The Lost Boy

22

Erling was starting to panic. Vivianne had disappeared. No one had seen her since the party on Saturday, and her car was also missing. Something must have happened.

Again he picked up the phone and rang the police station.

‘Have you heard anything?’ he asked as soon as Mellberg answered. When he received another negative reply, he could no longer control himself. ‘What exactly are you doing to find my fiancée? I’m convinced that something terrible must have happened to her. Have you dragged the water around the dock? Yes, I realize that her car is missing too, but who’s to say that somebody didn’t drive it into the harbour, and maybe with Vivianne inside?’ Erling’s voice rose to a falsetto as he pictured Vivianne trapped in the car, unable to escape as the water slowly rose. ‘I demand that you make use of all possible resources to find her.’

He slammed down the phone. A timid knock on the door made him glance up. Gunilla poked her head in, giving him a frightened look.

‘Yes?’ He wished everybody would just leave him alone. He’d been out searching for Vivianne all of Sunday, and this morning he’d come to the office only because he hoped she might try to reach him there.

‘The bank called.’ Gunilla sounded even more anxious than usual.

‘I don’t have time for things like that right now,’ he said, staring at the phone. She might ring at any moment.

‘It’s about the Badis account, something that’s not as it should be. They want you to call them back.’

‘I told you, I don’t have time for that,’ he snapped. To his surprise, Gunilla was still standing there.

‘They want you to call back, and they said it’s urgent,’ she told him, and then went back to her desk.

With a sigh Erling picked up the phone and rang their contact at the bank. ‘It’s Erling. Is there some sort of problem?’

He tried to sound authoritative. He wanted to make the call as brief as possible so that the line wouldn’t be busy if Vivianne phoned. He was hardly paying attention as he listened to the bank official, but suddenly he sat up straight.

‘What do you mean there’s no money in the account? You’d better check again. We deposited several million kronor, and additional funds will be arriving from Vivianne and Anders Berkelin this week. I know that we have a lot of suppliers that need to be paid, but there’s plenty of money in that account.’ Then he fell silent and listened some more. ‘Are you sure you’re not mistaken?’

Erling tugged at the collar of his shirt. He was suddenly having a hard time breathing. When he put down the phone, thoughts began whirling through his head. The money was gone. Vivianne was gone. He wasn’t stupid – he could put two and two together. But he didn’t want to believe it.

Erling had just tapped in the first three digits of the phone number for the police station when Anders appeared in the doorway. Erling stared at him. Vivianne’s brother looked haggard and exhausted. At first he merely stood there without saying a word. Then he came over to Erling’s desk and held out his hand, palm up. Light from the window shone on what he was holding and made tiny sparkles dance over the wall behind Erling. Vivianne’s engagement ring.

At that moment all doubt disappeared from Erling’s mind. In a daze, he tapped in the rest of the numbers for the Tanumshede police. Anders sat down in a chair across from him and waited. On the desk lay the engagement ring, glittering in the light.