The Sandman

51

When Mikael has stopped talking and the hissing noise from the speakers has ceased, there’s total silence in the meeting room. Carlos stands up. He’s biting one of his thumbnails as he stares blankly into space.

‘We abandoned two children,’ he eventually says in a quiet voice. ‘They were missing, but we said they were dead and just went on with our lives.’

‘We were actually convinced that was true, though,’ Benny says gently.

‘Joona wanted to carry on,’ murmurs Anja.

‘But in the end even I didn’t believe they were still alive,’ says Joona.

‘And there was nothing left to go on,’ Pollock points out. ‘No evidence, no witnesses...’

Carlos’s cheeks are pale as he puts a hand to his neck and tries to undo the top button of his shirt.

‘But they were alive,’ he says, almost in a whisper.

‘Yes,’ Joona replies.

‘I’ve seen a lot, but this...’ Carlos says, tugging at his collar again. ‘I just can’t understand why. I mean, why the hell? I don’t get it, I just...’

‘There’s nothing to get,’ Anja says kindly. ‘You need a drink of water.’

‘Why would anyone keep two children locked up for all those years?’ he goes on, his voice raised. ‘Making sure that they survived, but nothing more, no blackmail, no violence, no abuse...’

Anja tries to lead him from the room, but he resists and grabs Nathan Pollock’s arm.

‘Find the girl,’ he says. ‘Whatever you do, find her today!’

‘I’m not sure—’

‘Find her!’ Carlos cuts in, then leaves the meeting room.

Anja returns shortly afterwards. The members of the group mutter and look through their papers. Tommy Kofoed is smiling a strained smile to himself. Benny is sitting with his mouth open, absentmindedly poking at Magdalena’s sports bag with his toes.

‘What’s wrong with you all?’ Anja asks sharply. ‘Didn’t you hear what the boss said?’

The group quickly agrees that Magdalena and Kofoed should put together a response team and a forensics unit while Joona tries to identify a preliminary search area to the south of Södertälje Syd station.

Joona studies a printout of the last picture that was taken of Felicia. He doesn’t know how many times he’s looked at it. Her eyes are big and dark, her long black hair is draped over her shoulder in a loose plait. She’s holding a riding hat and smiling shrewdly at the camera.

‘Mikael Kohler-Frost says he started walking just before it got dark,’ Joona begins, gazing at the large-scale map on the wall. ‘When exactly did the train driver raise the alarm?’

Benny checks his laptop.

‘At three twenty-two,’ he replies.

‘They found Mikael here,’ Joona says, drawing a circle round the northern end of the Igelsta Bridge. ‘It’s hard to imagine he could have been walking any faster than five kilometres an hour, if he was wounded and suffering from Legionnaires’ disease.’

Anja uses a ruler to measure the furthest distance he could have walked from the south, at that speed and on a map of that scale, then draws a circle using a large pairs of compasses. Twenty minutes later they’ve managed to identify five current construction projects that could match Mikael’s description.

A two-metre plasma screen is now showing a hybrid of a map and a satellite picture. Benny is still laboriously adding information to the computer which is connected to the plasma screen. Beside him Anja is sitting with two telephones, gathering supplementary information, while Nathan and Joona discuss the various building sites.

Five red circles on the map mark the ongoing construction projects within the preliminary search area. Three of them are in built-up areas.

Joona is standing in front of the map, his eyes following the railway line, then he points at one of the two other circles, in the forest close to Älgberget.

‘This is the one,’ he says.

Benny clicks the circle and brings up the coordinates, and Anja reads out a short description of the building works: NCC are building a new server farm for Facebook, but work has been at a standstill for the past month because of environmental objections.

‘Do you want me to get hold of the plans?’ Anja asks.

‘We’ll set off at once,’ Joona says.