Dead of Winter

59

Peter leaps out of the car with Laura right behind him. He flings open the front door of the house, calling Elsa’s name over and over again. There is no response.

His hands are shaking so much that he drops his phone at Laura’s feet, and she has to help him call the number. The signal echoes through the silent, empty house. Twice, three times, four times. Then the call cuts off without going to voicemail.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Peter mutters, before trying again.

The signal rings out twice before the call is ended.

On the third attempt, voicemail kicks in immediately.

Laura places her hand gently on Peter’s arm without saying anything. He looks up at her, his eyes filled with despair.

‘It wasn’t her,’ Laura assures him as firmly as she can. ‘It wasn’t Elsa that we saw.’

‘How can you know that?’

‘I just do, OK?’

The scar on her back has stopped burning. She is calm, decisive in a way that she doesn’t recognise.

‘But what the fuck is she doing out? At night? And why isn’t she answering her phone?’

‘My phone has been playing up like that for almost two weeks. She’s bound to be out at Gärdsnäset. There’s hardly any coverage there. I’ll drive, you keep trying.’

She holds out her hand for the car key. Peter stares at her for a few seconds, then nods and passes it over.

The car is easy to drive; it takes her only a couple of minutes to get used to it, even though she’s wearing a big pair of boots she dug out of the closet in Peter’s hallway. She feels stone-cold sober, but knows that she isn’t. She silences the risk calculator in her brain by telling it that this is an emergency, and that Peter is barely capable of making a phone call, let alone driving a car. She shoots through Vedarp going as fast as she dares. The village is deserted. The temperature has climbed a little higher. She tries to peer over towards the eastern side of the lake where the glow of the fire ought to be clearly visible, but a damp mist rising from the ice obscures the view.

Peter keeps calling, but is put through to voicemail each time. Laura can hear him swearing quietly to himself.

His phone rings, which makes them both jump.

‘Sandberg,’ he murmurs before answering. After a brief conversation, he ends the call.

‘No sign of the suspect. They’ve just brought in a dog, but they’re at least thirty to forty minutes behind. The trail leads south alongside the lake. In the direction of Gärdsnäset.’

Laura puts her foot down as they approach the turning for the holiday village, skidding as she takes the bend.

‘Look!’ Peter calls out.

The tyre tracks of a motorbike are clearly visible in the thin layer of wet snow on the road.

‘Faster!’

The car bounces over the potholes as they follow the narrow tyre tracks through the archway, up to the yard in front of Hedda’s house. They continue past the steps leading up to the boathouse, then along the path towards Alkärret.

Laura doesn’t even slow down. Low-growing bushes scrape the windows, the car bounces into a deep hole, then another, then comes up just in time for a thick tree branch to rip off the left wing mirror.

Peter hardly seems to notice. He points ahead into the darkness, where something is reflecting the lights of the car.

‘There!’

The headlights pick out an overturned motocross bike. Laura slams on the brakes, just managing to avoid a rock sticking up in the middle of the path.

Peter is already out of the car. He slips and falls, which gives Laura the chance to catch up with him. The bike is on its side, wheels in the air, as if someone has tossed it aside. Beyond it, next to the stone wall and at the bottom of the steep steps leading across to Alkärret, a dark figure is lying on the ground. Laura inhales sharply, but then another figure detaches itself from the shadows.

‘Elsa!’ Peter and Laura shout simultaneously.

The girl’s face is chalk-white, she has blood and soot on her clothes and she is clutching her mobile phone.

‘I’ve tried to ring, over and over again. He needs help!’

As Peter wraps his arms around his daughter, Laura hurries over to the person on the ground. She is met by a disgusting, familiar stench that makes her stomach contract.

The man is barely conscious. Most of his hair and beard are gone, the skin on his head and face is pink and blistering.

‘Laura . . .’ he croaks through burned lips. He reaches up to her; astonishingly, his hand is undamaged. She takes it, crouches down beside him.

‘Oh, Tomas,’ she says, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘What have you done?’

He looks at her with pleading eyes.

‘I did what she asked me to do . . .’

‘Who?’

Tomas shakes his head. His eyelids are growing heavy, while the skin on his face seems to be living a life of its own.

Out of the corner of her eye Laura sees Peter clamber up onto the wall to try and get a signal.

‘Who asked you, Tomas?’ she whispers close to the spot where his right ear used to be.

‘The nymph,’ he whispers back, before slowly closing his eyes.