Which ones are still in the city? Who did she have ice cream with? Julia? Call Julia.
Malin runs into the bedroom, turns on the computer, looks up Julia Markander in the online directory.
‘Hi, Julia. This is Malin, Tove’s mum, is Tove with you? She’s not? Do you have any idea where she could be?’
Filippa and Elise.
Staying in the country.
The clock on the computer says 19.37.
She should have been here by now, or have let me know.
Shit.
Don’t panic now, Fors, and suddenly she is struck for the first time by how shabby her bedroom is, how yellow the wallpaper has got over the past six months, and the curtains look scruffy and old-fashioned with their mauve and yellow pattern, and the lack of plants and pictures on the walls makes the room look sterile.
There are hospital rooms with more charm.
Focus.
Janne. Could she have gone to see Janne? But he’s in the forest.
Maybe she’ll be home soon. Maybe she’s been to the cinema.
But she would have let me know, Tove does things properly and knows that her mother would be worried to death considering what’s been happening in the city.
Anxiety.
The very worst could have happened.
You should never appear at press conferences.
Who knows what it might trigger off in the heads of the nutters?
She calls Janne.
Three rings before he answers.
‘Janne here. Malin?’
‘Tove. I think she’s missing.’
He can hear that she’s serious from her voice.
‘I’m on my way,’ Janne says. ‘The fire will have to manage without me for a while.’
Malin sinks onto the sofa in the living room, rubbing her eyes, thinking: how the hell could this have happened?
How much do you weigh, little summer angel?
Forty-five kilos?
Not more.
I rolled you up in a rug in the van, and carried it over my shoulder into the room that we’re in now.
I’m in no hurry.
You’re sleeping on a wooden bunk, carry on sleeping, it’s always hard to know how much ether to use. On the one called Josefin I used a different substance, one that vanishes without trace from the body, and I brought her here to this room, my room, and when she was lying on the bunk I scrubbed her clean. I used bleach, and I rubbed so hard, but not too hard, I took care not to damage her skin, because of course you’d need that.
I took her in the forest at Ryd.
As she was cycling home.
They still haven’t found the bike.
I waved at her to stop, and she did, then she got scared when she saw my masked face and put up a struggle, but she soon fell asleep.
The cuts and marks on her lower arms. I made them with the scissors I got for my tenth birthday, as I scrubbed and cleaned and purified her, she smelled of bleach and of course I could have got her even cleaner with the swimming pool chemicals, but those can be traced. Then I took all my clothes off and strapped on the blue, letting the rabbit claws scratch freely, I turned my fingers into white spiders’ legs and she woke up and stared at my mask and she screamed, but she was tied down.
Tied down.
Just like you, my little summer angel.
And then I used the blue nothing.
In and out and she seemed to fade away, and I screamed at her to stay, that if you were to have a chance of coming back, my dear sister, she had to be here, and I soon realised that it was pointless.
She wasn’t, and never would be you.
That simple bitch could never accommodate you, and maybe this was the wrong room?
I gave her some of the mixture.
Carried her out.
She was bleeding after the nothing.
I let her go down by Tinnerbacken. She must have walked to the park. She hadn’t seen me and she was allowed to live, seeing as she could never be you.
But the one lying on the bunk now, with the caged rabbits and boxes of white spiders’ legs, she can be you, she can be the possibility of resurrected love.
I know how it all has to happen now.
Janne in the hall of the flat, sweaty, face streaked with soot, wearing white cotton trousers and a yellow T- shirt with the words ‘Kuta Beach’.
They hugged, but failed to press away each other’s anxiety.
His question just now: ‘Have you called the police?’
And they laughed and then fell silent, fear and anxiety like molten tin solidified in the air, suffocating, destructive.
‘Call now, get the search going.’
And Malin calls the station, is put through to the duty desk, Loving, and she explains what’s happened and he says: ‘We’ll put out an alert at once, don’t worry, we’ll have everyone on this right away.’
Zeke.
Malin thinks. I ought to call Zeke, and he answers and breathes heavily down the phone, and she knows that he knows, that he feels it with his whole body, just don’t let it be too late, and Janne is standing beside her looking worried, as if he’s wondering what’s going on.
‘I’m heading out, Malin. And I’ll call the others.’
‘What others?’
‘Sundsten and Ekenberg. Sjoman. Karim.’
‘But where are you going to look?’
‘Everywhere, Malin. Everywhere. I’ll take Folkman’s flat.’
‘She’s got her.’
‘Yes. Probably. I’ll make sure everyone takes their service weapons with them.’
‘I’ll take mine.’
They hang up.
‘Come on,’ Malin says to Janne once she’s fetched her pistol from the gun cabinet in the bedroom, the holster hidden under a thin white cotton jacket.
‘We’ll go back to yours, see if she’s there.’
