A doll, for a smile.
The photographer signaled again.
“Okay!” he yelled. “Now then. One, two, three!”
She smiled.
Click.
“There we go! That’s it.”
She had sat expectantly in the car on the way home. As they approached downtown, she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Are we going shopping now?” she asked.
But her father had kept his eyes straight ahead the whole time.
“No,” he said.
“But we were going to buy a doll...”
“I don’t have time right now.”
“You promised,” she said quietly.
“I didn’t promise it would be today.”
She had tried to catch his eye but couldn’t. Then she understood. His voice had been soft.
She had felt a small shudder pass through her body. She had been afraid that he would notice, afraid that he would see that she had learned how to tell when something was wrong. When something was terribly wrong.
Jana moved her gaze from the photograph to the window. Her hands were clenched into fists. That day, as a nine-year-old in the car on the way home from their summerhouse, she had learned not to trust anyone. If she wanted something, she had to rely on herself. There was no one else to do it for her. She couldn’t leave anything to chance.
If she wanted to stop the gnawing sense of uneasiness in her body, she would have to find Robin Stenberg. Tonight.
MIA BOLANDER PARKED outside Vittra School and walked through the gate into the schoolyard. She was met by happy cries, running children and flying snowballs.
Three little girls with their hats pulled down over their foreheads came running toward her. Their cheeks were red from the cold and snot was running down the upper lips of all three.
“Who are you?” they said in chorus.
“I’m Mia.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“A man who works here at the school.”
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a secret.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“Because it is. I need to know how to get to the third grade classroom.”
“The yellow group is over there.”
One of the girls pointed with her mitten toward one of the entrances.
Mia stepped inside and was met by the smell of the damp outerwear that hung lined up on hooks in the hallway. The floor was wet with melted snow. A hand-written sign instructed everyone to take off their shoes in the cloakroom. Mia ignored the sign, walked forward, turned to the right and took the stairs to the second floor.
She walked through the lounge, looking for the right classroom, and finally found it all the way down the hall.
The class was empty except for a man, a few years older than herself, who was standing in front of a whiteboard writing the day’s lesson. She knocked on the door frame and walked in. She noticed the map of Sweden, the calendar and the colorful alphabet on the walls.
“Mia Bolander, police.”
“Wonderful, great that you could come right now,” the man said, introducing himself as Stefan Ohlin. “You had some questions?”
“Yes, about your testimony.”
“Come in. Sit down.”
Stefan pulled out a chair from a round table and gathered up the notes that lay on it.
“Group work,” he said. “The yellow group is learning about the Bronze Age.”
Mia nodded and looked at his reddish hair and beard, freckled face and hands.
“How long can we talk?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes max. They’re at recess now.”
“I noticed. The playground is a lively place.”
He was silent for a moment.
“So...” both said at the same time.
“I’m sorry. You start,” Stefan said.
“Okay,” said Mia. “You were at Central Station yesterday?”
“Yes. I was waiting for my wife, who was coming on the commuter train from Linköping just before eleven o’clock. She’s also a teacher. At the university there.”
“But you were there early?”
“Yes, I’d met a buddy who just had a kid and left their house around ten in the evening. Because we live a ways out, in Krokek, there wasn’t any point in going home, which takes twenty to twenty-five minutes round trip, so I went downtown and waited.”
“What time was it then?”
“Well, what would it have been, around ten fifteen or ten twenty, maybe.”
Mia pulled out a small notebook, looking for a blank page to write on but didn’t find one. All the pages were full of scribbles. She began taking notes on the brown cardboard back.
“Where were you parked?”
“Right in front of the taxi stand.”
“And while you sat there waiting, what did you see?”
“Yes, that’s the thing. There was a car parked right behind me, and a man sitting in it.”
“Can you describe him?”
“I only got a quick glimpse.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Stefan thought, resting his chin on his hand.
“No, cars have never been my thing. But I would guess that it was a Volvo, an older model. Or a Fiat.”
Mia wrote again.
“Color?”
“Dark. Blue, maybe.”
“Hatchback?”
“No.”
“License plate?”
“The thing with memory is that it only gets worse with age. I used to be so good at remembering things like that, but...maybe a G in the beginning, and a U. Or maybe vice versa.”
“Any digits?”
“It started with a one, but then...no, I don’t really remember. I think there was a four and a seven.”
“Okay, so 147?”
“No, probably 174, I think.”
“Good,” said Mia. “Then we’re only missing the letters. Tell me about the driver...”
“Sure. I left my car to go into the convenience store. I wanted something sweet, I’m addicted to Daim bars, but