Fredrika Bergman was running for her life. With a protective hand round her belly, she was running faster than she had ever run before through the dark forest. The long tree branches clawed at her face and body, her feet sank into damp moss and hot summer rain plastered her hair to her head.
They were close now, her pursuers. And she knew she was going to lose. They were calling to her.
‘Fredrika, give up! You know you can never escape us! Stop! For the sake of the baby!’
The words lashed her onwards. It was the baby they wanted, it was the baby they were trying to get at. She had seen that one of the men had a knife. Long and glinting. When they caught her, they would cut the baby out of her stomach and leave her to die in the forest. Just as they had all the other women she could see lying on their backs among the trees.
She could not go on much longer and her desperation grew. She would die in the forest, unable to save her unborn child. The tears pulled and tugged at her, slowing strides that had been so long and swift at first.
She finally tripped over a tree root and fell hard. Landed awkwardly, on her stomach, and the baby froze to ice and stopped moving.
Within a few seconds they were in a ring around her. Tall and dark. Each with a knife. One of them squatted down beside her.
‘Now come on, Fredrika,’ he whispered. ‘Why are you making it so hard when it could be simple?’ They crowded round her exhausted body, forced her onto her back, held her down.
‘Breathe, Fredrika, breathe,’ said the voice, and she saw one of the knives being raised.
She screamed with the full force of her lungs, fought to get free.
‘Fredrika, for Christ’s sake, you’re frightening the life out of me,’ boomed a familiar voice.
She forced her eyes open, looking around in confusion. Spencer’s hard arms were holding her firmly; her legs were tangled in the duvet. She was sweating all over and tears were running down her face.
Spencer felt her relax, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He held her in silence.
‘Good God, what’s wrong with me?’ whispered Fredrika, sobbing into his neck.
Spencer said nothing, just hugged her tightly.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Fredrika, not even able to recall that they had arranged to meet, was just glad he was there and said nothing for a long while.
‘What time is it?’ she finally asked.
‘Half past eleven,’ sighed Spencer. ‘The plane from Madrid was delayed.’
A memory forced its way to the surface. Madrid. He had been at a conference in Madrid. He was meant to land at half past six, they were going to have dinner together. But in the event he had only got there just before midnight, letting himself in with his own key. Before she got pregnant they had always met at Spencer’s father’s old flat but now, with the baby, and Fredrika having such a hard time, they more often met at her flat instead. New challenges meant new routines.
Tears of disappointment welled in her eyes.
‘I’m so bloody fed up with all this. I thought you were supposed to be happy when you were pregnant; placid. Pathetic, almost.’
Spencer gave that wry smile that had made her want to have him more than she had ever wanted any other man.
‘Pathetic, you?’ he grinned, taking off his outdoor things.
‘You didn’t even hang your coat up?’ Fredrika asked foolishly.
‘No, you were making such a racket when I came in that I thought I’d better see to you first.’
He padded swiftly back. Tousle-haired, with tired eyes. He was no youngster, Spencer. And he would soon be a father for the first time in his life.
‘Good Lord, Fredrika, is this how it is every night?’
‘Almost,’ she replied evasively. ‘But you’ve seen me like that before.’
‘Yes, but I thought it only happened now and again. It’s awful to think of this going on when I’m not here.’
Be here then, Fredrika wanted to say. Leave your boring wife and marry me instead.
The words froze inside her, swallowed up by an ocean of habit. Her relationship with Spencer was as crystal clear as it had always been: they were a couple, certainly, but only within certain limits. He had never led her to believe things would be different just because he accepted his role as father of her child.
Fredrika got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Spencer had vanished into the kitchen to make a quick sandwich. She threw her sweat-drenched nightdress into the washing basket and took a shower. The warm, gentle jets of water felt desperately welcome on her skin. She twisted and turned under the flow, too tired to register that she was crying. Afterwards she wrapped herself in a big towel.
At least she had had a good day at work. Short, but good. It had been hard to find anyone to translate the Arabic on her scraps of paper because all the translators were tied up on a big immigrant-smuggling case, with lots of material to work on for the national CID. Finally one of them had taken on her small enquiry and agreed to report back the next day.
Fredrika suppressed a sigh. There certainly would be plenty to do tomorrow. The translator’s feedback to go over, of course; and the doctor who had been responsible for Karolina Ahlbin when she was admitted to hospital and then died of the overdose was also due to get back to her. The only concrete result of Fredrika’s day was a memo about a big property out at Ekerö, a house and some land, that was registered in the names of the Ahlbin sisters and had previously been under their parents’ names. Maybe that was the house where the family spent time together?
Fredrika felt a lump in her throat at the thought of Johanna Ahlbin, left all alone now. Fredrika had not been able to resist looking her up in the national register, while she was at it. Johanna Maria Ahlbin, born 1978, one year after her sister. Unmarried, no children. No one but her registered at that address, so it was a single-person household.
Was there anything worse? The child moved, as if worried it might get forgotten. Fredrika tried to soothe it by stroking her stomach. The baby was unborn. It was there, and yet it was not. If anyone had rung at her door and told her that her parents and brother were dead, she would fall apart. She would miss her brother above all. Fresh tears pricked her eyes. Apart from Spencer there was really no one she thought of more highly.
She wiped away the tears that were running down her cheeks like lost beings. Her own child was hardly likely to have any siblings.
‘You’ll just have to manage,’ she whispered.
Then she raised her head and met her own red-rimmed eyes in the bathroom mirror. And felt ashamed. What had she got to be so upset about, when it came down to it? She was living a good life with friends and family, and expecting her first baby with a man she had loved for many years.
Grow up, she thought angrily. And stop feeling so sorry for yourself. It’s only in fairy stories that people get any happier than this.
With the towel wrapped round her head, she left the bathroom and went out to Spencer in the kitchen.
‘Can you make me a sandwich, too?’
The ring of the telephone cut through the flat just before midnight. He went to answer as quickly as he could, before it woke his wife as well. He moved cautiously past her closed door, grateful for once that they no longer shared a bedroom. His bare feet sounded loud on the parquet floor. With one smooth movement he silently pulled the study door shut behind him.
‘Yes?’ he said as he lifted the receiver.
‘She’s rung,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘She rang earlier today.’
He did not respond immediately. He had been expecting the call, but it churned him up, even so. He decided it was a healthy reaction. No human being could be part of a project like this without feeling something.
‘All according to plan, then,’ he said.
‘Everything’s going according to plan,’ confirmed the voice at the other end. ‘And tomorrow we go on to the next stage.’