The thought of calling Owe pops into my head for a second. But even here, alone in this intense cold, it doesn’t feel like a serious option. I’d rather stand alone outside an abandoned house on Kapellgränd all night than go back to that prison on Skeppargatan.
I start to walk down toward the glittering lights of Götgatan. I stop outside a pub, unsure of what to do—go home or stay.
Then I see her.
She’s walking up Högbergsgatan holding a little girl by the hand. Her steps are slow, almost lumbering. Her eyes are on the ground. And I know I have to make a choice. Should I make myself known and try to talk to her, or just let her pass?
The girl’s steps are heavy, too. She drags her boots in the slush, pulling on Emma’s arm as if she wants to get free. Her jacket is open, and she has no hat on.
If I do nothing, I know that anything might happen to the girl. She might freeze to death tonight or be hidden away somewhere. And then we might never find her again. But if I make contact with Emma, I’m risking my life.
But what kind of life do I have anyway? What’s left for me to do when this investigation is over?
The memory clinic?
I approach Emma and the girl.
—
“I know what Jesper Orre did to you,” I say.
Emma Bohman freezes in mid-step and shoots me a wary look. The girl stops, too. Stares at me with her mouth open, but says nothing. Her fair hair hangs in tangles over her shoulders, as if it hasn’t been brushed for weeks. The jacket is covered with spots in a rainbow of colors. Her free hand is in a fist, and I can tell she’s freezing.
“What?” Emma says.
“I know he betrayed and deceived you. He’s done the same to others.”
She blinks and looks up at the sliver of moon in the night sky. “Who are you?” she asks.
“Just somebody who knows a lot about Jesper and what he’s done.”
“Okay. And what are you doing here?”
Her voice is harsh; I sense tears in it.
“Hmmm. ‘What am I doing here?’ ” I say. “I’m waiting for a man. A man who’s never going to come…”
She meets my eyes. Nods slowly.
“I understand completely,” she says slowly, emphasizing every word. I gently put my hand on her arm.
“Come, we’ll sort this out.”
She looks around nervously. “We have to go.”
“Let’s just go inside and warm up for a little bit?” I propose. “You can’t run forever, Emma.”
Her gaze hardens when I say her name, and I realize I’ve made a mistake.
“Who are you really? Are you with the police?”
“No. I’m—”
“Get your fucking hands off us,” she says, and pulls away from my grasp with unexpected force.
I take a step toward her. But she’s faster, gives me a hard shove, and I fall helplessly sidewise onto the icy curb. A crunching sound emanates from my jaw, and my mouth fills immediately with blood. Searing pain radiates from my shoulder.
I grab hold of her legs, clinging to her.
“Leave me alone, you bitch,” she screams, and starts kicking.
Then she’s on top of me. Sits astride my chest staring into my eyes. Something is shining in her hand. I don’t understand what it is, don’t see what’s about to happen. Then I see: She has a large pair of kitchen scissors in her hand. As they hurtle toward me, life seems to stop and I see everything with surprising clarity. The rage in Emma’s face. Wilma watching us silently with her mouth open. The snow crystals beside my head sparkling under the streetlamps.
And something else.
Through the window of the pub, I see Peter standing, phone in hand. He looks to be roaring into it.
But as the scissors pierce my coat, he looks out and sees me. His gaze reveals a mixture of horror and surprise, and he drops his phone and begins to move.
That’s all.
Then only pain and the hard chill of the sidewalk exist. I close my eyes, immediately overcome by a numbing fatigue. The pain fades away, replaced by a sensation as soft as down, as if I’m lying in freshly fallen snow or hovering a few inches above the hard stone pavement, weightless and completely indifferent to what’s happening around me.
Everything becomes delightfully quiet.
And in the midst of all this, I feel it anyway: Peter’s presence, like a warm hand around my soul.
EMMA
FOUR MONTHS LATER
I’m sitting in a small room staring out the window. I catch glimpses of small green buds on the trees on the other side of the thick glass. On the street below, a pregnant woman waddles past. A man supports her forearm. My guess: She’s about to give birth, but has been sent outside to walk-start the labor. The maternity ward is located in the building next door. Farther away, behind the large red-brick buildings, I can glimpse the water. It’s blue-gray, and there’s foam on the peaks of the waves.
They say it’s cold outside.
They say it looks much warmer and more inviting than it really is. I can’t decide if that’s true. It’s been exactly seven weeks since I set foot outside of this brick building. For seven weeks I’ve stared out the same window, watched the hard little buds of the trees swell and the migratory birds return.
There’s a knock on the door.
