by Mikaela Bley
‘Why do you say she ran away? Do you know that?’
‘Because it’s usually the case. But we have a car on its way to the tennis courts to talk with the parents.’
Ellen could picture Ove, pacing back and forth in the long corridors at the police station, talking via his new Bluetooth, which he had ordered specially from Tokyo. While talking, he would slowly shake his head, as if saying no to everything. Back and forth. His grey hair styled perfectly with wax. She called him the ‘Owl’. Not just because he resembled the bird, but also because of the folk belief that owls were connected with bad luck and death. In simple terms, that was what their relationship was based on. That the owl also symbolised wisdom was sadly not something she could associate with Ove.
Eventually, she managed to convince him to get back to her as soon as he had more information about the missing girl.
‘Okay, but if you decide to broadcast this, for Christ’s sake don’t refer people to the police,’ he muttered before they hung up. ‘We don’t have the resources to field a lot of worthless tips from the public.’
Ellen went back to her desk and sat down. Her gaze fastened on the image on the computer screen, from where she had paused the Tumba report. Her body was still shaking. She felt confused, and was covered in a cold sweat. How could Jimmy force her into this?
‘Alright. Friday night coffee, anyone?’ Leif asked. ‘You should take advantage, before we have to pay for it,’ he said, getting up. ‘For the coffee, that is.’
‘No, thanks.’ Ellen shook her head.
‘No, I guess that doesn’t affect some people,’ he said.
She couldn’t bring herself to even respond.
Leif’s biggest problem was that he was against any kind of change. His next biggest problem was that he was unpleasant. And his third problem was that he disliked Ellen. Not only did she come from the wrong social class, but she was also too young and inexperienced to be worthy of his respect. Four years in the newsroom was nothing, according to Leif. And the fact that she came from the ‘Internet’, as the website news team was called, didn’t make things any better.
Reporting for TV4 was her first real job. After studying journalism at Stockholm University, she’d interned at CNN in New York for a year before getting the job as web editor at TV4. Because the website was not a high priority, she’d had relatively free rein. Ellen chose to report on unsolved murders, sensational homicides, and strange deaths. Anything that had to do with murder.
Her work had been noticed by a consultant who was setting up strategies for ways in which TV4 could manage the competition from internet streaming services, and they had managed to convince management to move Ellen over to the TV news department.
She had not exactly been received there with open arms. They thought she’d slipped in, or rather bought her way in, since her last name was Tamm, and she’d grown up at Örelo Castle in Södermanland.
It had been a long uphill battle to gain her co-workers’ trust, and even though Ellen had now been there almost four years, Leif still didn’t think she could handle information from the police department. The list of his opinions about her was long.
‘You missed the meeting today.’
Ellen glanced up from the screen and looked at him. ‘Yes. I was in Tumba.’
‘Well, you’d better enjoy it while you can because these hobby projects of yours will soon be history.’
‘Hobby?’ Was he a complete moron?
‘Yes, now that things are going to be revamped and jacked up, as Jimmy puts it.’ The tone of Leif’s voice indicated he didn’t like the buzz words the new boss had been throwing around. He nodded his almost completely bald head toward Jimmy.
Jimmy was sitting with his back to them, entering information into an Excel spreadsheet. He’d been working night and day since starting a week ago. Either he was trying to inspire the others to work longer hours, and harder, or else the changes he was planning were quite extensive. It was no secret that their ratings were steadily declining and that news was expensive to produce.
‘What kind of meaningless talk is that anyway? And with that accent, too. You can barely understand what the kid is saying. We’ll all be working on our own, too. It’s everyone for themselves from now on,’ Leif continued, shaking his head. ‘It was better before.’
‘Yes, and it’s always been that way,’ said Ellen.
‘What did you say?’
‘That it was better before. Like always.’
Leif grunted.
He’d been at TV4 since the channel was founded, over twenty years ago. When he was on screen, you could almost imagine the picture turning black-and-white. Leif was a capable journalist, with the kind of experience you could only get with time. That earned him a great deal of respect, and just about everyone on the news team looked up to him. Many outside the station thought that it was the program hosts who made the decisions. But it wasn’t. Unofficially, it was Leif who held power. And now his position was being threatened. The former station boss was Leif’s best friend, and had probably made sure that Leif had a higher wage and better benefits than most of the others on the news team.
‘I’m leaving. Thanks for today,’ said Bengt Magnusson as he went past.
‘Off work tomorrow?’ Leif asked, hurrying after him. ‘Listen, did you hear they’re going to shorten Cold Facts? What’s really happening?’
Ellen refreshed her inbox to see if Ove had sent anything through, but there was just a lot of junk mail.
‘Some of us were thinking of heading down to Riche and having a few beers — want to come along?’ Jimmy called out, putting on his jacket.
Of course, he felt he had to ask her.
Ellen shook her head. ‘Not tonight. I don’t have time.’
‘Okay. See you tomorrow then.’
A few girls from the After 10 show ran after him, all dressed up and giggling.
