There was a click as the lock turned and the door opened. Faster than he had expected, but not fast enough for him to lose the initiative.
He stepped forward and was about to cover the girl’s mouth and bring down the hand holding the knife with all the force he could muster.
There was just one problem.
The person standing with her back to him wasn’t the girl.
It was an old lady in a hospital gown that was practically tripping her up.
He tried to stop the forward motion, but he had put so much energy into it that he didn’t have a chance. He managed to twist to one side so that only his hand made contact with her back rather than the knife, but the woman went down like a felled tree. He realised he was losing the plot. The woman looked up at him and started screaming. For a second he thought maybe he ought to stab her anyway just to shut her up, but he hesitated. Glanced around. Heard footsteps hurrying towards him. Voices. The situation wasn’t improved when another person started screaming, even louder than the old lady on the floor.
The woman in the room.
She was screeching like a lunatic. At least he had been right about one thing: she was the girl’s mother.
‘Nicole!’ he heard her yell.
He turned and ran.
As fast as his legs would carry him.
Sebastian had never driven so fast, at least not in a densely populated area. Twelve minutes ago he had been in bed with Malin Åkerblad in her hotel room. He had answered his mobile, still half asleep, but when he heard Maria’s voice he was wide awake in a second. After a minute or so he managed to get her to give the phone to one of the nurses, whom he asked to contact the police immediately. Malin woke up, and Sebastian briefly outlined what had happened. He more or less forced her to lend him her car, and as soon as he left the car park he called Vanja. He had obviously woken her, but she was soon firing on all cylinders.
‘Someone’s kidnapped the girl!’ he yelled.
‘What?’
‘Nicole, someone’s kidnapped Nicole! She’s gone!’
Vanja’s surprise immediately shifted to razor-sharp focus, and he thought he could hear her leap out of bed.
‘From the hospital?’
‘Yes, I’ve just arrived there,’ he said as he turned into the car park.
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Tell Torkel,’ he tried to say, but Vanja had already hung up. He knew he didn’t need to worry; she would make sure everyone was there. Vanja was a professional, much better than him in a situation like this. She should be first on the scene, really; he usually turned up last, when the deed had been done and the team was already gathered. But not this time. This time he was first, and there wasn’t a second to lose. He jumped out of the car, ran in through the main doors and into reception. There were quite a lot of people standing around, people with anxious eyes, patients in night clothes with tousled hair. They looked at him enquiringly as if he could provide them with answers, but he had none. He ignored them all and rushed towards the doors leading to the ward.
The adrenaline was coursing around his body. Had they lost her? The whole thing felt like a nightmare. He saw the empty chair outside the room, the open door, a couple of curious patients standing in the corridor.
‘Go back to your rooms!’ he snapped before he went in. Two members of staff were standing next to a sobbing Maria, who was sitting on a chair next to the bed. A nurse was attending to Dennis; he was slumped on one of the beds and looked terrible. Sebastian reached Maria in two strides.
‘What happened?’ he said as gently as he could. He knew that the most important thing right now was to exude balance and calm, regardless of how panic-stricken he actually felt. A calm approach made others stop and focus; it strengthened their ability to try to see clearly. However, Maria was anything but calm.
‘She’s gone! Nicole’s gone!’
Sebastian crouched down and took her hands in his.
‘I know. But you have to tell me what happened.’
Despair was etched on Maria’s face.
‘I don’t know what happened. I fell asleep with her … When I woke up she was gone, and he was lying on the floor over there.’ She pointed to Dennis, who was now on his feet.
‘What the fuck were you doing?’ Sebastian demanded. ‘You were supposed to be on guard duty!’
Dennis looked embarrassed.
‘I was sitting out there when this guy in scrubs came along, pushing a trolley. He had a Taser.’
This wasn’t good. Night-time, armed, the right kit, dressed to fit in. That suggested determination, someone totally focused on their goal. He suppressed the feeling of anxiety that came bubbling up, and turned back to Maria.
‘We’ll search the entire hospital. We’ll find her.’
‘But someone’s taken her – don’t you understand?’
He did understand. Probably better than she did. But he had to remain calm.
Somehow.
★ ★ ★
Vanja had woken both Torkel and Billy. Torkel had promised to sort out backup from Karlstad while Billy accompanied her to the hospital. A patrol car had already arrived when they got there, and two uniformed officers were in reception trying to find out what was going on. Vanja asked them to watch the main entrance so that only authorised personnel could come and go. She asked Billy to gather all the staff in reception and to inform them of the situation. There were too few police officers to search the place effectively, so they were going to need the help of the staff. Billy would quickly divide them into pairs and explain that they were to observe and report back; they were not to approach anyone they found, or touch anything. He nodded and set off; Vanja could hear him talking to people as she ran towards Nicole’s room.
She found Sebastian there and he provided a rapid, almost feverish summary. The more she found out, the less she liked what she was hearing.
An elderly lady and the officer who had been guarding Nicole’s room had been attacked by a man wearing scrubs and a face mask. According to the lady who had been in the toilet, he had been brandishing a knife.