Urban pops his head in. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Tea, thank you,” I say, and marvel at how he never seems to learn I don’t drink coffee. Even though we’ve spent every day together for weeks, he still asks me if I want coffee. But that’s just so typical of Urban. Despite his sharp intellect and his obvious interest in me, he sometimes gets confused. Sometimes his thoughts just seem to wander, like he’s not really present.
He disappears, and the door closes with a sigh. He comes back a few minutes later. He carries two cups of tea and a notepad tucked under one arm.
“Your tea.”
“Thank you kindly.”
He sits down on the stool opposite me and puts on his thin steel-framed glasses. Then he rubs his hand over his stubble and looks at his notes.
The whole thing is quite comical. It’s like he’s trying to maintain some kind of facade. As if our relationship is defined solely as doctor and patient. Like he’s denying the truth. I smile; I can’t help it—the situation is so absurd. Just a few days ago we lay in my bed as close as two people can get. And now he’s pretending to go through my medical records like he’s just some random doctor.
He meets my eyes again.
“What’s so funny? Did I miss something?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s just…”
I leave the sentence unfinished because I see how it is.
If we’re going to dance this dance, then it’s got to be on his terms. He probably feels guilty about what he did. Perhaps he’d even get fired if this came out. If he thinks it’s better to pretend it never happened, then I just have to accept that.
He takes off his glasses and puts the notepad on the table. Meets my eyes. “So, how are you feeling today, Emma?”
I push out my breasts and let my sweater slip down a little over one shoulder, as if by chance.
“Well, where should I begin?”
HANNE
This is how I imagine eternity.
Everything is white, silent, and lacking in any contours. And the cold, which is ever-present, doesn’t even bother you. It’s just there, like the sea and the birds and the goddess Sedna, brooding in the blue-black depths.
Kulusuk’s cemetery spreads out in front of me, and beyond those simple white wooden crosses, the sea presides. Married to the sky on the horizon. Mountains are reflected in the calm waters of the Torsuut Tunoq sound, and large turquoise blocks of ice float on its surface.
The crosses of the Inuit are nameless.
When someone dies, their name is given to a newborn, and life goes on. I like that. I too want a nameless, white wooden cross one day, instead of some bulky granite stone wit
h a gold inscription. Maybe I’ll be buried here, on this hill, where the permafrost never melts and the land has to be carved open to accept you.
Peter stands next to me. Puts his arm around my waist and stares out across the sound. I feel a shiver of happiness that he followed me here, traveling halfway around the world to visit the land I’ve dreamed of for so long.
The deep scissor wound in my stomach has healed. But the doctors say I was lucky. Incomprehensibly lucky. If my notepad hadn’t been in my pocket, partially blocking the scissors, I probably wouldn’t be alive today. The stab was a powerful one, and the liver, which survived by a margin of a few millimeters, is a sensitive organ.
I was saved by my own sense of order and my fear of losing control. It’s almost comical.
It bought enough time for Peter, who came rushing out of the pub, to overpower Emma and call for help.
Peter went to see Albin later that evening, after Emma had been arrested and Wilma had been taken to a safe place. But he still won’t tell me why his relationship with his son is what it is. It’s something I have to accept. Learn to relate to. Just like he has to learn to relate to my illness.
I meet his eyes. He might be smiling a little, I don’t know. Or maybe just squinting against the intensely bright light.
I know he’s hoping I’ll get better. He doesn’t want to lose me to the disease. But I also know that’s not how things will go. One day I’ll slip into oblivion and become exactly what he fears.
But not today.
And really, isn’t that the only thing that matters?
For Estelle and Fredrik
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to give my sincere thanks to all the people who helped me with The Ice Beneath Her, especially my publisher, Sara; my editor, Katarina; everyone at Wahlström & Widstrand; and my agents, Astri and Christine at Ahlander Agency.
In addition, I am forever grateful to all the people who read this book in manuscript form and contributed their knowledge in various important ways with facts and insights into everything from forensics to police procedures, especially: Eva von Vogelsang, Martin Csatlos, Cina Jennehov, and Kristina Ohlsson.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends for their understanding and encouragement while I was in the process of writing this book. Without your love and patience, no book!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CAMILLA GREBE was born in 1968 in Älvsjö outside of Stockholm, Sweden. She holds a degree from the Stockholm School of Economics and is a cofounder of audiobook publisher StorySide. Together with her sister Åsa Träff she has written five celebrated crime novels about psychologist Siri Bergman. The first two books in the series were nominated for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy. Grebe has also written the popular Moscow Noir trilogy with Paul Leander-Engström. The Ice Beneath Her is her solo debut.
@camillagrebe
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The Ice Beneath Her Page 35