Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
He ran his hand through his hair again and again. His fingers were trembling slightly.
“Do take notes of what she says, too. Write it down as literally as possible.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Henrik promised.
He was pale, his face almost gray, and he looked as if he had already forgotten what she said.
* * *
Fredrik had just finished the questioning of Anita Frisk and was on his way back to the car when Malin, Henrik, and Ellen came out of the school. Malin caught sight of him, said something to Henrik, and set a course toward Fredrik. Henrik remained standing with Ellen.
“I thought of something,” said Malin. “I have to talk with you.”
“Of course. Shall we sit down,” said Fredrik with a gesture toward the school, “or is here okay?”
“No, here is fine.”
She looked down at the ground and took a deep breath.
“There was something that happened last Monday, when I was dropping Axel off at day care. Over here.”
She quickly pointed at the day care center that was on the other side of the school building.
“When I came out to the car I caught sight of a woman who was standing a short distance away staring at me.”
Malin held her hands completely still now, concentrating on her story.
“She really stood and stared at me, but didn’t say hello or anything, just stood there. At first I thought about getting in the car and driving away, but when she kept looking at me that way, well … Yes, this was just a day and a half after we came home and found the pictures. It’s possible that I was a little oversensitive, I don’t know, but in any case I started walking over to her. I thought about asking whether she wanted something. But then she jumped into her car and drove off.”
“And you’re sure that you were the one she was looking at?”
Malin looked mutely at Fredrik. He understood exactly what she was thinking. But as a policeman he was forced to try to see everything from multiple viewpoints, take some kind of neutral position.
“I’m not questioning your story,” he said. “I just want to rule out that she was standing there looking for a child.”
“She was looking at me. I even turned around to see whether there was someone behind me. I know she’s not a mother of any of the children. Then I would have recognized her.”
“Okay. What did she look like, this woman?”
“That’s just it. She was slender, had a green jacket and blond hair; it’s possible that it was a little on the strawberry blond side. But I think that Ellen perhaps perceived it as blond, especially in the sun. And the car was white.”
“How old did she appear to be?”
“Hard to say. I didn’t get that close. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, up to forty maybe.”
“You didn’t recognize her at all? I mean, you were close enough to see that it wasn’t someone you knew, or in any event knew by appearance?”
“Yes, I didn’t recognize her.”
“And this was on Monday?”
“Yes, Ellen’s first day in school. The same day you and Sara were at our house.”
“Can you say anything else about the car? Model, type of car?”
“It was a smaller car, with a hatchback. I didn’t get that close, as I said, and when she took off she drove away from me.”
“In what direction?”
“That way, up toward Stuxvägen,” said Malin, pointing straight ahead.
“It may have been a relative or acquaintance that had dropped off a child. That might explain why you didn’t recognize her. I’ll check with the teachers.”
“But what would she be doing … I mean, what if it was her? The woman who carried her away. It could be her.”
“First and foremost we have to see about finding this woman,” said Fredrik. “As I said, we can talk with the teachers and the other parents. If we get that far we can arrange a lineup with Ellen.”
“Now Ellen did actually say that she was blond, and I perceived this woman more as strawberry blond, but not much … Ellen may have thought that it was blond. Or else I was the one who was mistaken.”
She smiled nervously at Fredrik.
“The light can be deceiving sometimes,” she added.
“Sure, that’s a possibility. We’ll investigate it, then we’ll see where we end up,” said Fredrik.
Malin sighed faintly. She seemed disappointed.
“I’m not going back home,” Malin hissed at Henrik as soon as the car started moving.
“Huh?”
He stared at her in the rearview mirror.
Henrik had taken the car keys when they left the school to drive down and pick up Axel. Right then it had felt good. She wanted nothing more than to sit in the backseat with the children and keep them close beside her. But now she regretted it. With the keys she had given away control. If she was sitting behind the wheel she was the one who decided where they went.