Leif returned with an evening paper tucked under his arm, a coffee in hand.
‘Jimmy left? I don’t understand that boy. He thinks we should include the results from Let’s Dance in the news broadcast. It’s pure madness. Where is this all headed?’ he said, leafing through the newspaper. He took a sip of coffee. ‘And now he wants us to report on a runaway girl. What’s the angle? Is this really the sort of rubbish we should be dealing with?’
Ellen studied him. ‘But isn’t it strange that the girl was going there to play tennis, considering the hall is closed for renovation?’
Ellen usually went to the Royal Tennis Hall to have lunch, but the past week it had been closed because of the construction.
Leif shrugged.
‘And what do you mean “runaway”? What do you know about that? Why do you say that?’ She stood up so quickly that her office chair rolled away behind her.
Leif looked at her as though she was crazy. Which maybe she was.
‘Do you get that this is a little girl who’s missing?! You sound just like the police, and you have no damn idea.’
‘Okay, calm down. No need for some kind of teenage tantrum.’ He shook his head and turned toward his screen.
Ellen gathered up her things and threw her computer in her bag.
‘Half day?’ someone called after her as she stalked toward the stairwell. The others around her laughed.
Ellen made her way down to the garage. Was she the only one who understood how serious this was?
HELENA
8.45 P.M.
The stress was paralysing. She was barely even able to raise her arms. She couldn’t think clearly, either. Had she done everything a mother should do? Had she thought of all the possible scenarios? What had she overlooked? She’d phoned everyone, hadn’t she? The parents in the tennis group. Her classmates. But no one had seen or heard anything. No one.
Four minutes had passed since Helena last looked at the ti
me.
She walked up the short flight of steps to the Royal Tennis Hall and huddled by the entryway to take cover from the rain. Not that it mattered much any more. Her clothes were sopping wet, her feet were numb, and her fingers ice cold.
She didn’t know where else she should look. Right now, she felt it was wisest to stay put.
For fifteen minutes, she and Harald had been waiting for the police. Why hadn’t they called them earlier? Lycke had been missing for over four hours now.
The clouds hastened the darkening of the twilight sky, and a dark-blue glow had settled over the empty parking lot. Closed due to renovation was written on an orange piece of paper taped to one of the glass doors at the entrance to the hall. Open again in three weeks. The doors were locked, the building’s facade covered by scaffolding and tarpaulin. The whole place felt like a deserted construction site. Behind her was the Lill-Jansskogen forest reserve. North Djurgården. In front of her, the Östermalm athletic complex. Familiar areas where she often went running, but which now seemed like black holes.
‘Lycke!’ She yelled as loudly as she could, but the traffic from Lidingövägen and the wind buffeting the tarps drowned out her desperate call.
Harald stood at the bottom of the steps, in the rain, looking up at her with an expression she was unable to interpret.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How could you do it? How could you leave her here?’
‘Please, we can’t keep going over that. I —’
Harald’s phone rang and he broke off mid-sentence to dig it out of the inside pocket of his coat.
He moved a few steps away and spoke quietly into the phone.
Chloé.
Helena looked at her phone. Who should she call? Even if she had someone she could call, what would she say?
She glanced at the time again and then over at the outdoor courts, which were awash with rain.
‘What did she say?’ she asked when Harald was done, despite deciding a moment earlier that she wouldn’t ask that very thing.
‘Let’s leave Chloé out of this.’
‘Leave her out? Isn’t it a little late for that?’ she said, rummaging around in her handbag for her nicotine gum. Helena had stopped smoking over ten years ago but still had a strong need for nicotine. There were two pieces left.
‘I don’t understand what’s taking the police so long,’ she said, chewing so hard that her jaw almost cramped. ‘I don’t understand …’ The words wouldn’t come.
When a police car turned in to the parking lot, her heart began beating faster.
There was just one car. She had expected several.
Helena watched as it approached, and when it pulled up on the cobblestone area in front of them, she suddenly didn’t feel like she was going to be able to handle this.
Two policemen in uniform got out.
Harald approached them, and Helena followed close behind.
‘I’m Harald Höök, Lycke’s father,’ he said, shaking hands with the two relatively young-looking policemen. ‘This is Lycke’s mother, Helena Höök. Sorry — Engström,’ he corrected himself, placing his hand on her back.
She wished he would never take it away.
But the next moment, it was gone.
‘Someone must have taken her,’ she said, meeting one of the policeman’s eyes. ‘You have to help us!’
The words flew out of her mouth like a startled blackbird.
‘Is there any reason why you think someone’s taken her?’
The police officer, who’d introduced himself as Fredrik, looked at her with a serious expression.
She shook her head.
‘Then we shouldn’t draw any hasty conclusions.’
‘We’re really sorry about what’s happened here —’ said the other officer, the big, tall one with a shaved head, whose name she hadn’t quite caught.
‘But hasn’t anyone called you? Someone must have seen her. She can’t just disappear, can she?’ Helena interrupted him.
