enquired about the Berg family and learned they’d moved here from Uddevalla, looking for peace and quiet in the country and a good place for their daughter to grow up. Erica sincerely hoped their dream would be realized, that she’d soon get a text from Patrik saying they’d found the child in the woods, scared and lost, but alive. Yet she had a bad feeling that was not how this would end.
She swirled the red wine in her glass. She’d treated herself to a good Amarone in spite of the oppressive evening heat. Most people drank chilled rosé wines in the summer, or white wine served with ice cubes. But she didn’t care for either white or rosé wines. She preferred sparkling wines or intense red wines, no matter what the season. That said, she couldn’t tell the difference between an expensive champagne and a cheap Spanish cava, so as Patrik liked to joke, she was a cheap date.
She felt guilty, sitting in comfort and drinking wine when a four-year-old girl, in the best-case scenario, was lost in the woods. But that was how her mind worked. It was too awful to dwell on all the bad things that might happen to a child, so she subconsciously turned her thoughts to something banal and meaningless. That was a luxury Nea’s mother couldn’t afford at the moment. She and her husband had found themselves caught in a living nightmare.
Erica straightened up and set her wine glass on the coffee table. She reached for her notebook. Over the years she’d got in the habit of always having paper and pen nearby. She liked to jot down whatever thoughts and ideas popped into her head, and she made lists of things she needed to do in order to move forward with her book. That was what she wanted to do now. All her instincts told her that Nea’s disappearance was somehow connected to Stella’s death. She’d spent the past few weeks loafing. Summertime laziness and sunshine had taken over, and she hadn’t made the sort of progress she’d hoped with her book. Now she was going to set her mind to it. That way, if the worst happened, she might be able to offer help, based on what she’d learned about the previous case. Maybe she could find the link that she was sure existed.
Erica glanced at her mobile. Still no word from Patrik. Then she began feverishly jotting down notes.
She knew even before they reached her. The heavy footsteps. Their eyes fixed on the ground. They didn’t have to say a word.
‘Anders!’ she screamed, and her voice was so shrill.
He came rushing out of the house, but stopped abruptly when he saw the police officers.
He fell to his knees on the gravel. Linda rushed over to him, put her arms around him. Anders had always been so big and strong, but right now she was the one who had to keep them both going.
‘Pappa? Mamma?’
Sanna stood in the doorway. The light from the kitchen lit up her blond hair like a halo.
‘Did they find Stella, Mamma?’
Linda couldn’t meet her daughter’s eye. She turned towards one of the officers. He nodded.
‘We’ve found your daughter. I’m afraid she’s … she’s dead. We’re so sorry.’
He stared down at his shoes and swallowed hard to hold back the tears. He was as pale as a ghost, and Linda wondered whether he’d seen Stella. Seen the body.
‘But how can she be dead? That can’t be true. Mamma? Pappa?’
She heard Sanna’s voice behind her, rattling off questions. But Linda had no answers to give her. Nor any solace to offer. She knew she ought to let go of Anders and take her daughter in her arms. But only Anders understood the pain she now felt in every fibre of her body.
‘We want to see her,’ she said, finally making herself raise her head from Anders’s shoulder. ‘We have to see our daughter.’
The taller of the two officers cleared his throat.
‘And you will. But first we have to do our job. We have to find out who did this.’
‘What do you mean? It was an accident, surely?’
Anders pulled away from Linda and stood up.
The tall policeman quietly replied.
‘I’m afraid this was no accident. Your daughter was murdered.’
The ground suddenly rose up towards Linda. She didn’t even have time to be surprised before everything went black.
Only twenty more to go.
James Jensen was hardly out of breath as he did the next push-up. The same routine every morning, in summer as well as winter. On Christmas Eve and on Midsummer Eve. These sorts of things had meaning. Routines had meaning. Consistency. Order.
Ten left.
Helen’s father had understood the meaning of routines. James still missed KG, although the feeling was a form of weakness he normally didn’t allow himself. KG had suffered a heart attack almost ten years ago, and no one had ever been able to take his place.
The last one. James got up after his hundred push-ups. A long life spent in the military had taught him the value of being in top physical condition.
James glanced at his watch: 08.01. He was behind schedule. When he was home he always had breakfast at eight o’clock sharp.
‘Breakfast is ready!’ called Helen, as if she’d read his mind.
James frowned. The fact she was calling him meant she’d noticed he was late.
He used a towel to dry off the sweat, then left the deck and went into the living room. The kitchen was right next door, and he could smell bacon cooking. He always ate the same breakfast. Scrambled eggs and bacon.
‘Where’s Sam?’ he asked as he sat down and started in on the eggs.
‘He’s still sleeping,’ said Helen as she served him the bacon, which was perfectly crisp.
‘It’s eight o’clock and he’s still asleep?’
Annoyance crept over him, as it always did when he thought about Sam. Sleeping past eight in the morning? He’d always been up by six in the summertime, and then he’d worked until late in the evening.
‘Go wake him,’ he said, taking a swig of coffee, but the next instant he spat it out. ‘What the hell? No milk?’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Helen, taking the cup from his hand.
She poured the coffee into the sink, refilled it, and added a dash of whole milk.
Now it tasted the way it should.
Helen hurried out of the kitchen. He could hear her rushing up the stairs, followed by a murmur of voices.
His annoyance returned. The same annoyance he felt when he was deployed with a unit and one or more of the soldiers tried to downplay or avoid situations out of fear. He couldn’t understand that kind of behaviour. If a man chose to join the military, especially in a country like Sweden where it was completely voluntary to deploy to a war zone in another country, then he should do the job he’d been assigned. Fear was something you left at home.
‘Where’s the fire?’ grumbled Sam as he came sauntering into the kitchen, his black hair standing on end. ‘Why do I have to get up at this hour of the morning?’
James clenched his fists under the table.
‘In this house we don’t sleep away the day,’ he said.
‘But I couldn’t find a summer job, so what the hell am I supposed to do?’