“I don’t want you in here!” she shouts.
Ignoring her, Erik takes a step backwards, kicks the door open, and walks in. The room is empty: a large unmade bed with pink sheets, a pale pink carpet, a wardrobe with tinted mirrors on its doors. A camera on a tripod is pointing at the bed. He opens the wardrobe, but there is no one there; he turns around, studying the room. A narrow pair of men’s jeans is folded neatly and draped over the back of a chair. Erik bends down and sees someone curled up in the darkness under the bed: shy, terrified eyes, narrow thighs, and bare feet.
“Come out here,” he says sharply.
He reaches out, grabs hold of an ankle, and drags out a naked boy, who cowers as he speaks rapidly to Erik in a language that sounds like Arabic. He grabs the jeans and pulls them on. Then another boy peeps out and says something in a harsh tone of voice to his friend, who immediately falls silent. The red-haired woman is standing in the doorway, insisting in a trembling voice that he is to leave her friends alone.
“Are they minors?” Erik asks.
“Get out of my house,” she says furiously.
The second boy has wrapped the duvet around him. He takes a cigarette from a pack on the bedside table and stares at Erik, smiling.
“Out!” screams Liselott Blau.
As Erik slowly descends the stairs, the woman follows, yelling, “Go to hell!” Erik leaves the house and walks down the slate path. Joona is waiting with his gun drawn and hidden close to his body. The woman stops in the doorway.
“You’re not allowed to do this kind of thing,” she shouts. “It’s not legal. The cops need a warrant to enter somebody’s house like that.”
“I’m not a cop,” Erik yells back. “I’ll be making an official complaint about this!”
“Feel free,” says Joona. “You can make the complaint to me. As I said, I am a police officer.”
Chapter 77
Back at the wheel, Joona pulls to the side of the road and takes a piece of paper out of his pocket. A flatbed truck carrying a load of dusty crushed stone passes by.
“There are five more people named Blau in the Stockholm area, three in Vasteras, two in Eskilstuna, and one in Umea.” He folds up the paper and smiles encouragingly at Erik.
“Charlotte,” Erik says quietly.
“There was no Charlotte on the list,” replies Joona, wiping a mark off the rearview mirror.
“Charlotte Ceder. She was kind to Eva. I think Eva had a room at her place in those days.”
“Where do you think we might find Charlotte?”
“She lived in Stocksund ten years ago.”
Joona dials Anja.
“I need a phone number and address for one Charlotte Ceder. I mean like right now. She lives in Stocksund, or at least she used to.” He abruptly pulls the phone from his ear and stares at it, a wry expression on his face. Erik can hear a woman’s agitated voice on the other end. “Same to you. Yes. Yes,
He flicks on the left-turn signal and pulls out into the traffic.
“Is she still living there?” asks Erik.
“No, but we’re in luck. She lives near Rimbo.”
Erik feels a stab of anxiety in his stomach. He doesn’t know why he finds it frightening that Charlotte has moved from Stocksund; perhaps he ought to interpret it as a positive development.
“The Husby estate,” says Joona, inserting a disk into the CD player. Turning up the volume, he turns to Erik and says apologetically, “This is my mother’s music. Saija Varjus.” He shakes his head sadly and joins in. “
The mournful music fills the whole car.
When the song is over they sit in silence for a short while. Then Joona says in a voice that sounds almost surprised, “I don’t like Finnish music any more.” He clears his throat a couple of times.
“I thought it was lovely,” says Erik.
Joona smiles, giving him a quick sideways glance. “My mother was there when she became the tango queen of Seinajoki.”
Heavy sleet is falling when they turn off onto the 77 at Satuna. The sky to the east is growing dark, and the farms they pass are difficult to make out in the gathering dusk.
Joona taps on the dashboard. The heat comes pouring out of the vents with a low hum. Erik can feel his feet getting damp from the peculiar warmth in the car.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got here,” says Joona to himself as he drives through the small community and turns onto a straight but narrow road between dark fields. In the distance they can see a large white house behind a high fence. They park outside the open gates and walk the last few yards to the house. A young woman in a leather jacket is raking the gravel path. She looks scared as they approach. A golden retriever is jumping around her legs.
“Charlotte,” the woman calls out. “Charlotte!”
A woman appears around the side of the enormous house, dragging a big black rubbish bag behind her. She is wearing a pink down vest, a thick grey sweater, scruffy jeans, and wellingtons.
Charlotte, thinks Erik. It really is Charlotte.
Gone is the slender, cool woman with her elegant clothes and her well-cared-for short bob. The person coming toward them looks completely different. Her hair is long and grey, woven into a thick braid. Her face is full of laughter lines, and she isn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. She’s more beautiful than ever, thinks Erik. When she catches sight of him a deep flush spreads over her face. At first she looks totally amazed; then she begins to smile broadly.
“Erik!” she says, and her voice is just the same: deep, articulate, and warm. She lets go of the rubbish bag and grabs his hands. “Is it really you? It’s wonderful to see you again.”
She says hello to Joona and then stands for a little while, just looking at them. A powerfully built woman opens the front door. She has a tattoo on her neck and is wearing a black hooded jacket.
“Need any help?” she calls.
“Friends of mine,” Charlotte shouts back, waving her away.
Charlotte smiles as the big woman closes the door. “I’ve… I’ve turned this place into a women’s shelter. There’s plenty of room, so I take in women who need to get away, or however you want to put it. I let them live here- we cook together, look after the stables- until they feel ready to go back, ready to do things on their own terms. The whole thing is very straightforward.”
“Charlotte, it all sounds wonderful!” Erik says.
She nods and gestures toward the door, inviting them in.
“Charlotte, we need to get hold of Eva Blau,” says Erik. “Do you remember her?”
“Of course I remember her. She was my first guest here. I had the rooms in the wing and- ”
She breaks off but begins again. “It’s strange that you should mention Eva. She called me only a week or so ago.”
“What did she want?”
“She was angry.”
“Yes,” says Erik, with a sigh.
“Why was she angry?” asks Joona.
Charlotte takes a deep breath. Erik can hear the wind in the bare branches of the trees. Someone has tried to build a snowman with the small amount of snow that has fallen, a forlorn and crumpled-looking figure.
“She was angry with Erik.”
