LITMIR.BIZ

       54

       sunday, december 13 (feast of st lucia): midday

      In the car on the way back from Tumba, Simone listens to Kennet rant about the police and their lack of coordination. She says nothing, gazing out of the window as he complains. The streets are filled with families on their way somewhere. Mothers and their toddlers dressed in snowsuits, children trying to make their way through the slush on sledges. They wear the same backpacks. A group of girls with Lucia tinsel in their hair woven into shiny headbands eat something out of a small bag and laugh with delight.

      More than twenty-four hours have passed since Benjamin was taken away from us, pulled out of his own bed and dragged out of his home, she thinks. She looks down at her hands. Ugly red marks from the handcuffs are still clearly visible.

      There is nothing to indicate that Josef Ek is involved in Benjamin’s disappearance. There were no traces of Benjamin in the hidden room, only of Josef. It is more than likely that Josef was sitting in there when she and her father went down into the cellar. Realising they had discovered his hiding place, he must have reached for the axe as quietly as possible. And when the tumult erupted, when the police came storming down to the cellar and dragged her and Kennet upstairs, Josef had taken the opportunity to push the wardrobe aside, move the ladder over to the window, and climb out. He got away, he deceived the police, and he is still at large. A national alert has gone out.

      But Josef Ek can’t have kidnapped Benjamin. They were simply two things that happened at approximately the same time, just as Erik has been trying to tell her.

      “Are you coming?” asks Kennet.

      She looks up and realises that they are parked outside their apartment block on Luntmakargatan and Kennet is repeating his question.

      She unlocks the door and sees Benjamin’s coat hanging in the hall. Her heart leaps and she just has time to think that he must be home before she remembers that he was dragged out in his pyjamas.

      Her father’s face is grey; again she registers how old he seems to have become. He says he’s going for a shower and disappears into the bathroom.

      Simone leans against the wall and closes her eyes. If I can just have Benjamin back, she thinks, I will forget everything that has happened, that is happening, that will happen; I won’t talk about it, I won’t think about it, I won’t be angry with anyone, I’ll just be grateful.

      She hears the water begin to run in the bathroom.

      With a sigh she slides off her shoes, lets her jacket drop to the floor, and eases down onto the bed. Suddenly she cannot remember what she’s doing in the bedroom. Did she come in to get something or just to lie down and rest for a while? She feels the coolness of the sheets against the palm of her hand and sees Erik’s creased pyjama bottoms sticking out from under the pillow.

      Just as the shower stops running she remembers what she was going to do. She was going to get a clean towel for her father and then try to find something on Benjamin’s computer that could be linked to his abduction. She takes a bath towel out of the cupboard and goes back into the hall just as the bathroom door opens and Kennet emerges, fully dressed.

      “Towel,” she says.

      “I used the small one.”

      His hair is damp and smells of lavender. She realises he must have used the cheap soap in the pump dispenser by the washbasin.

      “Did you wash your hair with soap?” she asks.

      “It smelled nice,” he replies.

      “There is shampoo, Dad.”

      “Same thing.”

      “Fine,” she says with a smile, deciding not to tell him what the small hand towel is used for.

      “I’ll make some coffee,” says Kennet, heading for the kitchen.

      Simone drops the bath towel on the sideboard and goes into Benjamin’s room, where she sits at the desk and switches on the computer. She needs to clean up in here. The bedclothes on the floor and the water glass lying on its side remind her, stabbingly, of the abduction.

      The welcome melody from the computer’s operating system rings out, Simone places her hand on the mouse, waits a few seconds, then clicks on the miniature picture of Benjamin’s face to log in.

      The computer requests a user name and password. Simone types in BENJAMIN, takes a deep breath, and writes DUMBLEDORE.