the alarm about one incident too many.

  “As I said on the phone, we see no reason to break our confidentiality agreement,” said the manager, who had come in early to meet Eira. She was in her fifties, blond highlights in her gray hair.

  “I understand,” said Eira. “But the confidentiality agreement doesn’t extend to her granddaughter. Sanna Melin has been arrested in absentia, on suspicion of kidnapping and murder.”

  “Should we tell Lilly? Her granddaughter is all she has.”

  “Does she ever come to visit?”

  “Oh yes, every week or so. She lives quite far away, in Härnösand.”

  “When was she here last?”

  The manager flicked through a few sheets of paper on the table in front of her.

  “It’s not something we keep records of, but I did ask my staff. It looks like it was a little over two weeks ago. She usually comes in on Sundays. She takes her grandmother to the church sometimes.”

  “The church?”

  “We’ve got a very beautiful church here in town.”

  What kind of person took their grandmother to church after locking a man in an abandoned house? Was she ice cold, or was she simply looking for forgiveness?

  If they didn’t find Sanna Melin before Sunday, they would have to put the place under surveillance. Eira could just picture the task force, crouching behind the bare trunks in the peaceful avenue of birches.

  “I’ve always thought she seemed like such a nice person,” the manager continued. “Someone who cares about her grandmother. But my Lord, what do we really know? We appreciate the visitors who focus on their elderly relatives and don’t take out their anxieties on the staff. It’s more common than you might think, us having to shoulder the guilt they can’t manage themselves.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual last time she was here?”

  “I checked with the members of staff who were working, and everything seemed normal. Mind you, we don’t spend our time thinking about the relatives. We’re just happy when they come to visit, we take a step back.”

  “Is there anyone else she’s close to? Family, friends?”

  “Lilly’s younger brother died last spring, and her friends have all passed away, too. Sanna is all she has left.”

  A shadow fell over the room, thoughts of the emptiness lurking in room number seven.

  “Would it be possible for me to speak to Lilly Melin?”

  “She hasn’t been declared incapacitated, so it’s up to her.”

  “But is it possible to get through to her?”

  “Obviously I can’t go into any detail about her diagnoses,” said the manager, “but what I will say is that this isn’t really the right place for Lilly Melin. I don’t know where would be. A castle in the mountains, perhaps?” A slight smile, the first of the morning. “I can tell you what she isn’t suffering from. Hers is no ordinary dementia, though she does seem to be in a world of her own at times.”

  “Stuck in the past?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, not unless she was a princess in a past life.”

  Breakfast was being served as they walked down the short corridor, cutlery clattering in the dining room, water running as someone took their morning shower.

  Lilly Melin was up and dressed, sitting in a chair facing the window. Her neck was the first thing Eira noticed: a beautiful straight line, not at all crooked with age. The room was warm, but she had a shawl draped over her shoulders, her silvery hair loose. Eira caught a glimpse of the River Mo outside, treetops with dark branches, the sky slowly brightening.

  “She’s here now, Lilly,” said the manager. “The police officer I told you about.”

  The old woman half turned and held out a slender hand in greeting, almost as though she expected a kiss.

  “So good you could come.”

  “OK, I’ll leave the two of you in peace,” said the manager.

  Eira introduced herself and sat down on a cushioned chair. The furniture looked antique without being valuable, the kind of thing amassed over a lifetime. Kitsch paintings in handsome frames on the walls: a ship on a stormy sea, a lighthouse at night, a portrait of King Oscar II.

  She set down her phone on the table and told Lilly that she was recording their conversation.

  “I’d like to ask you about Sanna, your granddaughter.”

  “Why? Has something happened to the girl?”

  “I thought you might be able to tell me where she is.”

  “Isn’t she at home?” Her confusion seemed genuine, and why shouldn’t it be? “Perhaps she’s gone on holiday.”

  “Where do you think she might have gone if she has?” asked Eira.

  “No, I’m probably wrong.”

  “Do you remember when Sanna was last here?”

  “No, no, I don’t, is this really necessary?” Lilly Melin seemed nervous, though perhaps it was just the usual anxiety many elderly people felt in the face of the authorities. Eira still wasn’t used to the fact that she now represented the authorities. The woman touched her cheek, a certain grace to her movements.

  A ring on her left hand.

  “Are you married, Lilly?” There was no mention of a second husband in the records, and something like that could hardly have escaped the national registration system.

  “No, my dear, I’m widowed.” A sad smile, a coquettish touch of her hair. “Kalle was killed in action during the war, God rest his soul.”

  “Is that him, is that your husband?” There were a few photographs on the chest of drawers, among them a black-and-white wedding portrait. “Do you mind if I have a look?” Eira got up and moved closer. In the corner of the image, she saw the name of a photography studio in Sollefteå. The old woman’s features were repeated in the bride’s face, barely over twenty, the same proud neck and wide eyes. Lilly had been blond back then, and she looked like an actress from one of Ingmar Bergman’s films, at once innocent and cunning. The man was wearing a uniform on his wedding day.

