The Beast (19 page)

    'People
imagine too much. Have you got anything sensible on your mind as well? What's
the situation here, for instance? Or are you as thick as you look?'

    Lauritzen's
colleague, who'd been hanging back a little, now took a few steps forward. She
didn't bother with any greetings. Her blonde hair was glued to her temples; she
was sweating copiously after working hard in the oppressive heat.

    'We
got the first message about an hour ago. The Stockholm duty officer rang to say
that one of the kids in this nursery had gone missing. A few minutes later more
info came through. Bernt Lund had been seen in connection with the school and
at the time of the disappearance. That was enough for us; a major alert went
out. We mobilised members from the local Working Dog Owners' club to search the
woodland between the school and Enköping. Two helicopter crews are scanning the
Lake Mälaren beaches near here. A team is lined up for a detailed area search.
They'll get going soon, but we're holding off for the moment. The dogs need to
check out the scents, before half Strängnäs starts combing the place.'

    She
apologised and went off to speak to the dog owners next, a group set apart by
having the club emblem sewn on to their anoraks.

    Sven
and Ewert looked at each other; both held back from starting work, both
reluctant to enter into the waiting darkness. Then Ewert cleared his throat and
turned to Lauritzen.

    'The
parents of the missing child. Where are they?'

    Lauritzen
pointed at a man wearing a brown corduroy suit and with his long hair gathered
in a ponytail, who was seated near the end of a bench by the school gate. He
rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head in his hands, staring at the
gate or maybe at a shrub just behind it. A woman was sitting next to him, her
arm round his shoulders, now and then stroking his cheek.

    'That's
the girl's father, the man who phoned to say he'd seen Lund. Seen him twice, in
fact, with some fifteen to twenty minutes between the sightings. Lund sat on
that seat, in full view.'

    'His
name is?'

    'Fredrik
Steffansson. Divorced. Agnes Steffansson, the girl's mother, lives in
Stockholm. She's got a flat in Vasastan, I believe.'

    'And
who's the woman?'

    'Micaela
Zwarts. She works here in the school, and lives with Mr Steffansson. The
missing girl, Marie, sometimes stays with one parent, sometimes with the other,
officially half-and-half, but during the last year or so she has apparently
preferred to have her main home here in Strängnäs, with Zwarts and Steffansson.
She goes to her mother over most weekends. The parents have agreed to this, the
girl's welfare matters most to them. I must say I wish there was more of that
attitude about. I mean, I'm divorced myself and…'

    Ewert
was not interested.

    'Leave
it. I'll have a word with Steffansson.'

    The
man on the bench was still leaning forward, his empty eyes gazing blindly
ahead. He looked drained, as if the wound inside him had allowed all his
strength to leach away and any residual joy of living drip into the grass,
creating an ugly stain.

    Ewert
Grens did not have any children and had never wanted any. He realised that he
would never understand fully what the man in front of him was feeling. But he
didn't need to understand, not now.

    What
his eyes told him was enough.

    Rune
Lantz would be sixty-six on his next birthday. His first year in retirement had
almost passed. In July, a year ago, late one afternoon, he had emptied the big
container of the apple juice mixer for the last time. He had done the usual,
turned the switch to off, washed the drum out, waited for the night shift and
for the mixer guy to put on earmuffs and hairnet. The hard bit of the job was
adding the right amount of sugar. 'Right' depended on where the juice was
going. The least sweetened juice went to Germany, a sweeter mix to Great
Britain, an unbelievably sweet one to Italy and an undrinkably sticky
concoction to Greece.

    By
now he had had the time to discover that his workmates of thirty-four years'
standing were nothing but tea-break friends, bad-mouthing-the-boss friends,
doing-the- pools-in-the-lunch-break friends. None of them had been in touch
since he had left, but then he hadn't sought them out either, and he wasn't
sure that he missed any of them. It's odd, he reflected, how you can pass a
lifetime in the company of folk you care so little for and need no more than
you need the sitting-room telly on. They're around because they're around,
become habit. Being with them is almost like a ritual, it covers up emptiness
and silence. It reassures you that you exist for them, but they really mean
sweet FA. And vice versa, of course. You leave, but nothing changes; they carry
on mixing juice and doing the pools and chaffing away over their tea-mugs.

    He
held her hand harder.

    He
saw her much more clearly now.

    His
Margareta was still at work in the factory on the site next to his. She had two
years left before retirement, two more years of leaving the house every
weekday. He had never realised until now how much he needed her; their time
together meant life and the courage to grow old.