Several members of staff had seen a man in green scrubs running away. He had been moving very fast, and had disappeared down the stairs to the basement.
No one had seen Nicole. She had vanished without a trace.
Sebastian looked paler than usual, and seemed to appreciate her presence.
‘Can we talk outside?’ he asked with a discreet nod in the direction of Nicole’s mother, who was ashen and exhausted. Vanja thought that was a good idea, and they left the room.
‘What do you think?’ she asked quietly. Sebastian gazed at her for a moment before he spoke.
‘I think we’re fucked, to be honest. He beat us to it again.’
‘First Ceder, and now Nicole. We look like idiots …’
‘We don’t just look like idiots, we are idiots,’ Sebastian said drily. ‘We’re responsible for this. We took our eye off the ball again.’
Vanja had to agree. The fact that someone had managed to abduct a key witness under police protection, and a child to boot, was nothing less than a disaster. For the case, for the girl, for her mother, and for Vanja’s career, although she certainly wasn’t proud of that thought. She knew it was in no way comparable with Nicole’s fate, but she felt as if the faint hope she had nurtured of reapplying for the FBI training programme at Quantico was fading. She wasn’t the SIO, but even so … this wouldn’t look good. Feeling ashamed of herself, she focused on what was important. The girl. The girl. The girl.
‘Billy’s co-ordinating a search of the entire building – you and I will take the basement,’ she said firmly. ‘I believe that’s where he was last seen?’
Sebastian nodded. ‘Well, he was heading in that direction.’
‘Let’s start there.’
★ ★ ★
They set off down the stone stairs. Not too quickly – they didn’t want to miss anything. The stairwell was narrow, with yellow walls and
a green handrail. Vanja’s phone rang; Torkel had arrived with Erik Flodin and wanted an update. Vanja outlined her plan for the search: two police officers on each floor, plus hospital staff in pairs. Billy would be able to provide more detail.
‘Perhaps Erik could talk to Dennis?’ she suggested. ‘Then you could concentrate on the old lady – she’s the only one who’s seen our perpetrator at close quarters.’
Torkel agreed, and said he would deal with the reinforcements who were on their way. There was a risk that they would go from too few officers to too many, and without clear leadership they might all end up running around like headless chickens.
‘One of the nurses said she thought the trolley the man was pushing came from down here,’ Sebastian said when Vanja had ended the call.
‘How could she tell? There must be dozens of trolleys in this place.’
‘Apparently they’d done an inventory last week, marked the ones that needed repairing and put them down in the basement. The trolley outside Nicole’s room was marked.’
Vanja thought for a moment.
‘So he went up in the lift.’
At the bottom of the stairs they were faced with a yellow, somewhat battered metal door that looked as if it had had a hard life.
‘Are there any entrances to the building down here?’ Sebastian asked.
‘Emergency exits. Several.’
Vanja was about to open the heavy door, then she paused. Reached for her gun and drew back the slide. The moving parts of the Sig Sauer clicked into place. Sebastian gave her a sceptical look.
‘I don’t think he’s still here. He’s been much cleverer than that so far,’ he said as he pulled open the door, revealing the dimly lit corridor beyond. Vanja followed him and pressed the orange button. The fluorescent lights flickered into life, illuminating a series of three storage rooms and bare cement walls. Immediately on their right was the lift; Vanja made a mental note to ask the CSIs to check it for fingerprints. They set off quietly, listening for any indication that there might be someone else down here. The only sound was the faint monotonous hum of the air-conditioning system, and their own footsteps.
They stopped at the first storeroom; Vanja raised her gun and Sebastian pushed the door open. It was dark inside; he fumbled for the light button, found it. They saw cardboard boxes that had been torn open, with green scrubs and white hospital uniforms strewn all over the floor, mainly shirts and trousers.
‘This is where he got his clothes,’ Sebastian said.
‘Mm. Don’t touch anything – I’ll ask Billy to see if they can find any traces of DNA.’
They moved on to the next room, which contained sheets and blankets, all neatly folded and stacked on shelves. All perfectly tidy, which strengthened their suspicions about what had happened in the previous room.
The last room also seemed untouched; it was full of boxes of bandages, nappies and rolls of protective paper. They relaxed a little, and Vanja began to feel that her loaded gun was in the way more than anything. She slipped it back into its holster with a practised movement.
‘He was in a hurry to get out of here,’ she said. ‘He’s acted so professionally in the past – if he’d had time, I’m sure he would have tidied up after himself.’
Sebastian nodded. ‘I don’t understand his behaviour at all right now. Why would he kidnap Nicole? It doesn’t make sense.’
Vanja looked at him, her expression grave. Put into words what they had both been thinking ever since they got to the hospital, but hadn’t dared to say:
‘So we’re looking for her body.’
Sebastian nodded again. An image came into his mind: Nicole, pale and covered in blood. Stabbed. Disposed of. Dumped under a pile of cardboard boxes somewhere.
He tried to push the image away, but it refused to go.
Some images do that. In the worst-case scenario, you have to live with them for the rest of your life.
Nicole’s dead body would be one of those. He knew it.