  “Is this your husband? Is this Karl-Erik Bäcklund?”

  “Yes, that was before all the rest of it, of course. We had to go underground.”

  “Did you?”

  “Oh yes, it was awful. I can’t talk about it.” A finger to her lips, a promise of silence.

  “And what about this, is this your daughter, Birgitta?” Eira passed her a color photograph of a woman.

  “We’ve no need to talk about her,” said Lilly Melin. “She’s never here.”

  Eira recognized the feeling of deliberation all too well. Should she tell the woman that her daughter had died three years ago, should she mention the cancer? There really was no reason to.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have to ask you about these things. I’m a police officer, you see, and I’m investigating a couple of crimes your granddaughter may have been involved in.”

  “I’m not stupid.” Lilly pointed to her own forehead. “There’s nothing wrong up here, whatever they tell you.”

  “Do you know where Sanna could be? Is there anywhere she goes, anyone she visits?”

  “You just keep asking and asking. I’m not sure I like this.”

  “It’s very important that we get hold of her.”

  Lilly Melin carelessly set the photograph down and pulled her shawl tight.

  “I haven’t done anything. I’m not the one barging in and stealing.”

  “I really just want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, that’s what you always say. Just a little chat. Just a little chat.” The old woman gripped the arms of her chair and got to her feet; she was clearly agitated. “As though I didn’t have the right to be in my own home. Surely I’m allowed in my own house. I don’t see what it has to do with the police.”

  “As I understand it, you live here,” said Eira. “And I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just asking for your help.”

  She was starting to regret turning down assistance from Örnsköldsvik, there really should be two officers present for this. Though on the other hand, if there were any spare resources, they should be tasked with finding GG. She could handle an interview with an old woman on her own.

  Or so she had thought.

  “He was handsome, don’t you think?” Lilly Melin shuffled over to the chest of drawers by the window on unsteady legs, picked up the wedding portrait. Her crooked fingers brushed the glass.

  “It was a beautiful house,” said Eira. “The one in Offer.”

  “Smutty, slutty strumpet, that whore fucked herself in the pussy.”

  It came so suddenly, so utterly out of the blue from such a frail old woman, that Eira was on the verge of laughter.

  Though at the same time, perhaps it made sense.

  “Are you talking about Agnes now, his second wife? Did you tell Sanna about the house in Offer? Did you tell Sanna it was yours?”

  Eira studied her slender back, her veined hands gripping the old photograph.

  “Damn them,” she spat out. “Damn that hussy. Throwing a person out of their own home!”

  Eira didn’t know much about psychology, particularly not when it took this shape. She wished for a moment that Silje had come with her to Själevad, perhaps she would have been able to read the old woman’s confusion the way psychologists could interpret dreams.

  The wedding ring, the story about the war—did Lilly really believe the things she was saying, or were they deliberate lies? A way to maintain her pride?

  The first wife.

  A marriage that lasted only a few years, perhaps she had been mentally ill even then. Or perhaps she simply loved too much, refused to let go of her vision of love as eternal?

  If she had kept the key . . .

  Gone back to the glade in the forest, a woman who had been cast aside, possibly kicked out, inclined to feeblemindedness. Eira could just picture her stepping into a house she still considered hers, finding another woman in her kitchen, her bed, with the man she believed she was married to.

  Had they called the police, driven her away? In those days, that might have meant the psychiatric hospital, one of the terrifying places like Gådeå, Sidsjön, or Beckomberga.

  She would be able to find out, but was it relevant?

  Eira got to her feet.

  “I came to talk to you about Sanna,” she said to the back of the woman’s head. “We need to find her. It’s urgent.”

  Lilly Melin didn’t turn around. Her eyes left the wedding portrait and drifted out of the window, but Eira was convinced she had heard what she said.

  “I think you know more than you’re letting on, Lilly.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, you just talk and talk.”

  Eira repeated that she was a police officer, that Lilly had a duty to tell her what she knew. That wasn’t entirely true, of course—no one was required to testify against their closest relatives, there were clauses that protected people from that kind of thing.

  “Did you tell your granddaughter she would inherit the house? Did you keep the key all these years? Where is she, Lilly? Where is Sanna hiding?”

  The old woman clamped her hands to her ears. Eira felt like shaking her, waking her up, forcing out whatever she knew, and she gripped her thin wrist. That feeling would stay with her: how much resistance it put up, despite being so slim.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  The manager was standing in the doorway.

  She woke with the feeling that she was in the wrong place. The sofa she was lying on was old and lumpy, the scent of age and dust ingrained in the material. Eira sat up. Afternoon sun, slanting in through a window. The net curtains painted handwoven patterns of light onto her body. She could hear a radio somewhere, the weather forecast. An area of low pressure moving in from the northwest, bringing snow to central Norrland.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29