Box 21 aka The Vault

never; she would never leave Lithuania again. She knew that; she had completed her journey.

Ewert paid the taxi driver and accompanied Alena into the ferry terminal. The next departure for Klaipeda was in two hours’ time. He bought her a ticket and she held it tightly, determined not to let go until she arrived in her home town.

It was so hard to imagine it, the place she had left as a girl of seventeen. She hadn’t hesitated for long when the two men had offered her a good, well-paid job only a boat trip away. All she was leaving behind was poverty, and little hope of change. Besides, she’d be back in a few months. She hadn’t discussed it with anyone, not even Janoz. She couldn’t remember why.

She had been a different person then. Just three years ago, but it was another life, another time. Now she had lived more than her peers.

Had he tried to find her? Wondered where she was? She saw Janoz, had kept an image of him in her mind that they had never managed to take away. They had penetrated her and they had spat at her, but they had never been able to get at what she had refused to let go of. Was he still there? Was he alive? What would he look like now?

Ewert told her to come along to the cafeteria at the far end of the terminal and bought her a coffee and a sandwich. She thanked him and ate. He bought two newspapers as well. They settled down to read until it was time to go on board.

The day was not over yet.

Lena Nordwall was sitting at the kitchen table and staring at something or other. When you stared, it had to be at something.

How long would it take? Two days? Three? One week? One year? Never?

She didn’t need to understand. She didn’t need to. Not yet. Did she?

Someone was sitting behind her. She sensed it now. Someone in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs. She turned; her daughter was looking at her, in silence.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Why aren’t you outside playing?’

‘’Cause it’s raining.’

Their daughter was five years old. Her daughter was five years old. Her daughter. No matter how hard she searched, she wouldn’t find another adult in this house now. She was the only one, alone. The responsibility was hers. The future.

‘Mummy, how long will it be?’

‘How long will what be?’

‘How long will Daddy be dead for?’

Her daughter’s name was Elin. Lena hadn’t noticed that she still had her wet, muddy wellie boots on. The little girl got up and walked to the kitchen table, leaving a trail of wet soil. Lena didn’t see it.

‘When will he come back home?’

Elin sat down on the chair next to her mother. Lena noted this, but nothing else, nor did she really hear that Elin kept asking questions.

‘Won’t he come home, ever?’

Her daughter reached out a hand and stroked her cheek; she could only just reach.

‘Where is he?’

‘Your daddy is asleep.’

‘When will he wake up?’

‘He won’t wake up.’

‘Why not?’

Her daughter sat there throwing questions at her. Each one made a physical impact; she was being bombarded with these things that crawled over her before boring into her skin, into her body. She stood up. No more attacking words. Enough. She shouted at the child, who was trying to understand.

‘Stop it! Stop asking questions!’

‘Why has he become dead?’

‘I can’t… it’s too much, can’t you see that? I can’t bear it!’

She almost struck the child. The impulse was there – it came in an instant, as the questions crashed against her head. Up went her arm. She could have slapped her, but she didn’t. She never had. She burst into tears, sat down again and hugged her daughter close. Her daughter.

Sven had laughed out loud as he walked back alone from the sad little restaurant to Kronoberg. It wasn’t the food, even though that was laughable, those small, fatty pieces of meat in slimy powder gravy. He had laughed at Ewert. He thought of his colleague marching round the table, kicking its legs and then stopping to curse the tape recorder and Lang’s threatening voice, until the waitress tiptoed over to ask him to calm down or she’d have to call the police.

Sven had burst out laughing without thinking and two women walking towards him looked concerned. One of them mumbled something about alcohol and not being in control. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Ewert Grens was a lot of things, but at least he was never boring.

Ewert was going to question Sljusareva, good. Sven Sundkvist felt sure that she had information that would help them understand more about the case. He decided to abandon the Lang case for the moment, concentrate on the hostage-taking instead, and walked faster, hurrying back to his office. The mortuary business made him feel deeply disturbed, and not just because it was all about death.

There was something else, something incomprehensible. Grajauskas had been so driven and brutal. Medics held hostage with a gun to their heads, corpses blown apart, her demand for Nordwall, only to shoot him and then herself. All that without letting them know what it was she really wanted.

Back at his desk he ran through the events again, scrutinising 5 June minute by minute, noting the exact time for each new development. He started at 12.15, when Lydia Grajauskas had been sitting on a sofa in the surgical ward watching the news, and ended at 16.10, when several people agreed that they had heard the sound of two gunshots in their earpieces. The two shots had been followed by one more. Then a great crash, when the Flying Squad men forced the door.

He read the statements made by the hostages. The older man, Dr Ejder, and the four students seemed to have the same impression of Grajauskas. They described her as calm and careful to make sure she stayed in control at all times. Also, she had not hurt anyone, except Larsen who had attacked her. Their descriptions gave a good picture, but not what he needed most. Why had she acted like this?

He went through the chain-of-custody list and the technical summary of the state of the mortuary at around 16.17, but no new angles came to mind. All very predictable, nothing he hadn’t expected.

Except that.

He read the two lines several times.

A videotape had been found in her carrier bag. The cassette had no sleeve, but had been labelled in Cyrillic script.

They swapped newspapers. He bought them another cup of coffee and a portion of apple pie and custard each. She ate the pie with the same hearty appetite as the sandwich.

Ewert observed the woman opposite him.

She was pretty. Not that it mattered, but she was lovely to look at.

She should have stayed at home. What a bloody waste. So young, so much ahead of her, and then… what? To be exploited every day by randy family men looking for a change from mowing the lawn. From their ageing wives and demanding kids.

Such a terrible waste. He shook his head and waited until she had finished chewing and put her spoon down.

He had brought it in his briefcase, and now he put it on the table.

‘Have you seen this before?’

A blue notebook. She shrugged. ‘No, I haven’t.’

He opened it to the first page and pushed it across the table so she could see it.