‘Marilyn Monroe?’
‘No, not Marilyn Monroe. I said earlier. The first talkies, around then.’
‘No idea.’
‘Mae West.’
‘What about her?’
‘She said it.’
‘Said what?’
‘“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” Bloody brilliant.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Gerda ventured.
‘I used to be Snow White, but … okay, she’s not any more.’
‘I used to …?’
‘… be Snow White, but I drifted.’
‘What does she mean, “drifted”?’
‘I know what it means, I just don’t know how else to put it.’
Gerda nodded. ‘Okay.’
Calle got off the bus. The first thing he saw was two girls, early teens, riding slowly past on their ponies. Then a single car crept up the hill. He could see Oresund and the Danish coastline through the gaps between the houses.
Calle read the road names: Sperlingsvagen, Sundsliden. He took out the map he had printed off from the Internet and tried to work out where he was. An elderly woman was raking the gravel in her driveway. Calle nodded to her.
‘Do you need any help?’ she asked, in a Stockholm dialect.
‘No, thank you. I think I know where I’m going.’
Calle raised a hand in thanks. Stockholmers were good people, he thought to himself. The woman smiled at him again, and it seemed to Calle that she was familiar in some way. But friendly faces often are.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘Grontevagen,’ Calle told her.
‘It’s just over there, on the other side of the grass. Are you looking for someone in particular?’
‘Michael Zetterberg,’ Calle said.
‘He lives in the big white house with a black roof.’
The woman pointed in the general direction.
‘Thank you,’ Calle said, and started to walk.
He was about to turn round and ask if they’d maybe met before, but, given what the managing editor of
Ylva had disappeared nearly a year and a half ago. Three of the four were dead, and the fourth was missing. What did it all mean? Was there a connection? Or was it just coincidence?
Calle walked along the road, resisting the temptation to cut across the grass. It was bound to be wet, and he had put his best shoes on in honour of the meeting, even though they were actually a bit thin for the cold autumn weather.
The Zetterbergs’ house was big, and the garden looked well tended. When Calle got closer he noticed a trampoline that had obviously been left out over winter, a forgotten football and a kick-sledge that had been abandoned by the terrace door.
Good, Calle thought to himself. You had to watch out for people who were too fussy. He had written enough articles for interior design magazines to know that the coolest houses and apartments smelled of chlorine and divorce.
The driveway was empty.
Calle went up to the door and rang the bell. No one at home. In a way, he felt relieved. He had no idea what he would say to Ylva’s husband.
Calle looked at his watch, quarter past five. He had booked a ticket for the last flight, precisely so he could interview Ylva. Contrary to what he’d told the managing editor at
But now, she wasn’t available. So Calle wanted to talk to her husband instead.
About what?
He felt uneasy. Was he really just a parasite, feeding on other people’s misfortune? He decided to go for a walk in the neighbourhood to clear his mind.
There were houses everywhere. Lots of old villas, and some new builds with huge glass fronts.
He headed towards the water, noted a vast, forbidding house on the hill to the left, and the smell of seaweed. When he got to the shore, he decided that fibre-cement roofing didn’t look so bad after all, before turning right in the direction of two jetties. He felt compelled to go out on to one.
He stood at the end of the jetty. To his right lay the Kattegatt, straight ahead the Danish coastline, and to his left the ferry lane between Helsingborg and Helsingor. And beyond that, he could see the island of Ven.
No more than an hour ago, he’d sworn that he would never move out of central Stockholm, but now he found himself wondering whether he should revise that decision. The sky was endless and full of promise. Calle understood why people who had grown up here might find it hard to leave the place. A seagull sailed deftly past on the wind and seemed to mock him with laughter. Calle turned and retraced his steps.
He carried on north along the water and then up a long slope. He eventually managed to find his way back to Grontevagen where a car was now parked in the driveway.
Calle hesitated. What was he going to ask?
A man who was grieving for his missing wife. She went out to buy a newspaper and never came back …
It was a story, no doubt about it.
But a delicate situation: the woman had disappeared, which automatically made the husband a suspect. The man was always the villain.
How was he going to approach this?
The Gang of Four, obviously. Only he wouldn’t call them that in front of the husband.
Calle swept his thoughts to one side. He didn’t need a plan, he was a reporter, a journalist for a weekly, you couldn’t get more hard-boiled. Just a shame that the rest of the world didn’t understand that.
He rang the bell and heard the light footsteps of a child hurrying. A girl opened the door and looked up at him, face full of expectation.
‘Hi, is your dad home?’
‘Yes.’
She turned and ran towards the kitchen.
‘Daddy!’
Mike had an apron on and was drying his hands on a dishcloth. He looked questioningly at Calle, who held out his hand and flashed him what in his mind was an irresistible smile.
‘Calle Collin. Hello.’
‘Hi,’ Mike said, cautiously.
He wasn’t sure who he had in front of him. A Jehovah’s Witness?
His daughter looked on with interest.
‘I went to Brevik School on Lidingo,’ Calle said. ‘I was there at the same time as Ylva. I heard that she was missing and I wondered if I could come for a chat.’
Mike cleared his mind. He hesitated for a moment or two, then shook it off.
‘Yes, of course.’
