After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  “We searched the entire area with an infrared camera yesterday,” Svante says, looking up to the sky. “Didn’t help one bit. And it’s not easy to see anything from above with all these trees. The best method we have is to search on foot.”

  I hesitate before asking the question that’s been on my mind since this morning.

  “Could anyone survive three nights in this cold?”

  Svante stops, meets my eyes, and shrugs his shoulders.

  “Outdoors, with no sleeping bag or tent? No, I don’t think so. But we don’t even know if he’s in the woods.”

  He takes a step over some rocks at the water’s edge.

  “You have to be careful not to fall in,” he says, nodding to the creek.

  “Yes. If you don’t know the way.”

  As for me, I could find my way blindfolded. When I was a teenager we hung out here in the summer. Swam in the creek, drank beer, and grilled. Made out and smoked. Testing our newly won freedom and getting a taste of the adult life that seemed to stretch in front of us like an endless buffet.

  Then we all got jobs somewhere else and moved away.

  Everyone except Kenny.

  We stop at a wall of black stones, and I run my hand over it, brushing off some snow.

  “My great-grandfather worked here from the age of sixteen until the ironworks closed in the thirties,” I say. “He built this wall.”

  I try to imagine what it looked like here in the early part of the last century, when the ironworks was still in operation. It must have been magnificent and bustling with activity—but now everything’s dead, dilapidated, and overgrown with bushes and moss.

  “Strange rocks.”

  “It’s slag tile,” I say, pointing to one of the black rocks in the wall. “It’s a by-product of iron manufacturing.”

  I look at the wall and then over at the roasting furnace.

  “Where did the ore come from?” Svante asks.

  I’m still looking at the wall when I answer, my hand resting on one of the black rocks.

  “Bergslagen, mostly. But also from Utö in the Stockholm archipelago.”

  “Why’d they close it down?”

  “The economy, I suppose. It wasn’t profitable to produce iron anymore. Just like the textile factory or Brogrens Mechanical. The jobs disappeared, and we were left behind.”

  “And all the people who worked here?”

  “It was tough. My grandmother and grandfather were children during the Depression, and the stories they told me…you wouldn’t believe. They lived on bark bread and bottom feeders from the creek for several years. There weren’t many jobs in Ormberg when the ironworks and sawmill disappeared. Most people moved, of course. But my grandparents didn’t want to leave their land. It was all they owned.”

  “Is that so,” Svante says, looking like he’s ready to leave.

  “People move away from Ormberg; no one moves here.”

  Svante turns around and meets my eyes. Wipes his nose with the thumb of the glove.

  “What about the refugees?” he says. “The new arrivals. Maybe they’ll breathe new life into Ormberg?”

  “You can’t be serious? A bunch of Arabs in the middle of the forest? That won’t go well. They don’t know anything about life around here.”

  “But they’ll get help, right?” he ventures. “Learn the language, find a job?”

  I don’t answer, because he’s right. They get plenty of goddamn help. Help that the people of Ormberg never received, despite the fact that the factories closed and the village slowly withered away.

  Even though we were born here, there was no help for us when we needed it.

  But you can’t say that out loud. Especially not if you’re a cop, and you’re supposed to represent a good and just society.

  * * *

  —

  By the time I leave the task force leader and walk the short distance through the forest to my car, it’s already dark. Inside, a growing unease gnaws at me. I knew the search effort would be complicated, but I was expecting we’d find something. Anything: a glove, an old receipt, a tobacco container—some sign that Peter and Hanne had been here.

  But all we’ve seen are trees and more trees. Orm Mountain’s dark, slippery slopes, and the creek silently winding its way through the woods.

  Just before I get to the road, I hear a snap. Like a branch breaking behind me.

  I turn around, take out my flashlight and shine it into the trees. All I see are shadows playing across the enormous trees as the beam of light moves.

  I continue back toward the road, but more quickly.

  The snowfall is heavier now.

  The flakes wind down between the spruces, dancing in the light in front of me. It occurs to me that the flashlight offers a false sense of security—outside its beam the darkness is impenetrable, and it leaves me as visible as a lighthouse.

  Just as the trees are thinning out in front of me, making way for the road, I hear something again. A scraping sound, as if someone was dragging a heavy object over stones.

  I turn around quickly and aim the flashlight at where the sound came from, but see nothing, just the falling snow reflecting light. I turn off the flashlight, close my eyes, and wait for them to adjust.

  Slowly the contours of the trees become visible.

  Odd: no deer, no pursuer, no confused colleague who got lost on the way to the road.

  Still, I’m sure someone was there.

  Someone or something.

  “Hello?” I shout. “Anybody there?”

  No answer. The only thing I hear is the sound of my own breathing.

  Just as I’m about to go on, I hear footsteps behind me. That and something else—it almost sounds like laughter. The steps are getting closer, and now I hear someone panting loudly.

  A large dark figure appears ten meters in front of me.

  A man. He moves clumsily and slowly over the terrain.