‘No, unfortunately we haven’t heard anything. Not yet. But it’ll work out. We’re going to find her.’
Fredrik cast his tall colleague a stern look.
Helena understood the mistake the officer had just made, of making a promise he couldn’t keep.
‘Have you checked the hospitals? What do you usually do?’ she asked.
‘It depends on the situation …’ Fredrik answered.
‘Could she have been kidnapped?’
‘We understand that you are extremely worried, and we’ll do all we can to find your daughter. Right now, we need to go through the chain of events to get a clearer picture of what has happened and how to proceed,’ said Fredrik.
‘Can we sit in the car?’ Harald suggested. ‘We’ve been out in the rain for almost two hours and I’m starting to feel it. Both mentally and physically, as I’m sure you can understand.’
Fredrik nodded and opened the car door.
‘She had her jacket on, didn’t she, Harald? She must have had her jacket on?’
Harald didn’t answer.
They sat in the back seat. Through the rear-view mirror, Helena could see the big policeman looking at her. What was he thinking?
Guilty.
And he had every right. Her child had disappeared.
The back doors had locked. Harald didn’t seem to mind. The policeman was still staring at her in the mirror. She wanted to tell him to stop it, but didn’t dare say anything.
The key was turned in the ignition, and the dashboard lit up, the ceiling lights came on, and the heater was put on high.
Helena leaned forward. ‘What should we do to find her?’
‘Let’s take the whole thing from the beginning,’ Fredrik said. ‘We have to get a sense of the situation before we can go further.’
He was talking so terribly slowly. She forced herself to sit back again. She looked at Harald, who had unbuttoned his dark-green oilskin coat and was rubbing his face with both hands.
‘We’re going to find her,’ said Harald.
His blond hair was still just as curly as it had been when he was younger, but the bald spots had become more pronounced.
‘It’s going to be fine,’ he went on, placing his hand on her knee. ‘You can relax now. The police are here.’
She dearly wanted to throw her arms around his neck and be swayed by his confidence. She wanted to believe him. That everything would be like before.
The wedding ring on his finger glinted in the light from the lamp in the ceiling. She averted her eyes and stared out of the tinted window. Rain was running down the glass.
‘Okay, taking it from the start, can you tell us what happened?’ Fredrik said, taking out a little black notepad and a pen from a trouser pocket.
‘Tennis —’
‘I —’
Harald and Helena looked at each other.
‘You start,’ said Harald.
‘No, why should I start? It’s your weekend —’
‘Okay. Which one of you saw her last?’ Fredrik interrupted.
‘My wife, Chloé. She was the one who dropped Lycke off at tennis.’
‘Even though there wasn’t any tennis,’ Helena added.
‘When was this?’
‘Right before four o’clock. I just want to clarify, Chloé didn’t know that there wasn’t any tennis.’
‘We’ll need to speak with Chloé, too. So the two of you didn’t know that tennis was cancelled?’
Helena hesitated a moment, then shook her head. In the corner of her eye, she saw Harald glance at his watch.
‘Can you think of any place where Lycke may have gone?’
They both shook their heads.
‘Does anyone have any water?’ Helena asked.
‘No, sorry. Was it Chloé who was
supposed to have picked her up, too?’
‘That’s right,’ Harald said. ‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t pick Lycke up — something came up at work — so I texted Chloé and asked her to come here, but it turned out later that she didn’t get my message.’
‘A text.’ Helena almost spat out the words. ‘If you didn’t get a response, why didn’t you call her to confirm it?’
Harald looked blankly ahead.
‘So, then who came here to pick her up?’
‘No one,’ Helena replied curtly, hearing in the same moment how that sounded. ‘Can I explain? I realised that something wasn’t right when it got to almost six o’clock and Harald still hadn’t dropped her off at my place. True, it wasn’t my week, but I was supposed to have her this weekend. Lycke has a cold and evidently couldn’t be allowed to infect their son.’ She shot her ex-husband an accusatory look and then continued. ‘They should have been at my place right after five. I called, but when I didn’t get hold of him, I finally came down here myself.’
‘Why did you do that?’ Fredrik looked at her questioningly.
‘To see if he’d forgotten to pick her up. You see, this isn’t the first time this has happened. A few weeks ago, a teacher at the school called and said that I really had to pick up my child now, because the school had closed ten minutes earlier.’
Helena had been forced to interrupt her assessment of an apartment to collect Lycke and then drive her to Harald’s. As usual, he blamed it on someone else — this time the nanny, although Helena knew she always had Wednesday afternoons off.
It was impossible to see what the policeman was writing down. It looked like scribbles; she wondered if they would even be able to read it themselves.
‘As soon as I understood there’d been some kind of misunderstanding, I came over here,’ Harald said, defensively.
‘What do we do now? You have to start searching for her! When are more policemen coming?’ Helena wiped a few drops of moisture from her forehead, unsure whether it was sweat or rain from her wet hair. The windows were completely fogged up.