‘What the hell is that girl doing hanging around with creeps like that? Guys who hit her and guys she hardly knows,’ sighed Peder, slumping in his seat.
Fredrika fixed Peder with a stare but said nothing.
Alex indicated she should go on.
‘When Sara rang him from the platform, they arranged for him to come round this evening, after Lilian was in bed, about nine-thirty. I’ve come up with three possible Anders Nyströms born the same year as Sara’s friend, none of them with criminal records. When I see him at Sara’s tonight, I shall be able to get more details.’
‘You’re seeing him tonight…?’ began Alex uncertainly.
He got no further before Fredrika raised a discreet hand from her place at the table.
Alex suppressed a sigh.
‘Yes?’ he said patiently.
‘The woman with the dog,’ replied Fredrika with equal patience.
‘Yes?’ Alex said again.
Fredrika took a deep breath.
‘How does the woman with the dog fit into the scenario if we assume the father took the girl?’
Alex gave a rather tight-lipped smile.
‘If Lilian’s father took her, then can’t the woman with the dog just be a coincidence?’
He gave Fredrika a searching look and said firmly:
‘We haven’t forgotten the woman in Flemingsberg, Fredrika. But for now we’re prioritizing other information. With good reason.’
Alex surveyed the group again and cleared his throat.
‘I’d like to come round to Sara’s with you,’ he said, nodding in Fredrika’s direction.
Her eyebrows shot up. Peder reacted, too, straightening his back.
‘It’s not that I’m questioning your competence,’ Alex said hurriedly, ‘but wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to share the responsibility for these interviews with someone else? Sara’s new boyfriend could turn out to be a nasty piece of work and I’d feel happier if there were two of us.’
Peder beamed at Alex. Alex thought for a minute he was going to slap him on the back. This investigation would be hard going if the team couldn’t work together.
From Fredrika there was not a word. Nor were any needed – her fixed expression betrayed what she was thinking very plainly.
Ellen interrupted proceedings with a loud knock at the door.
‘Just wanted to say that the switchboard is getting calls from the public already,’ was all she said.
‘Great,’ said Alex, ‘that’s great.’
Soon, if the child did not reappear, he would have to consider calling in assistance from the National Crime Squad to go through all the tip-offs. He brought the meeting to a close.
‘In spite of the shocking nature of the event,’ he said on his way out of the room, ‘I have to say I’ve got quite a good feeling about this case. It’s bound to be only a matter of time until the girl’s found.’
Once the parcel was ready, the Man put it in an ordinary paper carrier bag and left Jelena alone in the flat.
‘I’ll be back later,’ he said.
Jelena smiled to herself. She wandered restlessly between the kitchen and the living room. She avoided going anywhere near the bathroom.
The television was on. The news that a child had gone missing from a train was covered in a couple of quick sentences. Jelena found that rather annoying.
Just wait, she thought. You’ll all soon realize this isn’t just some ordinary little bit of news.
She ran her hands nervously through her hair. The man would not have liked her doing that; he would have taken it as a sign that she did not have complete trust in his ability to plan and carry through his project. But still. There was so much at stake, so much that had to go right.
Jelena went out into the kitchen and decided to make a sandwich. She was just opening the fridge door when she saw them on the floor, right under the table. The blood went coursing round her body and her pulse rate rose. Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it would explode in her chest as she bent down to pick up the little pair of panties from the floor.
‘No, no,’ she whispered in panic. ‘No, no, how could I have done this?’
Her brain was working as if it was on autopilot, doing what had to be done. She must get rid of the panties, at once. The Man’s instructions had been entirely clear. All the clothes were to be in the parcel. All of them. Jelena felt so terrified she was on the verge of tears as she screwed the panties into a little ball and put them in an old plastic bag from a supermarket. Just as long as he doesn’t stop on the way and double check everything’s in the parcel. She moved at the speed of light as she left the flat and raced down to the rubbish storage room in the basement of the block of flats. The door resisted as usual and was heavy to open. Jelena lifted the lid of one of the rubbish containers and threw in the bag. Her heart felt like a bolting horse as she ran back up to her flat, taking two steps at a time.
The door of the flat slammed shut behind her with a bang, and she fumbled with the lock. She had to take several deep breaths to stop her palpitations turning into a full-scale panic attack. Then she tiptoed over to the bathroom and swallowed quite a few times before she opened the door. Her relief when she switched on the ceiling light was indescribable.
At least everything in the bathroom was as it should be. The girl was still lying naked in the bath where they had left her.
Peder Rydh flicked distractedly through his little notebook. He could scarcely read what he had written in it. He fanned himself with the book in the close heat of the office and let his thoughts roam free. Life could throw up the most unexpected and nasty surprises. Lilian Sebastiansson had experienced that today, first hand. But Peder took the same view as Alex, expecting the team to solve this particular case with relative ease.
The ringing of his mobile intruded into his thoughts. He smiled when he saw it was his brother calling. Jimmy rang him at least once a day.
‘You listening?’ the voice on the phone asked indignantly after a bit of introductory banter.
‘I’m listening, I’m listening,’ Peder put in hurriedly.
He could hear the silent laughter at the other end, almost like a child’s stifled giggles.
‘You’re cheating, Pedda, you’re cheating. You’re not listening.’
Peder had to smile. No, he wasn’t listening. Not properly, not the way he normally did when he was talking to his brother.
‘You coming soon, Pedda?’
‘I’m coming soon,’ Peder promised. ‘I’ll see you at the weekend.’
‘Is that long?’
‘No, it’s not long now. Only a few days.’
Then they rounded off the conversation the way they always did: with extravagant promises of kisses and hugs and eating posh cake with marzipan together when they saw each other. Jimmy sounded relatively happy. He would be seeing their parents tomorrow.
‘It could just as easily have been you, Peder,’ Peder’s mum had told him, more times than he could remember.
When he was little, she used to cup his face in her warm hands as she said it.
‘It could just as easily have been you. It could just as easily have been you who fell off the swing that day.’
Peder still had very sharp visual images in his head from the day his brother fell off the big swing their father had hung from one of the birch trees in the garden. He remembered the blood running over the stone Jimmy’s head had landed on, the grass smelling so strong because it was freshly mown, Jimmy lying on the ground, looking as if he was asleep. And he remembered rushing over and trying to cradle his little head that was bleeding so badly.
‘You mustn’t die,’ he had shouted, thinking of the rabbit they had buried so sadly, a month or so earlier. ‘You mustn’t die.’