Magdalena Ronander says hello to the large woman who’s just opened the door. She has fine laughter lines at the corners of her eyes, and the name Sonja tattooed on her shoulder.
Everyone with any connection to Agneta Magnusson was questioned by the police thirteen years ago. All their houses and flats were searched by forensics officers, as well as summer houses, shacks, sheds, children’s dens, caravans, boats and cars.
‘I called earlier,’ Magdalena says, showing her police ID.
‘Oh, yes,’ the woman nods. ‘Bror’s waiting for you in the living room.’
Magdalena follows the woman through the little 1950s house. There’s a smell of fried steak and onions from the kitchen. A man in a wheelchair is sitting in a living room with dark curtains.
‘Is that the police?’ he asks in a dry voice.
‘Yes, it’s the police,’ Magdalena says, pulling the piano stool over and sitting down in front of the man.
‘Haven’t we talked enough?’
It’s been thirteen years since anyone questioned Bror Engström about what happened in Lill-Jan’s Forest, and in that time he’s got old, she thinks.
‘I need to know more,’ Magdalena says gently.
Bror Engström shakes his head.
‘There’s nothing left to say. Everyone vanished. In just a few years they were all gone. My Agneta and... her brother and nephew... and then Jeremy, my father-in-law... He stopped talking when... when they went missing, his children and grandson.’
‘Jeremy Magnusson,’ Magdalena says.
‘I liked him a lot... But he missed his children so terribly.’
‘Yes,’ Magdalena says quietly.
Bror Engström’s clouded eyes close at the memory.
‘One day he was just gone, him too. Then I got my Agneta back. But she was never herself again.’
‘No,’ Magdalena says.
‘No,’ he whispers.
She knows that Joona made countless visits to see the woman in the long-stay ward where she was being looked after. She never regained the power of speech, and died four years ago. The brain damage was too severe for anyone ever to reach her again.
‘I suppose I should sell off Jeremy’s forests,’ the man says. ‘But I can’t do it. They meant everything to him. He was always trying to get me to go up to the hunting cabin with him, but it never quite happened... and now it’s too late.’
‘Where’s the cabin?’ she asks, taking out her phone.
‘Way up in Dalarna, beyond Tranuberget, not far from the Norwegian border... I’ve got the maps from the Land Registry somewhere, if Sonja can find them.’
The hunting cabin isn’t on the list of locations searched by forensics. It’s probably nothing, but Joona has said that they mustn’t leave any stone unturned.