After the time Gabriel was legally banned from seeing his own wife, and therefore ended up ringing her a few times too many one evening, Teodora had finally had enough. He was either to see that he got Sara back, which from the outset she really did not favour, or he was to abandon his attempts to make her into a good person, and file for divorce. Divorce and sole custody.
Teodora didn’t know exactly how her son had managed it, but suddenly he and Sara were living together again. It didn’t last long. Sara carried on making trouble and soon it was time for another separation.
And now Sara had inconceivably pulled off the trick of depriving Teodora of her only grandchild. Her whole body was shaking. There was plainly no limit to the ways Sara imagined she could destroy the Sebastiansson family. Teodora, a mother herself, had seen how Sara treated her child, oh yes. No firm hand, and no particular maternal care, either. If the child was returned to her mother, Teodora was going to fight tooth and nail for her son to be allowed to bring the child up on his own. Sara would finally meet a foe impervious to police reports and threats. Sara would find out what happened when you lived your life in a way that was bound to destroy you, and tried to take your child with you to perdition.
In view of these feelings for her daughter-in-law and grandchild, she had had no difficulty at all in lying on her son’s behalf, either the day before or during that day’s interview with Fredrika Bergman. It was most regrettable, of course, that her son had not had time to inform her he was going on holiday, since that would have simplified the basis for further lies considerably.
She sighed.
‘They’ll be back, you know,’ he said.
Teodora jumped at the sudden sound of his voice.
‘Goodness, you gave me such a fright.’
Gabriel stepped over the threshold of his father’s library, where Teodora had been sitting ever since Fredrika Bergman left the house. Teodora got to her feet and walked slowly towards him.
‘I’ve got to know, Gabriel,’ she said in a low, urgent tone. ‘I’ve got to know for sure. Have you anything – anything at all – to do with Lilian’s disappearance?’
Gabriel Sebastiansson gazed past his mother, out of the window.
‘I think there’s a thunderstorm brewing,’ he said huskily.
There was a time, when Nora was much younger, when the darkness had been her enemy. Now she had grown up, she knew better. The darkness was her friend, and she welcomed it every evening and every night. The same went for the silence. She welcomed it, and she needed it.
Under the cover of darkness and silence, Nora quickly packed a suitcase of clothes. As usual in summer, the sky never turned completely black, but that deep, velvety blue was dark enough. The floor creaked under her bare feet as she moved about the room. The sound frightened her. The sound disturbed the silence, and the silence did not want to be disturbed. Not now. Not when she had to concentrate. Actually, it was quite simple packing this time. There was no need to take everything with her. She would only be gone a few weeks.
Nora’s grandma had been glad to hear her voice when she rang.
‘You want to come and stay for a bit, love?’ she exclaimed when Nora revealed her plan to go and visit her grandmother in the country.
‘If that’s all right,’ Nora said.
‘You’re always welcome here, dear. You know that, don’t you?’ her grandmother replied.
Safe Grandma. Wonderful Grandma. The one bright spot in a childhood that was otherwise painful to look back on.
‘I’ll ring again when I’ve booked the ticket and have a better idea what time I’ll be arriving, Grandma,’ Nora whispered into the telephone, and they hung up.
Nora tried to get her thoughts in order as she packed. She decided to travel in her red, high-heeled shoes. Shoes like the ones the Man had once said made her look cheap, but she loved wearing them now, and saw them as a badge of her independence. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to give her name to the police, but Nora really didn’t want to let anyone crack open the shell inside which she had successfully built herself a safe existence.
Nora’s case was packed and she felt ready to leave the flat.
She stood the suitcase on the floor and sat down on the edge of the bed. It was almost ten o’clock. She ought to ring Grandma to confirm when she’d be arriving, as promised.
Nora was just keying in the number when a sound from the hall caught her attention. Just a single sound, then it went quiet. Nora blinked. Then the sound came again, the sound of someone taking a step on the creaking floorboards.
Her mouth went dry with fear when he suddenly appeared in the doorway. Paralysed by the realization that it was all over now, she did not move from her seat on the bed. She had still not keyed in the whole number.
‘Hello, Doll,’ he whispered. ‘You going somewhere?’
The telephone slipped automatically from Nora’s hand and she shut her eyes in the hope that the evil would disappear. The last things she saw were the red shoes, still standing beside her suitcase.
THURSDAY
Dr Melker Holm had always enjoyed the night shift in Accident and Emergency. For one thing, he was the sort of man who liked things being on the go, when there was stuff happening, and for another, he found himself irresistibly attracted by the nocturnal calm that always followed the more turbulent hours.
Maybe when Melker went on duty that night, he already had a premonition that this shift would be different. The emergency ward was buzzing with a level of commotion and activity that could hardly be considered normal. A serious car accident involving several vehicles took a very long time to deal with, while in the waiting room, a group of patients with slightly less acute problems grew increasingly fed up with the long wait.
Melker heard Sister Anne’s footsteps before he heard her voice. Sister Anne had uncommonly short legs, which meant she took unusually short, quick steps. Apart from that, Melker had not noticed a single defect in her overwhelming physical presence. Though he was never one to listen to or spread gossip, he had – most unintentionally – heard that Sister Anne had not been slow to see how she could capitalize on her beauty.
He could not have cared less about vulgar women prostituting themselves in their places of work. At the same time, Sister Anne, of all people, was someone in whom he felt a degree of trust. There was something fundamentally stable about her. She was reliable. And there were few personal qualities Melker valued more highly than reliability.
Sister Anne appeared in the doorway a few seconds after he first heard her.
‘I think you ought to come, Doctor,’ said Sister Anne, and Melker noted a tension in her features he had not seen before.
Asking no questions, he got up and went with her.
To his surprise, Sister Anne hurried right through the Emergency Department and out of the front entrance. Only then did Melker speak.
‘Sorry, but what’s going on?’
Sister Anne turned her head towards him and her steps faltered a little.
‘A woman rang,’ she said. ‘She said she and her husband were on their way here by car. She said it was her first baby and she was afraid they wouldn’t make it in time. Afraid the baby was going to be born on the way. She wanted us to go out ready to meet them.’