‘What do they do up there?’
‘Not much. They’re waiting, just like the rest of us. We’re all just waiting.’
Jan remains silent for a few seconds, then eventually he asks, ‘I was just wondering... Is there anyone up there called Alice Rami?’
Rettig shakes his head; he doesn’t even have to think about it. ‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s Anna and Alide, but no Alice.’
‘Anyone called Blanker, then?’
Rettig considers for a moment before answering. ‘There is a Blanker... Maria Blanker.’
Jan leans closer. ‘How old is she?’
‘Not very old.’
‘Thirty?’
‘Maybe, between thirty and thirty-five... But she’s pretty shy. She’s on one of the women’s wards, and she keeps herself to herself.’
The women’s wards, Jan thinks. So there’s more than one.
‘Does she have a child at the pre-school?’
Rettig is taking longer and longer to answer. ‘Maybe. I think she has the odd visit.’
‘From a child?’
Rettig nods. ‘A girl.’
‘Do you know her name?’
Rettig shrugs and looks at his watch. ‘I need to get home,’ he says, placing his bag on the table. ‘So, this business with the letters... When’s your next night shift, Jan?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Perfect.’
Rettig takes out a large white envelope, several centimetres thick. It is marked in red ink: S.P. ‘Can you deliver this?’
Jan takes the envelope and sees that it has been carefully sealed. He doesn’t try to open it, but weighs it in his hands.
It is soft. A bundle of letters — nothing else? It seems so; Jan can’t feel any hard objects or little bags of powder.
‘No problem.’ He smiles at Rettig, still trying to convince himself that this is a good idea.
21
Hanna Aronsson is working at the Dell the day after Jan’s practice session with the Bohemos, and she is just coming out of the children’s room when he walks into the cloakroom. She looks very tired, and quickly puts her finger to her lips when she sees him.
‘Ssh...’
Jan realizes that she has only just got the children off to sleep. He waves to her and goes into the staffroom, quickly placing his rucksack in his locker. The rucksack containing the envelope; his secret mission as a postman.
Then he joins Hanna in the kitchen; she is busy unloading the dishwasher.
‘Are they all fast asleep?’
‘I hope so.’ She sighs. ‘They’ve been a real handful tonight. Bad-tempered and bickering non-stop.’
‘Oh? How many of them are there?’
‘Three... Leo, Matilda and Mira, as usual.’
There is an awkward silence; this always happens when Jan is alone at work with Hanna. It’s easy to talk to the other staff at the Dell, but Hanna doesn’t say anything beyond what is absolutely necessary.
Although of course there is something Jan wants to discuss with her, and after a moment he takes a deep breath. ‘Hanna, what I said to you last week, when we were walking home...’
‘What?’
‘That I used to work at a nursery... and I lost one of the boys in the forest.’
She nods; he can see that she remembers.
‘Did you... did you mention it to anyone else?’
Hanna’s expression is blank, as usual. ‘No.’
‘Good,’ Jan says.
It looks as if Hanna is about to say something else, or ask a question, but instead she puts away the last of the dishes and closes the cupboard doors. ‘That’s me done for today, then.’
‘Fine. Do you have any plans for this evening?’
‘I don’t know... I might go to the gym.’
Jan could have guessed that Hanna was a gym bunny. She is slender but looks toned and fit. Not skinny like Rami.
Ten minutes later Hanna has gone home, and Jan has locked the outside door. Now he is alone in the Dell, and of course he has no TV or stereo — just the sound of all the rock songs he played with the Bohemos the previous evening echoing in his head. It was good fun; he wonders if Lars Rettig will invite him to play with the band again.
Maybe, if he carries off his task this evening.
The children are fast asleep, and there is nothing for Jan to do. It’s going to be a long wait until eleven o’clock. He sits in the kitchen with a book, but often gazes out into the darkness, towards the hospital.
When it is quarter to eleven at long last, he fetches the thick envelope and both Angels from his locker.
He feels slightly foolish, but he still puts on his cycling gloves and wipes the whole envelope with a duster to make sure he hasn’t left any fingerprints or strands of hair on it. Just in case Dr Högsmed finds it.
At five to eleven he switches on the Angel transmitter and hangs it in the children’s bedroom, then he opens the basement door with the key card. The other Angel is attached to his belt and he is carrying the envelope in his left hand as he walks down the stairs and along the corridor, past the animal pictures.
The lift is waiting for him; he steps inside and presses the button. The metal chamber shudders and begins to move upwards.
Jan is not used to going up to the hospital without any children, and doing so in the middle of the night feels most peculiar.
The lift stops with a jolt. Jan checks through the window and sees that the visitors’ room is in darkness. There is no sign of life.
Slowly, carefully, he opens the door a fraction. He waits, he listens, but there isn’t a sound. Eventually he steps out on to the carpet. As always when he is inside St Patricia’s he feels an all-consuming curiosity, a nagging desire to find out more.
The furniture in the room is a collection of angular shadows, but there is a small amount of light cast by the lift behind him, and from the pane of glass in the door leading into the main hospital. Jan peers through it and sees a long, deserted corridor. And the door is locked, of course — he won’t be able to get any further this way.
All he can do is go over to the sofa, lift up the left-hand seat cushion, and tuck the envelope underneath as far as possible before rearranging the cushions. There. Job done.
With a final glance at the sofa, Jan gets in the lift and travels back down to the basement; he walks slowly up the stairs, then goes to the staffroom to make up his bed. But as usual he finds it difficult to get to sleep.
He’s involved now. He’s been working here for less than three weeks, and he’s already a part of some kind of smuggling operation.
It’s Rami’s fault. If it is in fact Rami who is Josefine’s mother, using a new name: Maria Blanker.
He lies awake in the darkness, wishing he had opened the envelope Rettig gave him. Were any of the letters for her?
The clock was ticking. Of course Jan couldn’t hear it as he ran through the forest, but he could feel the seconds racing by; time was passing quickly. He had so much to do in such a short period of time.
The high walls of the ravine rose above him, and he could see the second red arrow. There were no signs in the undergrowth to show that little William had passed this way — but then he couldn’t have gone any other way.
Jan carried on through the open iron gate, then slowed down. He was out of the ravine now, and he stopped and gazed up ahead.
He had placed the final red arrow under a couple of heavy stones on the ground, some twenty metres beyond the end of the ravine. It was pointing up the slope, towards the open door of the concrete bunker.
William was nowhere to be seen.
Jan could feel the blood pounding in his ears like a bass drum as he clambered up the slope. For the last two metres up to the steel door he became a cat, slinking along without making a sound.