    Walking
close together and never too far away from home, they followed more or less the
same route over the bridge and into the woodland and then back; it was their
daily stroll late in the afternoon after she had come home from work. He would
wait for her with his outdoor clothes on; the last hour alone was the worst
because he longed for her so very much, longed to walk together, stepping out a
little and breathing in a shared rhythm. During the dark months of the year
they'd follow one of the set tracks marked by little posts with coloured signs,
but between late spring and early autumn, when the evenings were light, they
strayed, walking on mats of blueberry plants between the tall spruce trees.
Life was fading for them both, but it was still fun to try and find new ways on
your own.

    They
had done just that this afternoon. Holding hands, they left the proper path and
set out across the bone-dry, rustling forest floor. The summer had been too
hot, for too long. This year would be terribly poor for mushrooming.

    They
didn't talk much, there was no need to after forty- three years of marriage.
But they watched. A roe deer. A couple of hares. Birds, one looked like a hawk
of some kind. One of them would point, both stopped and waited until the animal
moved on. They weren't in a hurry. Then the ground changed, became hillier, and
they breathed more vigorously, enjoying the sense of oxygen-rich blood flowing
faster in their veins. They were scrambling up a hillside cluttered with large
scree when the air filled with noise.

    It
was a helicopter, staying low and circling among the tops of the trees. Then
another one. Both carried police markings.

    Rune
and Margareta watched, staring without knowing why they did, nor why both of
them felt a surge of unease and anxiety. It had something to do with the
machines' intrusiveness and intense engine noise. The police were after
something in a hurry, looking for it right here.

    Margareta
stood very still, her eyes following the helicopters until they disappeared
from the sky above them.

    'I
don't like them,' she said.

    'Neither
do I.'

    'Let's
not walk on.'

    'Not
until they're well and truly gone.'

    'Not
even then.'

    She
had held her husband's hand but now she pulled at his arm until it was round
her waist; that was where she wanted it to be. He kissed her cheek lightly. The
two of them stood together against the world with its helicopters and uniforms
and noise. But she wanted to leave at once, and in her anxiety she needed him
to hold her close. He looked at her full of concern, because she was never
usually afraid. She was the more courageous of the two of them, he thought.

    Then,
far away where the trees were thinning, he saw them, a policeman and his dog.
They were moving slowly, the dog was looking for something, leading the man
westwards, in the same direction as the helicopters had flown.

    'Goodness.
One of those as well.'

    'It
mightn't be about the same thing.'

    'Come
on, it's got to be.'

    Now
they were convinced that something had happened, here in their wood, during
their private break from the outside world.

    They
hurried down the slope and through the dense shrubs at its base, their measured
pace and breathing rhythm broken; all that was gone now. They wanted to get out
of the way of someone else's hunt, someone else's misery.

    It
was Margareta who saw it first.

    A
bright red thing.

    A
small shoe. A little girl's.

    A
red, shiny leather shoe, with an eye-catching metal buckle.

    They
had been walking as fast as they could. She ignored the shooting pains in her
knee joints, and when Rune asked if she was all right, she just shook her head,
pointing ahead to the fastest short cut, never mind if the going was harder.
Better than having time to think about the gathering darkness around them,
better than dealing with Rune's worries about her. They had covered almost a
kilometre. Not far to the metalled lane and the houses now.

    To
pass a huge fir they let go of each other, walking round the tree on opposite
sides.

    She
spotted something under the fir's sweeping branches and thought at first that
it was a toadstool, prodded it with her foot, lifted it up. Twisting it round
in her hands, she understood what it meant and looked around: where is she? Is
she still here? The girl?

    She
didn't scream, only called out; it was no surprise to her after all. She held the
red shoe gently and handed it to Rune when he came up to her.

    One
more morning with the lie lurking in the back of his mind. He had been lying
close to her, his hand touching her breasts, belly, thighs, he had kissed the
back of her neck, whispered good morning into her ear, all the time doing his
best to avoid having to face his betrayal.

    Now
Lennart Oscarsson was in his office, watching through the window as the prison
woke to a new day. Another lovely sunny day, as hot as yesterday, as every day
last week. He sighed.

    Ever
since he had fallen in love with Karin he had been haunted by fantasies about
the day when she would ask him to accept that she'd met someone else, and that
she was leaving him. Instead it was he whose love of another would break up
their shared life. Who'd have believed it? She was beautiful, his looks were
quite ordinary. She was outgoing, he was withdrawn. Her personality glittered,
his never would. And yet it was he who had put their closeness at risk.