Everything was so much easier with Maja. In fact, sometimes he felt guilty that, with all the attention he and Erica devoted to her little brothers, Maja often ended up neglected. She was so good at keeping herself busy that they simply assumed she was happy. And as young as she was, she seemed to possess a magical ability to calm her brothers down even during their worst outbursts. But it wasn’t fair, and Patrik decided that tonight he and Maja would spend time together, just the two of them, snuggling and reading a story.
At that moment the phone rang. He picked it up distractedly, still thinking about Maja. But the caller quickly grabbed his attention, and he sat up straight in his chair.
‘Could you repeat that?’ He listened. ‘Okay, we’ll be right there.’
He threw on his jacket and shouted into the corridor, ‘Gösta! Mellberg! Martin!’
‘What is it? Where’s the fire?’ grunted Bertil Mellberg, who unexpectedly showed up first. But he was soon followed by Martin Molin, Gösta Flygare, and the station secretary, Annika, who had been at her desk in the reception area, which was the furthest away from Patrik’s office.
‘Somebody found Victoria Hallberg. She was hit by a car near the eastern entrance to Fjällbacka, and she’s been taken by ambulance to Uddevalla. That’s where you and I are headed, Gösta.’
‘Oh, shit,’ said Gösta, and he dashed back to his office to grab his jacket. No one dared venture outdoors without the proper warm clothing this winter, no matter how big an emergency it was.
‘Martin, you and Bertil need to go out to the accident site and talk to the driver,’ Patrik went on. ‘Call the tech team and ask them to meet you there.’
‘You’re in a bossy mood today,’ muttered Mellberg. ‘As the chief of this station, of course I’m the one who should go out to the scene of the accident. The right man in the right place.’
Patrik sighed to himself but didn’t comment. With Gösta in tow, he hurried outside, jumped into one of the two police vehicles and turned on the ignition.
Bloody awful road, he thought as the car skidded into the first curve. He didn’t dare drive as fast as usual. It had started snowing again, and he didn’t want to risk sliding off the road. Impatiently he slammed his fist on the steering wheel. It was only January and, given how long Swedish winters lasted, they could expect at least two more months of this misery.
‘Take it easy,’ said Gösta, clutching the strap hanging from the ceiling. ‘What did they say on the phone?’ He gasped as the car skidded again.
‘Not much. Just that there had been a traffic accident and the girl who’d been struck was Victoria. Unfortunately, it sounds as though she’s in bad shape, and apparently she has other injuries, which have nothing to do with being hit by a car.’
‘What kind of injuries?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get there.’
Less than an hour later they arrived at Uddevalla hospital and parked at the front entrance. They hurried to the ER and accosted a doctor named Strandberg, according to his name badge.
‘I’m glad you’re here. The girl is just going into surgery, but it’s not certain she’ll make it. We heard from the police that she has been missing and, in the circumstances, we thought it best if you were the ones to notify her family. I assume you’ve already had a great deal of contact with them. Am I right?’
Gösta nodded. ‘I’ll phone them.’
‘Do you have any information about what happened?’ asked Patrik.
‘Only that she was hit by a car. She has severe internal bleeding, as well as a head injury, though we don’t yet know the extent of that injury. We’ll keep her sedated for a while after the operation in order to minimize any brain damage. If she survives, that is.’
‘We heard that she had suffered some sort of injuries prior to the accident.’
‘Yes,’ said Strandberg, hesitating. ‘We don’t know exactly which injuries are the result of the accident and which occurred previously. But…’ He seemed to be struggling for the right words. ‘Both of her eyes are gone. And her tongue.’
‘Gone?’ Patrik looked at the doctor in disbelief. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gösta’s equally astonished expression.
‘Yes. Her tongue has been severed, and her eyes have somehow been… removed.’
Gösta covered his mouth with his hand. His face had taken on a slightly greenish tinge.
Patrik swallowed hard. For a moment he wondered whether he was having a nightmare, and hoped he would soon wake up. Then he would be relieved to find it was all a dream and could turn over and go back to sleep. But this was real. Disgustingly real.
‘How long do you think the surgery will take?’
Strandberg shook his head. ‘It’s hard to say. As I mentioned, she has massive internal bleeding. Maybe two or three hours. At the least. You can wait here.’ He gestured towards the large waiting room.
‘I’ll go and ring the family,’ said Gösta, moving away down the corridor.
Patrik didn’t envy him the task. The Hallberg family’s initial joy and relief at hearing that Victoria had been found would swiftly be replaced with the same despair and dread they’d been living with for the past four months.
He sat down on one of the hard chairs. Images of Victoria’s injuries whirled through his mind. But his thoughts were interrupted when a frantic nurse stuck her head in the door and shouted for Strandberg. Patrik hardly had time to react before the doctor dashed from the waiting room. Out in the corridor Patrik could hear Gösta talking on the phone with one of Victoria’s relations. The question was, what news would they hear next?
Ricky tensely studied his mother’s face as she talked on the phone. He strained to read every expression, hear every word. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he could hardly breathe. His father sat next to him, and Ricky sensed that his heart was hammering just as hard. It felt like time was standing still, as if it had stopped at that exact moment. All his senses were somehow heightened. Even as he focused his full attention on the phone conversation, he could clearly hear every other sound. He could also feel the wax tablecloth under his clenched fists, the wisp of hair that was tickling the back of his neck under his collar, and the linoleum floor under his feet.
The police had found Victoria. That was the first thing they heard. His mother had recognized the number and grabbed the phone. Ricky and his father had instantly stopped eating their food when they heard her say, ‘What’s happened?’
No courteous greeting, no ‘hello’, no mention of anyone’s name, which was his mother’s usual way of answering the phone. Lately all such things – common courtesies, social rules, what one should or should not do – had ceased to matter. Those sorts of things belonged to their life before Victoria disappeared.
Neighbours and friends had arrived in a steady stream, bringing food and awkwardly offering well-intentioned words. But they never stayed long. Ricky’s parents couldn’t bear all the questions or the kindness, concern, and sympathy in everyone’s eyes. Or the relief, always the same hint of relief that they were not the ones in this situation. Their children were all at home, safe and sound.
‘We’ll leave right now.’
His mother ended the conversation and slowly placed her mobile on the worktop, which was the old-fashioned kind, made of steel. For years she had nagged his father to replace it with something more modern, but he had grumbled that there was no need to replace anything that was clean and in one piece and still fully functional. And his mother had never insisted. She simply brought up the topic on occasion, in the hope that her husband would suddenly change his mind.