  Just behind him I see three smaller figures, running. Children. The first one is wearing a red stocking cap and carries a long stick in his hand.

  The big man trips and falls face-first into the snow. He groans as he hits the ground with a thud.

  The boy with the stick screams:

  “We got him!”

  The other two boys catch up and circle the man lying in the snow. Then the boy with the red hat starts hitting the large body with a stick. Striking it over and over again until the figure begins to whimper.

  Something cold spreads inside me as I realize who the man on the ground is.

  It’s Magnus.

  Ballsack-Magnus.

  That’s what they call him. Once when he was a child he was kicked in the crotch, and his scrotum swelled up to the size of a soccer ball. He had to go to the hospital and have an operation. Drain out a lot of blood. After that, everyone called him Ballsack-Magnus, and that was that.

  Once you get a nickname in this village, it’s not easy to escape it.

  Magnus is my cousin, and Ormberg’s village idiot.

  I don’t think he’s actually mentally handicapped—his problems seem more social. But he’s clearly different, though I’ve never really been able to put my finger on what’s wrong. And I’ve always felt fiercely protective of him, plus a kind of awkward affection, even though he’s twenty years older than me.

  Not so strange, I guess. The little brats of Ormberg have made terrorizing him into a sport. They throw rocks at him, leave firecrackers in his mailbox, and string trip wire across the stairs outside his small house.

  Now and then Margareta—my aunt and Magnus’s mother—catches a few of them in the act and boxes their ears. Or calls their parents, threatens them, gets her way like she always does. And it works. For a while. The kids come over and apologize: their eyes filled with shame, their ch
eeks red.

  But in a few weeks it starts all over again.

  That’s one of the reasons I loathe Ormberg—there’s no way to get away from the assholes, no place to hide.

  In a small town you’re always fully exposed to other people.

  And to yourself.

  I run toward Magnus and his tormentors.

  “What are you doing?” I scream.

  “What the hell,” the boy with the stick shouts, then drops his branch in the snow and takes off running toward the road.

  Within moments the other two boys run off behind him.

  “…just a joke,” I hear one of them say as he disappears between the trees.

  I hesitate, but decide to stay. I sink down beside Magnus and gently grab him by the shoulders.

  “Magnus, it’s me, Malin. Are you okay?”

  Magnus sniffs loudly. His heavy body heaves up and down, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Are you okay?” I ask again, stroking his back.

  “Nooo,” he whimpers.

  And then:

  “Don’t tell Mom. Please!”

  I promise not to say anything, then help him up. Brush off his coat and give him a hug.

  Magnus leans over and sobs against my shoulder—a two-hundred-pound, forty-five-year-old man who’s just been chased down and beaten by a bunch of middle school boys.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as I drop Magnus off my pulse slows. My rage starts to fade, which allows the rational part of my brain to function, my ability to reason and analyze. The part of me that says you can’t thrash those boys, especially if you’re a cop.

  Apparently they ran into Magnus by chance near the ironworks—half the village was there for the search effort—and started to chase him through the woods.

  Magnus knew who they were, but he wouldn’t give me any names.

  I suppose he feels too ashamed.

  Halfway between the ironworks and downtown I stop, like always at this location. Sometimes I even park, get out of the car, and sit for a while next to the ditch.

  But not today—I have to get back to the office, and I still feel uneasy.

  I stare through the car window at the dark woods and take a deep breath.

  This is what happened to Kenny.

  I close my eyes and sit for a moment, silent and unmoving with the engine still idling. Then I straighten up and start driving back to the office.

  * * *

  —

  Mom calls just as I’m turning in to downtown. She has some questions about the wedding. Or, rather, suggestions for how to cut costs and save some money.

  Mom’s always afraid things are going to cost too much, and even though I’ve told her a hundred times she doesn’t have to spend a cent on the wedding, I still hear that worry in her voice.

  “Stop nagging me about money,” I say. “I’m paying. It’s important to me to do this in the right way.”

  She doesn’t answer, but I can see her in front of me, sinking down onto the couch and putting her head in her hands. She’s never understood why my wedding is so important to me. I suppose it didn’t used to be like this. Getting married wasn’t a big deal. It was just expected, or maybe you did it because you got knocked up.

  If it were left to me I wouldn’t have the wedding in Ormberg—I’ve spent most of my life trying to get away from here. But it would break Mom’s heart, and of course I don’t want to do that. And it is lovely here in the summer, so the wedding will be beautiful.

  I park outside the old grocery store with my phone pressed against my ear.

  “Malin,” Mom says in a small voice, and I sense the unspoken reproach. “Sweetheart, with that kind of attitude you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. Try to relax a little. Everything will work out. We can talk about it more when you come home tonight, okay?”

  I agree, and hang up. Then I unlock the door and enter the temporary office we’ve set up in the old grocery store.

