His tone of voice betrayed no emotion, and she shivered.
‘I loved you. I hope you realize that. And I still love you.’
‘I know,’ he said calmly as he leaned forward to peer through the windscreen at the whirling snow. The wipers were doing their best, but they couldn’t keep up with the amount of snow coming down. He was driving so slowly that it felt like the car was only inching forward.
‘Are you happy?’ She wondered where the question came from, but it was meant with all sincerity. Had he been happy?
‘Up until now my life has probably been better than most people’s,’ he said with a smile.
His smile gave her goose bumps. But no doubt that was true. He’d certainly had a better life than she’d had, at any rate. She had spent her days cowering and in terror of the truth she didn’t want to see.
‘Maybe we’re the ones who are right, and you’re the one who’s wrong. Have you ever thought of that?’ he added.
She didn’t really understand what he meant. She had to think about it for a moment, and when she realized what he was saying, she was filled with sorrow.
‘No, Jonas. I don’t think I’m the one who’s wrong.’
‘Why not? You’ve now demonstrated that we’re not so different.’
She grimaced at the thought, resisting the truth that might lie behind his words.
‘The most basic instinct in the world is for a mother to protect her child. There’s nothing more natural than that. Everything else is… unnatural.’
‘Is it?’ For the first time he turned to look at her. ‘I don’t agree.’
‘Could you just tell me what we’re going to do once we arrive?’ Helga tried to see as far ahead as she could on the road. But the darkness and the heavy snowfall made it impossible.
‘You’ll see when we get there,’ he said. Outside the car the snow continued to fall.
Erica was in a bad mood when she got home. Her joy at having aided the investigation by providing some new information had been replaced by dissatisfaction because she wasn’t allowed to accompany the police out to the farm. She’d tried every possible argument to persuade Patrik, but he had stubbornly refused, so there was nothing for her to do but drive home. Now she would probably lie awake all night, wondering what was going on.
Anna came into the hall from the living room to greet her.
‘Hi,’ said Erica. ‘How’d it go with the kids?’ Then she stared at her sister in surprise. ‘You look so happy. Did something happen?’
‘Yes, Dan came over. Thank you so much for talking to him.’ She put on her jacket and stuck her feet into her boots. ‘I think everything’s going to be fine now, but I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.’ She kissed Erica on the cheek and then headed out into the snowstorm.
‘Drive carefully! It’s really slippery out there!’ Erica called after her and then closed the door before too much snow blew inside.
She smiled to herself. What if things were finally going to settle down for her sister? Thinking about Dan and Anna, she went into the bedroom to get a cardigan. Then she looked in on the children. They were all sound asleep, so she went to her study. She stood in front of the map for a long time, just staring at it. She knew she ought to go to bed, but the blue Xs were still baffling her. She could swear that they were somehow connected to everything else, but she couldn’t work out what the link could be. Why had Laila saved those newspaper clippings about the missing girls? What was her connection to all of this? And how did it happen that Ingela Eriksson and Victoria had exactly the same injuries? There were so many loose ends, but she had a feeling the answer was right in front of her, if only she could see it.
Frustrated, Erica turned on her computer and sat down at her desk. The only thing she could do right now was to go through all the material she’d collected. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, so she might as well do something useful.
She read page after page of her notes. She was grateful that she was in the habit of typing them into the computer. Otherwise later on she’d never be able to decipher her own scribblings.
Laila. At the centre of everything was Laila. She was like a sphinx, silent and inscrutable. She held the answers, but she merely sat in silence, staring at life and her surroundings. Could she be protecting someone? If so, who and why? And why did Laila refuse to speak about what happened on that fateful day?
Erica began reading methodically through all the transcripts of her conversations with Laila. In the beginning she was even less willing to speak than she was now. Erica had only scanty notes from those first meetings, and she remembered how strange it had felt to sit there with someone who hardly said a word.
It was only when she had asked Laila about her children that she started to talk. She had avoided saying much about her poor daughter, so the conversation was mostly about Peter. As Erica continued to read, she recalled the mood in the room and Laila’s face when she spoke of her son. Her expression was brighter than usual, but also full of longing and sorrow. Her love for him was unmistakable. She described his soft cheeks, his laughter, his quiet manner, the way he lisped when he began to talk, the blond lock of hair that kept falling into his eyes, the…
Erica abruptly stopped reading and went back to the last passage. She read it again, then closed her eyes to think. And suddenly everything fell into place. She’d found one of the important puzzle pieces that had been missing. It was a long shot, but plausible enough for a likely scenario to emerge. She had an urge to phone Patrik, but she decided to wait. She wasn’t positive. And there was only way to find out if she was right. Only Laila could confirm what she suspected.
Patrik could feel the tension in the air as he got out of the car in the yard in front of Jonas and Marta’s house. Were they really about to find answers to all their questions? For some reason that frightened him. If the truth was as gruesome as he thought, this wasn’t going to be easy, either for him and his colleagues or for the families of the missing girls. Yet during his years on the police force he had learned that knowing was always better than not knowing.
‘We’ll fetch Jonas first.’ He had to shout to be heard over the howling wind. ‘Gösta, you take him back to the station and interview him while Martin and I search the house.’
With their shoulders hunched against the cold, they went up the steps to the front door and rang the bell, but no one came to open the door. The car was gone, and it was unlikely that Jonas had gone to bed, now that Marta and Molly were missing. So after ringing the bell again, Patrik cautiously pushed down on the handle. The door wasn’t locked.
‘We’re going in,’ he said, and the others followed.
No lights were on inside, and there wasn’t a sound. They quickly concluded that no one was home.
‘I suggest we search all the farm buildings as fast as we can to make sure Molly and Marta aren’t anywhere else on the property. Then we’ll come back here and do a more thorough search of the house. Torbjörn is on standby in case we need his team.’
‘Okay.’ Gösta looked into the living room. ‘I wonder where Jonas is?’
‘Maybe he went out to search for his wife and daughter,’ said Patrik. ‘Or else he knows exactly where they are.’
They went back outside, and Patrik held on to the railing so he wouldn’t slip on the stairs, which were covered with a thick layer of new-fallen snow. He paused to survey the grounds. After a moment he decided to wait to go over to Helga and Einar’s house. They might get worried and confused, and it was better to search the other buildings first in peace and quiet.
‘We’ll start with the stable, then Jonas’s clinic,’ he said.
‘Look over there. It’s open,’ said Martin, heading towards the long stable building.