At about ten o’clock the woman, admitted under the name ‘Helena’, began to come round, but she was still groggy from all the morphine they had given her for pain relief. The intensive care consultant determined that she was now well enough to be moved to a general ward, and her bed was wheeled up to Ward Four.
She was initially in the care of nursing assistant Moa Nilsson. It wasn’t that there was a lot to do, but Moa found it quite traumatic watching over the slim figure, her face a patchwork of bruises. It was impossible to say what she normally looked like. They hadn’t found an ID card. But Moa thought she had some idea how the girl had lived, anyway. Her nails were bitten right down and she had small, amateurish tattoos on her arms. Her hair was red, but anyone could see it was dyed. Moa hazarded a guess that it had only just been done, too. The sad, dry hair spread across the pillow around the woman’s head. Her hair was so red that it looked as if her head was resting in a pool of blood.
Moa’s nursing colleagues kept popping along to see how things were going, but the situation was still unchanged by the time the dinner trolley clattered past the door. Then the patient slowly opened the one eye that was not swollen shut.
Moa put aside her magazine.
‘Helena, you’re in Karolinska University Hospital,’ she said gently, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
The girl said nothing. She seemed very, very frightened.
Moa cautiously stroked her arm.
The girl murmured something.
Moa bent closer, frowning.
‘Help me,’ the girl said faintly. ‘Help me.’
SATURDAY
Spencer Lagergren had many good points, but one thing Fredrika Bergman had always missed in their relationship was any element of spontaneity and surprise. To some extent, of course, this was because Spencer was married; scope for spontaneity was rather restricted. But she attributed the absence of surprises more to Spencer’s rather limited imagination in that area. Spencer could only surprise you with the help and guidance of fate.
But every rule has its exception.
Fredrika gave a little smile as she hurriedly tried to put her dark hair up. She had visualized herself spending the evening in Umeå alone with a glass of wine and her notebook. And that was indeed how the evening had started. But as she sat in the verandah of the Town Hotel drinking her over-priced wine, she suddenly heard a voice behind her.
‘Excuse me, is this seat free?’
Fredrika was so amazed to hear Spencer’s voice that her jaw literally dropped, and the sip of red wine she had just taken dribbled down her chin.
Spencer looked dismayed.
‘Are you all right?’ he said in some agitation, grabbing a serviette from the table and wiping her face.
Fredrika, struggling with her hair, blushed and laughed at the recollection.
Spencer’s bold move had impressed her. They had a very clear agreement, and it said in principle that their relationship did not bind either side to any particular obligations, or promises to support each other. In that respect, Spencer’s role in her life was unambiguous. Yet he had still come. Probably not just for her sake, but also for his own.
‘You have to seize chances when they come your way,’ Spencer said as they raised their glasses to each other, not long after his unexpected arrival. ‘It’s not every day one gets the opportunity to go to Umeå and live in style at its top hotel.’
Fredrika, completely knocked sideways, tried to thank him and explain to him simultaneously. It was wonderful to see him again so soon, but did he realize she had to work the next day and then fly back home? Yes, he did. But he had found himself missing her too much. And on the phone she had sounded really down, really frayed.
Fredrika thought that Eva, Spencer’s wife, must know about his relationship with her. That would explain how he could so easily get away from home one night a week. And Eva had had affairs of her own over the years.
Spencer had once brought up the subject of why he didn’t intend to get divorced. There were various sensitive relationships on the fringes of his marriage – the one between him and his father-in-law, for example – that made a divorce unthinkable. And the fact was, Spencer added, that in some strange way he and his wife felt quite strong ties binding them together, in spite of everything. Ties that could be stretched even more than they had been, but still they would never break entirely.
And that wasn’t really a problem, thought Fredrika, because she wasn’t sure she would appreciate sharing her day-to-day life with Spencer full time.
They had a quiet but memorable evening. Wine on the verandah, then a meal at a nearby restaurant where a young pianist crowned the warm evening with live music. At one point, when Fredrika – light-headed from the wine and the temporary peace of mind – was sitting staring at the pianist a little too intently, Spencer reached out across the table and gently stroked the scar on her arm. Wondering. Fredrika carried on observing the man at the piano and avoided Spencer’s gaze. But she did not pull away.
A serious expression came into Fredrika’s face as she slipped her hairbrush into her handbag and pulled her jacket straight. The only source of anxiety triggered by Spencer’s visit was the fact that she still hadn’t brought herself to tell him about the call from the adoption centre.
I’ve got to tell him, she thought. Regardless of the state of our relationship, I’ve got to tell him. And soon.
It was nine o’clock before Fredrika left the hotel and set off to the home of the tutor from the writing course Sara Sebastiansson had attended all those years ago. Parting from Spencer was quite a complicated ritual. They never knew for certain when they would next see each other, but that didn’t matter; the main thing was that they knew they wanted to. They would just have to see when it turned out to be.
Fredrika had a quick word with Alex on the phone before she got out of the car to ring at the tutor’s front door. The media were going mad, he said, a fact that had not escaped Fredrika when she caught sight of all the newspaper headlines that morning. No dead baby had been found, for which everyone involved was truly grateful, even though they knew they probably had very little time.
‘Report back as soon as you get anything,’ Alex said at the end of the call. ‘We followed up a few leads last night, but to be honest…’
Fredrika could visualize him shaking his head.
‘To be quite honest we’ve drawn a blank on all fronts,’ he sighed.
Fredrika left the car and walked swiftly to the front door of the little house. It reminded her of the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel. Pretty, with sweet little decorative details that looked almost painted on. It seemed a quiet, rather elegant neighbourhood. No children or young people. The words ‘retirement homes’ flew through Fredrika’s mind before the door opened, and she found herself eye to eye with a man with thick, ginger hair.
Fredrika blinked in surprise.
‘Magnus Söder?’
‘That’s me,’ replied the man, holding out his hand.
Fredrika was relieved to find she recognized the voice from their earlier phone calls, and took his hand. She gave a tight little smile and looked into his hard eyes. Was there something faintly aggressive about him?
Magnus Söder, recently retired, with coffee stains on his hand-knitted waistcoat, was so far removed from anything Fredrika had imagined he would be that she almost blushed. For some strange reason, she had expected him to be younger, darker and more attractive. And not as tall. It always made Fredrika nervous when she felt small in the company of someone she did not know.
Magnus went ahead, right through the house and out to the back, where he had a lovely terrace. He did not offer her anything to eat or drink, but simply sat down opposite her and looked straight at her.