‘I got the impression, from what I’ve read, that the violence was more, well, what can I say, like a man?’
Erik Bergman nodded.
‘I think you’d do well in news,’ he said. ‘The police have worked on the assumption that the murder was carried out by a man, but that a woman was there to lure Anders Egerbladh to the right spot.’
‘And they don’t have any clues?’
‘No. The only thing they know for certain is that the murder was carried out with great force.’
23
When Mike went back into the house after he’d put the pizza boxes in the bin, he realised he was no longer in any doubt. He knew what he had to do.
He carefully pulled the door between the kitchen and the sitting room to, and dialled the number.
‘Kristina.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
Mike explained as briefly as he could that Ylva had been missing for more than twenty-four hours, and that none of her friends or the hospital or the police knew where she was.
‘Could something have happened?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Mike said. ‘But could you jump in a taxi and come over here, and stay until Ylva gets back?’
Twenty minutes later, Kristina arrived with a distressed expression. She said a quick and forced hello to Sanna before she joined her son in the kitchen. She had a thousand questions.
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ was Mike’s answer to each of them. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think she …’
Mike held up his hands and closed his eyes in irritation.
‘Mum, I don’t know anything. Can you please just keep Sanna company while I phone the police?’
It was too late. Sanna was already standing in the doorway.
‘Why are you phoning the police?’ she asked.
Mike went over to her, bent down and smiled, to stop himself from crying.
‘I don’t know where Mummy is.’
Sanna didn’t understand and looked at her grandmother, puzzled. As if she were a more reliable source of information than Daddy.
‘Has she disappeared?’
Mike answered for his mother.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t disappeared. She has to be somewhere, of course. But she hasn’t phoned and I want to know where she is. There’s nothing to be frightened of. If you and Granny go and watch a film, then I can make some phone calls.’
‘But I want Mummy to come home.’
‘Mummy will come home,’ Kristina said. ‘That’s why Daddy has to make some phone calls. Come on, poppet, why don’t you and I go and watch a film.’
She held out her hand and Sanna started to cry. Mike scooped her up and held her tight.
‘There, there, sweetie, there’s no need to be frightened. Mummy will be home soon. There’s nothing to worry about. Mummy will be here soon.’
They sat round the kitchen table. Mike had offered them coffee, but the officers had declined, given that it was late. The policewoman asked for a glass of water. Kristina got her one and then stood leaning against the worktop like an observer. Sanna sat silently on her father’s knee and solemnly listened to the conversation.
The policewoman smiled at her. The man asked the questions and wrote down the answers.
‘Okay, let me summarise: your wife left work just after six o’clock yesterday evening and then disappeared?’
Mike nodded.
The policeman looked down at his notes and continued: ‘She said to her colleagues that she was going home. But she’d told you that she was going to go for a drink with her colleagues?’
The policeman put his pen down on the notepad and looked up at Mike without raising his head.
‘I know how it sounds, but that’s not the case. She said that she
‘Does she often go out with her colleagues?’
‘They had a final proof. And that can take a while. She probably thought she wouldn’t be home in time for supper.’
‘So you got worried when she didn’t come home.’
Mike shook his head.
‘I assumed that she was out with her friends.’
‘Did you try to call her?’
‘Not until later, I didn’t want to …’
The policewoman folded her hands on the table in front of her and leaned forward with interest.
‘You didn’t want to what?’
‘Well, I thought that you have to be able to go out on your own sometimes, even when you’re married. We trust each other.’
‘So you didn’t think …?’
The woman chose not to finish the question, out of consideration to Sanna.
‘No,’ Mike replied.
There was a brief pause, which was long enough for Kristina to understand.
‘Sanna, darling, I think Daddy needs to talk to the police alone for a while. Let’s go and brush our teeth in the meantime, shall we?’
‘But I want to know too.’
Mike lifted Sanna down from his lap.
‘I’ll be there soon, sweetie.’
‘She’s my mummy,’ Sanna complained.
Mike and the police officers gave her an encouraging smile and waited until she had left the kitchen. They heard her continue to complain and her grandmother’s wise, calm answers through the door.
Mike leaned forward and looked from the man to the woman.
‘Ylva normally phones,’ Mike explained. ‘She always phones. Sometimes she comes home late, it has happened before. And of course we’ve had our problems, just like everyone else. But, and this is important, she always phones.’
‘Your problems,’ the policewoman probed. ‘Were you thinking of anything in particular?’
Mike controlled himself. He couldn’t afford to be rude.
‘No,’ he said.
Mike took over as soon as the police had left. It was the first time that Sanna had distanced herself from her grandmother and demonstrated that she wasn’t good enough.
Mike lay down beside his daughter, stroked her hair and comforted her as best he could. He was sure that Mummy would be home again soon, he said. He was sure that there hadn’t been an accident, because he’d spoken to the hospital several times. Mummy wasn’t hurt.
‘Are you going to get divorced?’
