LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      THE SOUND OF waves woke her up. Her head was pounding, and Pim blinked a few times to clear her eyes. She sat up on the thin mattress and noticed that she had been covered up by a blanket. Next to her was a bucket with no handle.

      How long had she been sleeping?

      She tried to open her mouth but couldn’t. Tape stretched from one cheek to the other. She wanted to rip it off, but her hands were bound behind her back with a coarse rope. She twisted and turned until she was breathless. Trying to take short quick breaths, she felt like she was going to suffocate.

      She had felt like this before. Often, when they played, her little sister, Mai, had sat on her, held her hands tightly and yelled, Try to escape, Pim. Try to escape, if you can!

      Then she had to fight to get free, to cast the weight off her chest. Mai had almost choked with laughter. It was just a game. But it wasn’t now.

      No part of this was a game.

      The room had no windows. It was small, with a wooden floor and ceiling. It was cold and damp.

      She thought about Noi and began to cry. She should have stayed with her, shouldn’t have left her alone on the train.

      She slowly pulled one leg up, shifted her weight onto her knees and sat up. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for a way out.

      Where was she?

      She had no idea.

      And no one else had any idea that she was sitting there with her hands bound, her mouth taped shut, in a strange country.

      Her legs shaking, she stumbled forward toward the wall, stood with her back to it and began feeling for something sharp.

      Finally she found an uneven spot in the planks and immediately began to rub the rope against it. She pushed her back against the wall, up and down, to the sides, fighting and tearing to get the rope to break.

      * * *

      Jana Berzelius placed her notepad in her briefcase and left the conference room.

      Outside the window, she saw snow falling heavily in the light gray darkness. She placed her hand on the shiny handrail and walked down the stairs from the third floor to the garage. The stairwell smelled like dust and Pine Sol. She stepped slowly, listening to the echo of her high heels and thinking about the investigation they had just begun. She was back to doing what gave her purpose—that meant something: a job, punctuality, achievement. She felt energetic and strong again. She wanted to focus on what lay ahead, on her future.

      At that moment, her cell phone rang. She stopped, pulling it out of her pocket, but when she saw it was her colleague Per Åström she silenced it and put it away.

      She had reached the first floor and was about to continue down the next flight when she stopped suddenly.

      Through the glass door that led to the main entrance and reception area of the police station sat the thin, black-clad kid she had met the other evening at the entrance to Knäppingsborg.

      Robin...Stenberg.

      What was he doing here?

      He sat with his elbows on his knees, one leg bobbing up and down with nervous energy.

      She took a step forward, wanting to go into the reception area and talk to him, but a stronger impulse convinced her to instead leave the station.

      Then Robin got up from the chair and was soon out of her field of vision.

      She continued down the stairs, barely conscious of the fact that she was walking more quickly now that her thoughts were back at Knäppingsborg, seeing Robin’s slim body, the panicked look on his face, the stars tattooed on his temple and his worried voice saying that he had to call for help.

      That he had witnessed her violent encounter with Danilo gave her an uneasy feeling.

      She pushed open the door to the parking garage just as a police car swung out from a parking space and disappeared in the heavy snowfall, its lights flashing.

      * * *

      Henrik Levin pushed the gray button that opened the door to the Psychiatric Clinic at Vrinnevi Hospital. They had hoped that someone would soon come forward with information that would help them find the missing woman, and he realized now that he had the most faith in the train attendant, Mats Johansson.

      Henrik shook hands with Mats’s doctor and exchanged a few words with him before being allowed into the patient’s room.

      A woman was sitting on the bed, and he met her brown eyes. She drew her hand through her curly hair before standing and quietly introducing herself as Marianne.

      “I’m Mats’s wife,” she added, taking Henrik’s jacket and hanging it carefully on a hook on the back of the door. As quietly as possible, she moved her chair closer to the bed, sat down and took her husband’s left hand in hers.

      “Mats,” she whispered. “You have a visitor.”

      Henrik stood on the other side of him and observed his angular face, the wide mustache, the thin hair and pale skin. Mats’s eyes moved under his closed eyelids.

      “He’s been dreaming a lot,” Marianne said, smiling apologetically. “It’s horrible, of course, to witness such a thing...and on his train, too... He’s been rambling quite a bit.”

      “What does he say?” Henrik asked.

      “Mostly nonsense, actually.”

      Marianne chuckled.

      “I heard that,” Mats said, opening his eyes. He lifted himself up on one elbow with a great deal of effort and looked at Henrik.

      “Hi,” Henrik said, putting his hand out. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Henrik Levin. I need to talk with you, ask a few questions.”

      “Okay,” Mats said, weakly shaking Henrik’s hand.

      “As I understand it, you found the woman in the train bathroom.”

      Mats nodded.

      “Yes, I found her. She was lying in there...on the floor.”

      “Can you tell me anything else about it?”

      Mats bit his upper lip.

      Henrik took the close-up picture from the security camera out of his pocket.

      “I’m going to show you a photo now, and I want you to look at it very carefully.”

      Mats sat up and looked at the photograph for a long time—at the black hair, the narrow eyes, the pale skin.

      “Do you recognize this woman?” Henrik asked. “This isn’t the one you found in the bathroom.”

      Mats nodded.

      “This is the girl who was standing outside the door, who ran away when I opened it. I couldn’t stop her. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I had to stay with the girl in the bathroom.

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