that the two of them should help with the search. What foolishness! Aside from being a waste of his supervisory skills, he’d probably end up getting sick after plodding around in the freezing cold, and then how would the station function? The whole place would fall apart within hours. It was a mystery to him why Hedström didn’t realize that.
‘Damn it!’ His thin shoes slipped on the icy ground and he instinctively reached out to grab a tree branch in order to stay upright. The manoeuvre shook the tree, causing snow to come tumbling down and over him like a cold blanket, seeping under his collar and down his back.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Patrik. He didn’t seem to notice the cold, no doubt because he had on a fur hat, heavy boots, and an enviably thick winter jacket.
Mellberg angrily brushed off the snow. ‘Don’t you think I should head back to the station to get things ready for the press conference?’
‘Annika is taking care of all that. And it’s not until four this afternoon. We’ve got plenty of time.’
‘But this is a total waste of time. The snow that fell yesterday wiped out her tracks, and even the dogs can’t find a scent in this cold.’ He motioned towards a gap in the trees where they could see a handler with one of the two police dogs that Patrik had managed to call in. The dogs had been given a head start so as not to confuse them with new tracks and smells.
‘So tell me again, what exactly should we be looking for?’ asked Mats, one of the volunteers. He’d come from the local sports club after hearing the appeal for help with the search. Everyone in the community wanted to contribute in whatever way they could.
‘Anything that Victoria might have left behind. Footprints, bloodstains, broken branches … Anything that catches your attention,’ Mellberg told him, repeating word for word what Patrik had said when he spoke to the volunteers before they began the search.
‘We’re also hoping to find the place where she was being held,’ added Patrik, pulling his fur hat further down over his ears.
‘She couldn’t have walked far. Not in the condition she was in,’ Mellberg muttered, his teeth chattering.
‘No, not if she was on foot,’ said Patrik, slowly continuing onward as his eyes swept the ground and the surrounding area. ‘But she could have escaped from a car. If the perpetrator was in the process of moving her, for example. Or she could have been dropped off here on purpose.’
‘Would the perp really have let her go free? Why would he do that? That would be a very risky thing for him to do.’
‘Why?’ Patrik stopped. ‘She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t see, and she was probably seriously traumatized. Presumably we’re dealing with a perpetrator who is starting to feel extremely confident, given that he’s been at large for two years and the police haven’t found so much as a trace of the girls who disappeared. Maybe he wants to taunt us by releasing one of his victims and showing us what he’s done. As long as we don’t know anything, we can’t assume anything. We don’t know for sure that she was being held in the vicinity, but it’s possible she was.’
‘Okay, okay. You don’t need to talk to me like I’m some amateur,’ said Mellberg. ‘I’m just asking the questions that the general public will be asking us.’
Patrik didn’t reply. He had bent down to focus his attention on the ground again. Mellberg shrugged. Junior officers could be so touchy. He crossed his arms to hug his chest while he tried to stop his teeth from chattering. Another half hour and then he planned to supervise the search from his car. There had to be a limit to such a waste of resources. He just hoped that the coffee in the thermos would still be hot.
Martin didn’t envy Patrik and Mellberg wandering about in the snow. He felt as if he’d drawn the winning lottery ticket when he was assigned to interview Marta and Tyra. In truth, he didn’t think it was making optimal use of Patrik’s time for him to be out combing the woods, but over the years they’d worked together enough for Martin to understand why his colleague was doing this. For Patrik it was important to get close to the victim, physically to be on-site, aware of the same smells, listening to the same sounds, in order to have a sense of what happened. That instinct and ability had always been Patrik’s strong suit. The fact that it would also allow him to keep Mellberg occupied was a positive side effect.
Martin was hoping that Patrik’s instinct would lead him in the right direction, because thus far their investigation had failed to come up with any explanation for Victoria’s disappearance. They desperately needed to uncover some clue out there in the woods that would tell them where she’d been all these months. If they didn’t, and if the autopsy produced no concrete results, then it was going to be difficult to find any new leads.
While Victoria was missing they had talked to everyone with whom she might have come into contact. They had gone over her room with a fine-tooth comb and searched through her computer, looking for chat contacts, emails, and text messages, but without result. Patrik had cooperated with the other police districts, and they had devoted a good deal of time to looking for common denominators between Victoria and the other missing girls. But they hadn’t found any connection. The girls didn’t seem to share common interests or like the same music; they had never been in contact with each other, or been members of the same Internet forums, etc. No one in Victoria’s family or circle of friends recognized the name of any of the other girls.
Martin got up and went into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. He was drinking too much coffee these days, but with so many sleepless nights, he needed caffeine in order to function. After Pia died, his doctor had prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants, which he’d tried for a week. But the pills wrapped him in a shroud of indifference, which scared him. So on the day of Pia’s funeral, he tossed them in the bin. He no longer remembered what it felt like to sleep through a whole night. In the daytime things were gradually getting better. As long as he kept busy – worked hard, fetched Tuva from day-care, cooked dinner, cleaned the house, played with his daughter, read her stories, put her to bed – he managed to hold on. But at night he was overwhelmed by grief, and thoughts kept whirling through his head. Hour after hour he would lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling as memories came rushing in and he was filled with an unbearable longing for a life that would never return.
‘How’s it going?’ Annika placed her hand on his shoulder, and he realized he was standing in the middle of the room holding the coffee pot in his hand.
‘I’m still not sleeping well,’ he said, filling his cup. ‘Would you like some?’
‘Sure. Thanks,’ she said, reaching for a cup.
Ernst came ambling in from Mellberg’s office, no doubt hoping that a coffee break in the kitchen meant there would be some treat for him too. When Martin and Annika sat down at the table, he lay down underneath and placed his head on his paws, keeping an eye on their every move.
‘Don’t give him anything,’ said Annika. ‘He’s starting to get fat, and that’s not good for his health. Rita does what she can to make sure he gets exercise, but she can’t keep up with the pace that would be needed to balance out what he eats.’
‘Are you talking about Bertil or Ernst?’
‘I suppose it would apply to both of them.’ Annika smiled, but then her expression turned serious. ‘So how are you really doing?’
‘I’m okay.’ He noticed Annika’s sceptical look. ‘It’s true. I’m just not sleeping much.’
‘Is anyone helping out with Tuva? You need a chance to rest and get caught up with things.’
‘Pia’s parents have been fantastic, and my parents too. So you don’t have to worry, but … I miss her. And no one can help me with that. I’m grateful for the wonderful memories of our life together, but at the same time I wish I could rip them out of my head, because they’re what hurts the most. And I don’t want to feel like this any more!’ He stifled a sob. He didn’t want to cry at work. This was his free zone, and he refused to allow his grief to invade here too. Then he would