Sanna shook her head.
‘What did you and Daddy do at the weekend?’
‘We went to Vala and McDonald’s. And got out some films.’
‘Sounds good.’
Sanna nodded. ‘
Gerda didn’t understand.
‘It’s really good,’ Sanna said.
‘Oh, I see, it’s a film. Okay. Did Daddy watch it too?’
‘He was talking on the phone.’
‘When did he tell you that Mummy was missing?’
‘When Granny came. Then the police.’
‘Sanna, these gentlemen are also policemen.’
Sanna nodded obediently, but without much conviction.
‘But the other ones were real policemen,’ she said eventually. ‘Daddy said that Mummy would come back when I was asleep, but she didn’t. He said that she’d be back when I woke up. But she wasn’t.’
Gerda sat on the edge of his chair and leaned forward towards Sanna, in an attempt to gain her confidence.
‘And your mummy and daddy, do they argue a lot?’
Gerda stared out through the car window.
‘I just hope it was him. If not, we’ve ruined his life. Mrs Mutton-Dressed-up-as-Lamb won’t rest on her laurels.’
He was referring to the plump teacher who had sat in on the interview, savouring every word.
‘You’re the one who wanted to go there,’ Karlsson said.
‘So, conclusion,’ Gerda said. ‘Either she shows up with her tail between her legs when she’s finished screwing around, or he’s killed her. There’s no other option. And if he didn’t do it himself, he hired someone.’
Karlsson chewed the skin at the side of his nail nervously.
‘He could get us put away for something like this,’ Karlsson said. ‘And I’d report it, if it was me. Too bloody right, I would.’
‘You know what?’ Gerda said. ‘He’s got other things to think about.’
Karlsson turned on the radio. A presenter with an affected voice was talking unnecessarily fast and loud.
‘Bloody talk radio,’ he said, and switched it off again.
‘It’s all so strange, so hard to understand.’
Kristina had been sitting in front of the TV all evening. She’d seen what had happened and heard what was said, even though it had all gone over her head. She couldn’t take any more of it. She blocked out the outside world.
A person couldn’t just disappear?
A single thought occupied her mind, a single thought that prevented the TV images and sound from registering on her optic nerve or eardrums.
It was a thought that she mustn’t think, didn’t want to think – a horrid thought, which for that very reason refused to go away.
The thought that her son might have had something to do with Ylva’s disappearance.
She couldn’t get it to fit. She’d never known Mike to be violent. Quite the opposite; he was the quiet sort.
Had it been the last straw?
And if so, what did the future hold? Who would look after Sanna? Kristina imagined that everyone would keep their distance, too scared to get close. It would be hard for Sanna to find friends she could trust.
Kristina wanted to conjure up the image of some seriously disturbed psychiatric patient who might have stabbed her daughter-in-law to death on the street. She tried to imagine Ylva giggling irresponsibly in another man’s bed, or laughing evilly. So that Mike would finally realise the kind of woman she was and free himself from her spell.
But none of these imagined scenarios succeeded in erasing the thought that she wanted to avoid at all costs. That Mike knew more than he was saying, that he’d had something to do with Ylva’s disappearance.
Kristina heard the phone ringing. It had been ringing for a while, but she hadn’t counted the number of times. Finally her brain clicked into gear and she got up and went to answer it. She looked at the display and saw that it was Mike.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and said: ‘Any news?’
Her son was crying on the other end.
‘I’ve got no one to talk to,’ he snivelled.
Kristina held her breath. She was prepared. For anything. It didn’t matter. Mike was her son, nothing could change that.
‘I’m listening,’ she said. ‘Carry on.’
She waited for him to pull himself together sufficiently that she could understand what he was saying.
‘They went to the school,’ he finally managed to squeeze out.
‘Who?’
‘The police. They talked to Sanna.’
Kristina didn’t answer.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Mike sobbed. ‘They think it’s me. They think I killed her. How can they even think that?’
His voice was helpless and desperate, but she couldn’t hear any lies. Kristina felt the tension leave her muscles.
28
Karlsson and Gerda went from door to door and talked to the neighbours. Had anyone seen or heard anything that might shed light on Ylva’s disappearance? Cars that had stopped nearby or left the Zetterbergs’ house in the relevant time frame, which was probably between nine in the evening and the following morning.
Karlsson and Gerda were aware that every question they asked pointed suspicion in the same direction.
The result of two days’ fieldwork was a couple of unconnected witnesses who had heard a car leave Backavagen and disappear up Sundsliden at around half past two in the morning. But unfortunately this lead came to nothing when it turned out that the car had been driven by a sober eighteen-year-old who had spent Friday evening round at his girlfriend’s.
‘Just our luck,’ Karlsson said. ‘Why couldn’t he have stayed over? That’s what we did in my day.’
‘If I had a fifteen-year-old daughter, I wouldn’t let an eighteen-year-old stay over, believe me,’ Gerda retorted.
‘No, I guess it’s different if you’ve got girls. What d’you want?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Me neither.’
They were standing in a queue by an ice-cream kiosk.
‘Maybe a soft ice,’ Gerda said.
‘Go for it.’
‘With hundreds and thousands.’