  There’s no longer a grocery store in Ormberg—there’s no customer base. When Mom was little, there was a general store, and in the eighties the Karlman family sold it to a grocery chain. That closed ten years ago and the building’s been empty ever since, other than occasionally being used by teenagers for parties. I’ve come here to drink whatever alcohol we could pinch in flickering candlelight. It was the logical and inevitable consequence of growing up in this backwater.

  I take off my coat and sit down in front of the computer. I throw a glance at the pictures of the Ormberg Girl’s skeleton, which are taped to the wall, a reminder of an investigation we’ve barely mentioned in two days. Then I take out a notebook and flip to the last page.

  My phone beeps and I take it out, a text message from Max: “Gray or beige plaid for the sofa?”

  Max is my boyfriend, or actually fiancé. He’s a lawyer at an insurance company and lives in Stockholm. After we’re married, I’ll move there, too. Then I won’t have to have anything to do with Ormberg anymore. All those fragile threads that keep me tied to this place, those thousands of tiny umbilical cords, will finally be cut.

  And Max is the pair of scissors to do it.

  It feels good.

  Of course, I’ll stay in touch with Mom. Visit a few times a year, or even better, bring Mom up to Stockholm.

  The door opens and cold air pours in, along with a few leaves and the smell of wet soil. Manfred stands in the doorway.

  “Hello,” he says. “How did it go?”

  “Not so well,” I answer. “I just came from the ironworks. They didn’t find anything.”

  He closes the door behind him and takes off his coat. Sinks down onto the chair opposite me. He looks dejected—dejected and on his way toward furious. Fear and stress seem to bring out something hard and aggressive in him that I haven’t seen before.

  “Damn it.”

  I nod quietly and look at him. His red-blond hair is glued to his head, and he’s wearing a tweed suit.

  He looks like he came from another planet.

  Nobody, and I mean nobody in Ormberg would ever dress like that. Not even the Stockholmers who moved into the old manor house on the other side of the creek, who breed weird little horses that are too small to ride, or the Germans who bought the old summer cottages in the forest to live closer to nature.

  When Manfred arrived here with his colleagues, I considered suggesting to him that he change how he dresses, make things easier for himself, so to speak. People out here won’t respect a person dressed like an English lord on his way to a foxhunt. But I kept that to myself. And then Peter disappeared, and Manfred was pushed so off balance that I didn’t dare bring it up.

  He’s still off balance.

  So am I.

  We’re worried about Peter, and a bevy of journalists have started showing up asking questions we couldn’t answer if we wanted to. I wonder where they’re staying—there are no hotels in Ormberg, just a campsite near Långsjön that’s closed this time of year.

  “Tell me,” Manfred says, placing a thermos on the table and nodding to the map lying in front of me.

  Ormberg is situated in the ancient province of Södermanland. It’s just a few thousand hectares of rocky woodland, which, unlike the rest of the province, aren’t suitable for farming. It was once a small, thriving industrial center, but now it’s mostly depopulated. The map of this area shows forest, forest, and then more forest. Along with a few farms scattered as if by chance along the creek that flows all the way to Vingåker.

  We’ve drawn a grid on top of it and marked a few important places: the cairn where we discovered the body, the old ironworks, and the place where Hanne was found.

  “The task force and the national guard searched this area today,” I say, pointing my pen to two of the squares on the map. “I talked to Sva
nte, the task force leader.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. But the terrain’s rough, it’s easy to miss…”

  I’m about to say “a body” but manage to stop myself in time. Neither of us wants to think of Peter as “a body”—not that friendly, handsome police officer from Stockholm. Handsome, that is, if you like older men. He is fifty years old, after all—I learned that information during the search. I also know he’s 185 centimeters tall, weighs eighty kilos, and is in a relationship with Hanne. He has a teenage son named Albin, whom he almost never sees, and an ex he can’t stand.

  When people become the subject of a police investigation, nothing about their life remains private. It doesn’t matter if you’re the victim or perpetrator. We dig up all your dirty laundry, everything you’d rather leave in the closet, and hang it up for all the public to see.

  I wonder what Peter will think when he finds out about our sitting here, in the old grocery store, talking about his height and weight and whom he’s sleeping with.

  If Peter ever finds out, that is.

  As far as we know, he’s been missing since Friday, and the temperatures have dipped far below freezing at night.

  Plus there was a storm late Friday. It knocked down several trees, and apparently took the roof off a barn ten kilometers north of Ormberg. It’s not so unlikely that Peter might have suffered an accident if he got caught out in that.

  * * *

  —

  Manfred unscrews the lid of the thermos and reaches for the paper cups. Pushes his damp hair off his forehead.

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  He pours a cup of steaming liquid and hands it to me.

  “I spoke to Berit Sund, the woman who’s helping social services take care of Hanne.”

  “Is Hanne with Berit Sund?”

  Berit, who lives in an old cottage just beyond the church and the ironworks, was old even when I was a kid. I find it hard to imagine her capable of taking care of someone else these days, especially someone who’s confused and traumatized. Though I do remember she used to work with the handicapped.