“And where should we go then, were you thinking?” said Henrik.
“We’ll have to stay at a hotel.”
“Do you think that’s so good for…”
Henrik fell silent, guided the SUV toward the sidewalk, and stopped in front of a brick house with brown roof tiles. He got out without saying anything and closed the door behind him. Malin sat silently staring ahead, did not want to get out of the car, did not want to leave Ellen, but then reached over Axel and opened the door.
“Where are you going, Mommy?” said Ellen.
“I’m just going to talk a little with Daddy. It won’t take long.”
“Can’t you talk in the car?”
“I’ll be standing right outside the car, you’ll see me,” said Malin, squeezing out past Axel.
She smiled at Ellen and gave Axel a pat on the cheek. He closed his eyes as her fingers touched him. Happily unknowing, she thought, reluctantly closing the door.
She hated this. Standing and arguing outside the car with the children in there like in a protective jar. A young mother came walking with a stroller on the sidewalk. They stood quietly and waited for her to pass. Malin thought that she glanced curiously at them as if she saw right through them.
“Isn’t it best for Ellen to go home? Staying at a hotel will only be a source of worry,” said Henrik when the mother with the stroller was farther away.
Malin had to go up to the hood of the car to be able to see him properly.
“So you think that we should go home and pretend like nothing happened? Wait for the next letter with poked-out eyes? Or until someone comes and pokes our eyes out for real?”
“Stop it,” said Henrik.
“Or sets fire to the house.”
Henrik did not reply. They stood on either side of the red hood of the car without speaking. It was a lovely day. Blue sky, small tentative waves in the sound. A mild breeze against their bare arms. But inside her there was chaos. She wanted to get away from there, far away from Kalbjerga and Fårö. Away from Gotland.
“The worst thing is not understanding,” she said quietly. “Why is someone doing this to us? Have we done something? Or is it just some lunatic who totally randomly … I don’t get it.”
Ellen knocked on the side window and made an impatient face. Both of them smiled at her and waved happily.
“We’ll be going very soon,” said Malin with exaggerated mouth movements, nodding encouragingly.
She turned back to Henrik.
“I know,” he said. “I agree with you. But can’t we go home now, so we can talk about this in peace and quiet. We do have to install the alarm.”
“I’m not sleeping there tonight,” she said, looking him in the eye.
“Can’t we talk about this when we get home?”
She was about to protest, but he interrupted her.
“I’m not going to force you to sleep there if you don’t want to. I promise. But can’t we go home now? I don’t want to stand here like an idiot having a discussion. If you feel the same this evening we’ll go to Visby and check into a hotel. Okay?”
Malin looked away, stood awhile staring out over the water. Her daughter had been carried off from her school by a strange woman. It was like a nightmare that would not end.
“I wish there was somewhere you could go and buy a pistol,” she said without looking at Henrik.
“I know what you mean,” he said.
The question was simply who she would shoot at. The one who was doing this to them always seemed to be at a safe distance. Too far away to even be seen.
“Okay then,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Maybe they would be safe there anyway. Everything that had happened so far had happened as if behind their backs. The one who was doing this did not seem to have the courage to meet them face-to-face. She acted in secret. In that case, what was the next step? Burn down the house, as she had just blurted out? But in that case, when they weren’t at home. Wasn’t that the most logical? It fit the pattern. Or was that over now? Would there be no next step? Malin had a hard time believing that.
The ferry reduced speed and landed gently at Broa. It only took a few seconds before the ramp was lowered and the gates went up.
“The question is whether this woman carried off Ellen and then changed her mind and released her, or if it was the plan right from the start,” said Sara as they rolled off the ferry on the Fårö side.
“That she just wanted to scare them?” said Fredrik.
“Yes.”
An unknown woman, thirty-ish, blond, coaxed Ellen into her car under the pretense of getting directions to the ferry, mixed in with a cute kitten and that they were both named Ellen. That was basically what they knew.