His train of thought was interrupted as the metal door at the bottom of the stairs flew open and a nurse appeared. They could see she had something important to tell them before she spoke.
‘We’ve found her! We’ve found her!’ she shouted.
The image was there to stay.
★ ★ ★
He recognised it immediately. The location was different, of course, as were the items she had used, but the way she had arranged them was the same. The blanket draped over the boxes. She had made herself a little hiding place. Somewhere she felt secure, safe from everything she was running away from. In a linen storeroom on the second floor, Nicole had recreated the cramped refuge in the Bear’s Cave.
An auxiliary had noticed that two boxes were in the wrong place. They were on the floor in front of a shelf full of sheets, as if they had fallen down. A blanket had been draped over them, and there was a pillow on each side to stop anyone seeing inside. She was a mother herself, and recognised a den when she saw one. She moved one of the boxes a fraction, peered in and saw Nicole’s terrified eyes shining, right at the back below the bottom shelf.
By the time Sebastian arrived, Maria had managed to get her out. She was in her mother’s arms, pale and frightened. Maria was sobbing with joy.
Nicole didn’t say a word. But the way she looked at him said it all. She wanted to go back. Back to her hiding place. Sebastian understood perfectly. The grown-ups hadn’t been able to protect her.
Not her mother. Not the police. Not Sebastian.
Only Nicole.
Sebastian felt both relieved and proud of her; she really was a survivor. He smiled at her.
‘Hello, Nicole – we were worried about you.’
She didn’t answer, but she made a faint movement towards him. Maria noticed, and looked in surprise at her daughter. Sebastian held out his hand.
‘Do you want to come to me?’ he asked softly.
Nicole freed herself from her mother’s arms and reached out to him. Sebastian could see that it was hard for Maria to let go of the daughter she had just found. He tried to calm her.
‘I’ll just carry her back to her room.’ Maria nodded, and Sebastian took the child. Her body was warm and slightly sweaty, her muscles tense, but not like the last time he had carried her. He felt her relax as soon as she was in his arms. It was a powerful feeling, the realisation that he was so important to her. That she had chosen him, trusted him.
But he had to ask the question. He tried to do it as gently as possible:
‘Did you see him? Is that why you hid in here?’
Nicole looked at him blankly, as if she didn’t understand. He tried again.
‘The man who was here – did you see him?’ His tone was a little more urgent this time, but the response was the same; she obviously had no idea what he was talking about. He was relieved that she didn’t know how close to danger she had been. He stroked her soft hair.
‘Or did you just come here to sleep? Because it felt better?’
She looked away, as if she was ashamed. He tried to reassure her with a smile.
‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’ The words were so inadequate; he really wanted to tell her how happy he was that she had escaped not only the danger, but also the knowledge of that danger.
He adjusted her position so that her head was resting on his shoulder, then turned around and spoke to Maria and Vanja:
‘I’ll carry her downstairs, then we can talk about what to do next.’
‘I don’t want to stay in that room,’ Maria said as they set off. ‘I don’t feel safe there.’
‘I understand. We’ll find you somewhere else,’ Sebastian replied. He chose the stairs, meeting the gaze of the staff who were watching them with a certain amount of curiosity.
The man and the little girl in his arms.
The mother following on behind.
Like a family. But not a family.
★ ★ ★
He put Nicole down on the bed next to the window
, and was surprised at how easily she let go of him. She really did trust him, which was why she was no longer so clingy. She knew he would come back to her. He looked around and understood exactly what Maria meant. He noticed the sketch pad and coloured pens on the bedside table; Nicole had done another drawing. He could just see it under the top one; he picked it up and took a closer look.
Lots of black and shades of brown. Broad strokes. A little girl in a cave. Several adults nearby, searching for her. The girl was very small, hidden away. The other figures were much too big. The proportions were all wrong, but that was how tiny she had felt inside the cave. He turned to Maria.
‘When did she do this?’
‘Yesterday, just after you left.’
Sebastian glanced over at Nicole, who was sitting motionless on the bed gazing up at him. He felt a wave of relief. In the midst of all the chaos, this was a small breakthrough.
‘It’s working,’ he said.
Maria looked enquiringly at him. ‘What’s working?’
Sebastian lowered his voice so that Nicole wouldn’t hear.
‘She’s drawing her memories. This is just before we found her in the cave. She’s working backwards. First me and the ambulance, now the cave …’
‘You mean she might …’ Maria began anxiously, but Sebastian stopped her with a discreet gesture.
‘Shh … We’ll see. The main thing is for her to carry on,’ he said encouragingly.
Maria didn’t seem convinced. The thought of the drawings that were still to come clearly frightened her.
‘Because that will tell you what you need to know,’ she said expressionlessly. ‘She’ll draw her dead cousins and you’ll be able to solve the case.’
Sebastian wasn’t sure how to respond. What she said was both true and false. He cared about Nicole, but they also needed to solve the case. For her sake.
‘I don’t think any of us wants this guy running around on the loose.’
Maria didn’t say anything, but after a few seconds she nodded. It was important that Nicole carried on drawing. It was the only way they would ever find peace.
The Silent Girl (Sebastian Bergman 4) Page 20