Sister Anne licked her lips and anxiously scanned the drive leading to the Emergency Department. She sensed Melker’s quizzical look and turned back to him again.
‘She said they were almost here, and I couldn’t get hold of the obstetrician, so I thought…’
Melker interrupted her with a nod.
‘That’s all right. But they aren’t here, are they? And anyway – why would they be coming to A &E? You should have sent them to Maternity.’
Sister Anne flushed.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to waste your time,’ she said quickly. ‘It was just… Well, her voice. There was something about her voice that made me think it was much more urgent than it clearly is.’
Melker nodded again, graciously this time.
‘I understand what you were thinking and I am at your disposal, absolutely. But if they ring again, do tell them to go to Maternity Reception, please.’
He turned on his heels and went back to his room. He happened to glance at his watch. It was just past midnight. A new day had begun.
It was just after one o’clock when Melker heard Sister Anne’s footsteps in the corridor once more. He had time to register that it really sounded more as if she was running, and then she was at his door, rain-sodden and wild-eyed.
‘You must bloody well come right now,’ she said, and rapidly repeated herself: ‘Bloody well come right now.’
Melker Holm was taken aback by the strong language, which was totally inappropriate in the working climate of the Emergency Department, and rushed after Sister Anne through the reception area and out into the car park.
‘Carry on, to the parking area at the far end,’ Sister Anne exhorted him.
At the end of the access road, just between the ordinary visitors’ car park and the approach to A &E, in the middle of the pavement, lay a little girl. She did not have a thread of clothing on her body, and her empty, glassy eyes stared unseeing up into the night sky as it pelted her pale, naked body with rain.
‘What on earth…?’ mumbled Melker, kneeling down beside the girl and checking her pulse, though he could tell at a glance that she was dead.
Later, Melker was to envy Sister Anne her ready tears, mixing freely with the rain, for he was unable to shed any himself for several days.
‘I popped out to check whether that couple were waiting out here in the car park, because they didn’t ring again,’ he heard Sister Anne say. ‘Oh my God, she was just lying here. Just lying here.’
Against his better judgment, Melker Holm leant down and stroked the girl’s cheek. His eye fell on her forehead, where someone had written a word, the letters blurred and sprawling. Someone had marked her body.
‘We must ring the police right away so we can get the poor little thing into the warm,’ he said.
Just as he was opening the front door to set off for work, Alex received the call from the police up in Umeå.
‘DCI Hugo Paulsson here, from the Umeå Crime Squad,’ bellowed a voice at the other end.
Alex stopped what he was doing.
Hugo Paulsson gave a sigh.
‘I think we may have found your little girl, the one who went missing from the Central Station,’ he said softly. ‘Lilian Sebastiansson.’
Found? Alex would remember that moment later as one of the few in his career when time stood utterly still. He did not hear the rain beating on the window, did not see Lena who was watching him from just a few feet away, did not say anything in reply to what he had just heard. Time stopped, and the ground opened up beneath his feet.
How the hell could I mess up on this one?
When Hugo Paulsson found himself still getting no reply, he went on.
‘She was found at the hospital here in Umeå, outside A &E, at one o’clock last night. It took a while to establish the likely identity, because we had another little girl up here who’d run away, you see, and we had to make sure it wasn’t her first.’
‘Lilian didn’t run away,’ Alex said automatically.
‘No, of course not,’ said Hugo Paulsson grimly. ‘But anyway, now you know where she is. Or to be more accurate – where she probably is. Someone will have to identify her.’
Alex nodded gently to himself as he stood in his hall, waiting for time to start moving again.
‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can on how we’re going to proceed,’ he said at last.
‘Fine,’ said Hugo Paulsson.
Then he added slowly:
‘I don’t know what it means, but the girl’s clothes haven’t been found. And her head’s been shaved.’
Fredrika Bergman received the news that the case of the missing Lilian had become a murder investigation via her mobile phone. It was Alex who rang, and she could tell from his voice that he was in shock. She herself felt drained of all emotion. Alex asked her to go and see Teodora Sebastiansson again and then try to talk to as many people as possible on the list of names and contacts they had got from Sara’s parents. They would have to try to work out why the child had turned up in Umeå, of all places.
Only once Fredrika had ended the call and looked out to see that summer had yet another day of rain ahead did she start to cry. She felt profoundly grateful that she was alone in her office, behind a closed door.
How on earth could the girl suddenly be dead?
Of all the questions raging in her head, one was more insistent than the rest.
What the hell am I doing here? she thought. How did I end up working in a place like this on a job like this?
Fredrika was on the point of ringing Alex back there and then and saying:
‘You’re right, Alex. I’m not cut out for this. I’m too weak, too emotional. I’ve never seen a dead person in my life and I hate stories with unhappy endings. And it doesn’t get any unhappier than this one. I give up. I’ve no business being here.’
Fredrika ran her fingers gently over the scar on her right arm. Time had faded the operation scar to just a couple of white lines, but they were still fully visible to any eye. For Fredrika, they were a daily reminder not only of The Accident, but also of the life that never was. The life she never had.
Fredrika wiped the corner of her eye and blew her nose. If she carried on thinking like this in her present state, she definitely wouldn’t be able to work properly. She was tired, worn out. It was only a few weeks until her holiday. She gave a stubborn shake of the head. Not now, she told herself, not now. Right now it would do the investigation more harm than good if she got up and left. But later, when the case was over…
Then I’ll leave…
Fredrika blew her nose again. Crumpled the tissue into a ball in her hand. Threw it at the bin. Missed but left it lying on the floor.
Why was the picture refusing to come into focus?
Thoughts were flying through Fredrika’s brain at lightning speed as she sat there at her desk, though it was not yet eight o’clock. She was the first to admit that she had not worked on many cases, but she did have a solid amount of analytical experience behind her. Considering the point they had now reached in the case of Lilian’s disappearance, it ought not to be that hard for Fredrika to complete the jigsaw puzzle in front of her. But there was something missing. She could feel it in her whole body, but couldn’t put it into words. Had they missed something? Was it something they should have seen or thought of earlier?
But then, Fredrika argued to herself, they still hadn’t found a motive for the abduction itself. If it was Gabriel Sebastiansson who had taken Lilian, what was his motive? There was no tedious custody battle going on; there were no reports of his having previously harmed the girl.
Fredrika’s encounter with Gabriel’s mother had left her in no doubt that he really had physically assaulted Sara. There was something extremely unpleasant about the whole family. Fredrika went to the computer to put together a list of further questions for Mrs Sebastiansson. The mere recollection of that lady’s bony finger pointing to where she was to park the car made her feel tense. No, there was definitely something sick about that family. The only question was: why had someone like Sara chosen to marry into it? After all, unlike her mother-in-law she seemed a straightforward, unpretentious, uncomplicated person. It was certainly going to be interesting to see what Gabriel was like, when the time came.