“I’m thinking that the schoolyard is right by the road,” said Fredrik. “That means it’s easy to stop a car and make contact with a child, but on the other hand, it must be hard to get someone to get into the car without one of the other children noticing it. The person who took Ellen with her must have waited for the right moment.”
“Either that or else it has nothing to do with Ellen at all,” Sara answered. “It was just a lunatic who drove past and happened to be lucky.”
“Well, if it was an ordinary sexual predator then that would have been highly probable,” said Fredrik. “But now we have the threats from before plus that it’s a woman who carried off Ellen and that Ellen came back.”
“You’re right,” said Gustav from his place behind the wheel. “It was planned.”
This was the first time he had opened his mouth since they left the school in Fårösund.
“Yes, presumably,” said Fredrik. “My point is that if the woman truly was after Ellen in particular, she must have been at the school a number of times. Sat in the car waiting.”
“And in that case someone ought to have noticed her,” said Sara. “Or the car anyway.”
“Another possible thought is a deranged person who moves in tighter and tighter circles,” said Fredrik. “First distance with the pictures that are left in the house when they’re gone, and then in the mailbox after they’ve come home. And now one of the children.”
“Someone who is coming closer?” said Sara.
“Yes, that is a documented pattern. First threats or violence at a distance, then the perpetrator gets braver and comes closer. So far there is no violence, but it can escalate from threat to violence just as the distance shrinks.”
“Well…” said Gustav without taking his eyes off the road.
He was truly unusually taciturn.
“Henrik Kjellander said that they were going to install surveillance cameras in the house,” said Fredrik. “That’s good.”
Sara nodded.
“We can always hope I’m wrong, but I think the risk is great that this person will come back to mess with them one way or another. Presumably while they are asleep, or when the house is empty. They must make sure that the images from the cameras are stored somehow.”
He took out his notebook.
“I’ll have to call them about that.”
They drove on. Long, tired stone fences wound through the landscape, dividing off pastures from forest and fields. They looked like petrified dragons from an old saga.
“Everything that has happened points to someone trying to frighten them,” said Sara.
“The only ones who have anything resembling a motive are those sisters,” said Fredrik.
Sara turned toward him.
“But if it is Elisabet she is taking a really great risk of being recognized. A confrontation with Ellen can of course be disputed in court, but it’s hardly something you count on.”
“No, that’s true. You probably have to be a little crazy to take that risk.”
Gustav mumbled something to himself and passed the car ahead of them when there was a stretch with a clear view.
They still had to check Elisabet’s alibi. Alma was already freed from suspicion. She was having lunch with a colleague at work when Ellen disappeared from the school.
“I’ll call GotlandsResor again,” said Fredrik. “If the last tenant scheduled the house under a false name, she or he must have left some kind of trace anyway.”
“Are you thinking IP number?” said Sara.
“Yes. Whoever booked the house must have been sitting at a computer somewhere.”
* * *
Gustav stopped the car on the farmyard right in front of the two big maple trees and the opening in the wall. All three of them got out. An unintentional show of force. Sara and Fredrik started walking toward the house while Gustav went over to the short end of the barn where three cars were parked under a canopy. A green pickup, a silver-colored Volvo, and a white Peugeot. Gustav placed his hand on the hood of the white car.
“Cold,” he said quietly when he was back. “But she must have had at least an hour’s head start.”
Sara knocked with the help of the door knocker. Along the steps where the red rubber boots had been tossed last time there was now a yellow toy bucket full of pinecones.
The lock clicked and the door opened.
“Oh, what an entourage,” said Elisabet Vogler when she came out on the steps.
She extended her hand and politely greeted Gustav, who she had not met before.
“What might this be about this time?”
She looked at Fredrik but it was Sara who answered.
“We have to ask a few more questions.”
Elisabet Vogler smiled stiffly and nodded, but said nothing more.