‘The third, I think. Or the fourth... I’ve never been in there.’
Jan tries to come up with more questions, but suddenly Hanna has something to say: ‘Tell me who it is, Jan.’
‘Who what is?’
‘The person in the hospital that you’re in love with... What’s her name?’
She is staring at him, but Jan refuses to meet her gaze.
‘It’s different,’ he says.
‘What do you mean, different?’
‘Different from you and Ivan Rössel.’
Hanna slams down her teacup. Her blue eyes are cold. ‘What do you know about how things are between us? You don’t know anything, you don’t know why I got in touch with him... How can you make a judgement?’
Jan looks down at the table. The atmosphere is suddenly icy. But he was right — it is Rössel she has met up with in the visitors’ room.
‘I’m just guessing,’ he says. ‘But you do like him, don’t you?’
Hanna is still staring at him. ‘You have to see the person beyond the crime,’ she says eventually. ‘Most people can’t do that.’
‘If you’re sneaking in to see Rössel, surely you must like him?’ Jan says. ‘Even though he’s done... bad things?’
It takes a while before she answers. ‘I don’t see him,’ she says. ‘The contact is through one of the guards. Ivan is working on a project to make the time pass more quickly in there... and I’m helping him.’
‘With what? What’s he doing?’
‘It’s a writing project. He’s working on a manuscript.’
‘A book?’
‘Kind of.’
‘What, like the memoirs of a murderer?’
Hanna’s mouth tightens. ‘He’s a suspect. He’s never confessed.’ She sighs. ‘He says his book will explain everything... People will realize that he hasn’t done anything.’
‘And he believes that?’
‘Yes, he does.’ Hanna’s voice is more animated now. ‘Ivan feels really terrible about how things have turned out; there’s a much greater risk that he’ll take his own life rather than anyone else’s. Right now it’s only my letters that are keeping him going...’
She stops, and Jan doesn’t know what to say. The intense look in Hanna’s eyes makes him uneasy; he doesn’t really want to talk about Rössel any more.
Neither does Hanna, apparently. ‘I have to go soon.’ She looks at her watch, then at Jan. ‘So are you going to tell me now?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Her name... the woman you’re seeing up there?’
Jan lowers his gaze. ‘I haven’t seen her yet.’
‘So what’s her name, then?’
Jan hesitates. He has two names to choose from — Rami or Blanker — but he decides on the least well known. ‘Wait a minute,’ he says. ‘I’m just going to fetch something.’
He goes into the living room and comes back with the picture books: The Princess with a Hundred Hands, The Animal Lady, The Witch Who Was Poorly and Viveca’s House of Stone. He puts them down in front of Hanna. ‘Have you seen these before?’
Hanna shakes her head.
‘They were up at the pre-school. They’re handmade... so this is probably the only copy of each one that exists. And somebody must have put them in the book box.’
‘Marie-Louise usually puts books in there,’ says Hanna.
‘Not these... I think one of the children was given them by their parent up in the visitors’ room.’
Hanna leafs through the books, then looks up at Jan. ‘Who wrote them?’
‘She calls herself Maria Blanker,’ he says. ‘She’s Josefine’s mother... I’m almost sure of it.’
‘Blanker... So she’s the one you want to meet at the hospital?’
‘Yes... Do you know who she is?’
‘I’ve heard a few things about her,’ Hanna says quietly.
‘From Rössel?’
She shakes her head. ‘From Carl... my contact.’
Jan recognizes the name, of course. The drummer from the Bohemos.
Hanna is still looking at the books. ‘Can I borrow them?’
Jan hesitates. ‘OK,’ he says eventually. ‘Just for a few days.’
She gathers up the books and gets to her feet; it’s time to go home.
But Jan has one last question: ‘Is Maria Blanker on the secure ward or the open ward?’
‘I don’t know where she is, I’ve never been inside,’ says Hanna, before adding, ‘But I should think she ought to be on the secure ward.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Blanker is psychotic. She’s completely out of it. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’
‘Do you know what she’s done?’
‘She’s dangerous.’
‘Is she a danger to herself?’ Jan asks. ‘Or to others?’
Hanna shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. So you’re going to have to go in and ask her.’
Jan smiles at the joke, but Hanna isn’t smiling. ‘I’m serious,’ she says. ‘There’s always a way in, if you’re willing to take it.’
‘But everything is locked at St Patricia’s.’
‘One way is open.’
‘And you know about this?’
She nods. ‘I know where it is, but it isn’t that easy to get through... Do you suffer from claustrophobia, Jan?’
Being locked in wasn’t all that bad, surely — not if you had plenty of food and drink, and you were warm enough? And a talking robot to keep you company?
Jan convinced himself that this was true, over and over again, whenever he thought about William inside the bunker.
In fact, being locked up behind thick concrete walls could make you feel really safe and secure.
It was half past eight in the evening, and the police had called off the search for William half an hour ago. They had continued after darkness had fallen, using torches, but it had all been very badly organized, in Jan’s opinion. And they found nothing. William had vanished without a trace; he could have stepped off the edge of the world.
Or at least disappeared from solid ground. The police had spent the last hour searching the long shore of the lake, and Jan realized they were afraid that the five-year-old had fallen in the water.
Lynx had become an assembly point for the search parties. But they were all tired now, and many of those who had been out looking for the boy were on their way home. When daylight came on Thursday morning, the search would resume, with increased manpower.
Jan had walked back to Lynx with an older police officer, who had puffed and panted his way through the forest. ‘Bloody hell... I hate this kind of thing. Let’s hope he makes it through the night, but there’s not much chance of that.’
‘Well, it’s quite mild at the moment,’ said Jan. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine.’
But the officer didn’t appear to be listening. ‘Bloody hell,’ he repeated. ‘I remember once a kid was found dead on a forest track... He’d been hit by somebody’s car, then they’d hidden him in the forest, like a sack of rubbish.’ He looked at Jan with weary eyes. ‘You never forget something like that.’
When Jan got back to the staffroom he suddenly heard a dull throbbing noise in the distance, a noise which quickly grew to a deafening racket above the nursery.
He looked over at Nina Gundotter, the nursery supervisor. She was waiting by the telephone as if she thought William might ring up sooner or later to tell them where he was.
‘Is that a helicopter?’ he asked.
Nina explained, ‘The police requested it. They couldn’t get hold of any dogs, but they’re going to fly over the forest now using thermal-imaging cameras.’
Jan nodded. He went over to the window to look at the thermometer; it was showing nine degrees. An autumn temperature — it wasn’t bitterly cold out there, but it wasn’t warm either. Unfortunately the wind had got up, but of course Jan knew that William was sheltered from the wind.