from the woods blended with the murmured conversations of the techs. Patrik thought about Gösta. He wondered how he was doing, and he was grateful he wasn’t the one who had to tell Nea’s parents.
A mosquito landed on his bare arm. He opened his eyes, but resisted the impulse to kill it, swatting it away instead. There had been enough death for one day.
It was all so surreal. Here he stood in the middle of a Swedish wood with people he’d never met before.
This was not the first time Karim had seen a dead body. When he was imprisoned in Damascus, a dead man had been dragged from the cell right in front of his eyes. And during the journey across the Mediterranean Sea, he’d seen dead children floating next to the boat.
But this was different. He’d come to Sweden because it was a country with no dead children. Yet a dead girl was lying only a few metres away.
Karim felt someone touch his arm. It was the older man named Harald, the one with the kind brown eyes who spoke English with such a strong Swedish accent that Karim found it difficult to understand. But he liked the man. They had passed the time by chatting. When neither of them could find the right words, they had resorted to gesturing and miming. And the younger guy, Johannes, had helped Harald find the English words that eluded him.
For the first time since arriving in Sweden, Karim had found himself talking about his family and homeland. He was aware of the longing in his own voice as he spoke of the city he’d left behind, maybe never to return. But he knew the picture he presented was not entirely accurate. The place and people he longed for had nothing to do with terrorism.
How could any Swede comprehend what it was like to spend your days constantly looking over your shoulder, fearful that at any moment someone might betray you? It might be a friend, a neighbour, even a family member – the government had eyes everywhere. Everyone was trying to protect their own interests, everyone did whatever was necessary to save their own skin. Everyone had lost somebody. Everyone had seen loved ones die, and that meant they would do anything to protect whoever they had left. As a journalist, he’d been especially targeted.
‘You okay?’ asked Harald, his hand still resting on Karim’s arm.
Karim could see his own thoughts mirrored in the other man’s face. He had let down his guard, revealing the longing and frustration, and it unnerved him. He slammed the lid shut on his memories.
‘I’m okay. I’m thinking about the girl’s parents,’ he said, seeing for a second the faces of his own children.
Amina was probably worried by now, and her uneasiness always affected the children. But there was no reception out here, so he hadn’t been able to phone her. She would be cross when he returned. Amina was always angry whenever she felt anxious. But it didn’t matter. She was even more beautiful when she was angry.
‘Those poor people,’ said Harald, and Karim saw that his eyes were shiny with tears.
A short distance away the men in white plastic overalls were kneeling on the ground near the little girl, carrying out their work. One of the techs had photographed Karim’s shoes. He’d also taken pictures of the shoes Johannes and Harald were wearing. And he’d pressed tape against their clothing, then carefully placed the pieces of tape in plastic bags, which he sealed and labelled. Karim understood why he did this, even though he’d never seen it happen before. The technicians wanted to rule out any traces that he and the two other men might have left behind when they entered the area where the little girl lay.
Johannes said something in Swedish to the older man, and they both nodded. Johannes then translated:
‘We thought maybe we could ask the policeman if we can go home now. They seem to be done with us.’
Karim nodded. He wanted to get away from this place where the dead girl lay. Away from the sight of her blond hair and her little hand covering her face. Away from where she had been stuffed into a hollow in the ground, lying in a foetal position.
Harald went to talk to the officer standing on the other side of the police tape. They spoke for a moment in low voices, and then Karim saw the policeman nod.
‘We can go,’ said Harald when he rejoined the others.
Karim noticed he had started to shake, now that the tension had eased. He wanted to go home. Back to his children. And to Amina’s flashing eyes.
Sanna closed her eyes at the sound of Vendela pounding up the stairs. She had a splitting headache today, and she couldn’t help flinching when the door slammed. She could picture the wood panelling cracking.
All Sanna had done was suggest that Vendela should go with her to the garden centre. Vendela had never been exactly thrilled about being there, but nowadays she seemed to regard it as a form of punishment. Sanna knew she ought to take a sterner hand with Vendela, but she just didn’t have the energy. It felt as if all her strength had vanished when she heard about Nea’s disappearance.
The sound of throbbing bass came from upstairs now, so loud it made the walls vibrate. Sanna wondered how her daughter planned to spend the day. She mostly seemed to hang out with those two boys, and they were probably not the best companions for her. A fifteen-year-old girl and two boys the same age could only mean trouble.
Sanna pushed aside her breakfast plate. Vendela had eaten only an egg. The bread she’d always had for breakfast, ever since she was little, contained too much sugar for Vendela these days. Sanna toasted a slice of the bread and spread on a thick layer of orange marmalade. She was already so late that five more minutes would make no difference.
She didn’t mind that Vendela was in one of her defiant moods today. At least it was a distraction from thoughts of Nea. And she hadn’t had time to think about Stella. But now, as she sat alone in the kitchen, all the memories came flooding in. She remembered that day down to the smallest detail. How happy she’d been to go with her mother to Uddevalla to buy new clothes for school. How she’d felt torn between joy at having a shopping expedition with her mother and envy of Stella, who had those two cool older girls babysitting her. But her jealousy was forgotten as soon as they had waved goodbye and she and her mother drove off in the Volvo, headed for the big city.
On their way home, she kept glancing in the back seat at the shopping bags with her new clothes. Such amazing clothes. She’d been so happy it was all she could do to sit still. Her mother had scolded her, but she’d been laughing as she did so.
That was the last time she ever saw her mother laugh.
Sanna set the rest of her toast on the table. The bread seemed to swell inside her mouth. She remembered getting out of the car and seeing her father’s expression when he greeted them. Nausea suddenly overwhelmed Sanna, and she had to rush for the toilet, making it there just in time. Pieces of orange marmalade floated in the toilet bowl, and she began to retch again.
Afterwards she sank on to the cold tile floor, shaking all over.
Upstairs, the music was still thudding.
The bullet slammed into one of the targets nailed to a tree in the forest glade behind their yard.
‘Good,’ said James curtly.
Sam had to force himself not to smile. This was the only thing for which he ever received praise. It seemed his only talent as a son was being a good shot.
‘You’re getting better and better,’ James told him, giving a satisfied
