Hidden in snow the are m.., p.8
Hidden in Snow (The Åre Murders), page 8
“Good morning!” he shouts. “Can I have your attention?”
Bosse Lundh is a local businessman whom Daniel knows in passing. He owns one of the smaller hotels and a few gas stations. His partner, Annika, stands beside him; she is about the same age, dressed in a dark-green padded jacket, its high collar partly covering her face. Her expression is serious.
It is immediately obvious that Lundh is used to organizing things. Quickly and efficiently, he divides the volunteers into teams. He gives them different tasks and phone numbers to call if they find anything interesting. Other helpers from Missing People distribute maps and Amanda’s picture before sending the searchers on their way.
After a final reminder that everyone should return to the square to report back between eleven and twelve, Lundh walks down the steps and joins Daniel and Anton. Annika is right behind him.
“This is a sad story,” he says. The pom-pom on his hat bounces up and down as he shakes his head. “I really hope we find her soon.”
His partner nods in agreement. “It’s difficult to imagine a worse situation than a child going missing,” she says. “Even though ours are grown up now.”
Lundh puts his arm around her shoulders. “How are the parents taking it?” he asks.
Daniel has specifically asked the Halvorssens not to participate in the search. It’s better for them to stay at home in case Amanda gets in touch. Just then he sees Harald Halvorssen drive into the square. He parks carelessly, clambers out of the car, and looks around wildly.
Daniel can hardly blame him for showing up. He himself hasn’t been a father for very long, but he knows that nothing would induce him to sit at home if anything happened to Alice.
Halvorssen breaks into a run to catch up with the last search team. His jacket is unfastened and his head is bare. The family’s black Labrador retriever trots along behind.
“Poor bastard,” Lundh says sympathetically. “It must be terrible for him.”
Anton crumples up his empty coffee cup. “I didn’t know you were involved in Missing People,” he says.
Lundh shrugs, as if he doesn’t want any recognition for his efforts. “You do what you can. One of the advantages of living in a small place is that you try to be there for one another. When Missing People asked for local volunteers, it was impossible to say no.” He looks Anton in the eye. “When you grow up here, you know what it means to look out for your neighbors. You would have done the same thing if you weren’t already a cop, wouldn’t you?”
Anton nods without hesitation. He has a lot of family in the area, and is well rooted in the fells and mountains of Jämtland.
Lundh raises a hand in farewell. “Time to get searching,” he says, heading off in the direction of the Åregården Hotel parking lot.
Daniel remains where he is, mentally reviewing the situation even though nothing new has come up since last night. Amanda’s phone still hasn’t been used, and there have been no interesting leads reported on the hotline Östersund has set up.
The most likely explanation is that the girl was picked up in a car near to where she dropped her scarf. The fact that the scarf was found at a rest stop supports that theory. Kids hitching a ride late at night isn’t exactly unusual around here.
The problem is the implications of such a scenario. If Amanda had gotten a ride with someone, then she should have made it home safely. It is now thirty hours since she was last seen.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to rule out the suspicion of a crime, but the question is what crime? It could be a coverup after a car accident. If Amanda had been fatally struck by a vehicle, then the driver might have taken the body and dumped it in a spot where it wouldn’t be found.
Another equally dreadful possibility is that she has been abducted by a person who wants to exploit her or do her harm.
Daniel has experience of women being kidnapped with a sexual motive, but up here it seems less likely. He would prefer to think that evil of that kind belongs in the big city, not an idyllic mountain environment—although of course that’s a naive assumption. Serious crime exists everywhere.
Right now he is still hoping that his colleagues or Missing People will manage to track down Amanda.
Time is running out, but it’s not too late to find her alive.
26
The pole that Hanna cautiously pushes down into the thick snow goes deep, without meeting any resistance. She pulls it out, takes a few steps, and repeats the maneuver. She knows that a lifeless body can be covered quickly during heavy snowfall, becoming invisible in a very short time.
The weather during the past few days isn’t making the search any easier. It is difficult to make progress, as she repeatedly takes missteps and gets snow in her boots.
She has joined a group searching to the south of the E14, directly below the spot where Amanda’s scarf was found. The area lies between the main road and the lake. Åre isn’t very big, but in a situation like this, where every square inch must be examined, it’s bigger than you think. There are also surprisingly few buildings; the terrain is mostly public or undeveloped land. Hanna has spent many winter breaks in Åre over the years, but has never realized how quickly the wilderness takes over outside the town center.
It is a laborious process. There are seven in the team, all different ages, slowly moving forward in a broad line.
The sun has risen, but the sky is bleak and gray. The light scarcely penetrates the thick cloud cover. Here and there the bare branches of slender mountain birch poke up through the snow, like spidery ink drawings in the ice-cold landscape. Fir trees keep them company, their lower branches brushing the ground as the snow weighs them down.
They have all been given a description of Amanda, but Hanna knows it won’t help much. The girl was wearing a black jacket, a yellow top, and black jeans. A red or orange jacket would have been much better, but what teenager would wear something like that?
She stares at the ground, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary, a shape that doesn’t belong, but everything disappears in the white blanket that fools the eye and distorts proportions.
“This feels kind of creepy,” says the young woman closest to Hanna. Her voice is high and girlish, and she looks about the same age as Hanna. She is wearing a dark-brown padded jacket that has clearly been with her for quite some time. “Have you done this before?” she goes on.
“A few times,” Hanna murmurs.
“Imagine if you push your pole down into her body . . .”
Hanna doesn’t quite know how to reply to that.
“My name’s Karoline, by the way, but everybody calls me Karro.”
“Hanna.”
She doesn’t really want to chat, and turns her attention to the lake. Amanda definitely hasn’t drowned. The lake must be frozen almost to the bottom in these temperatures. At this time of year, it’s used mainly for snowmobiles and ice racing.
Hanna recalls one winter’s evening when she was ten or eleven years old. She sat on the snowmobile behind her father, with her arms around his waist, and they went out onto the ice. The speed was intoxicating, and he laughed at her excitement. She loved it when it was just the two of them, when she escaped her mother’s critical gaze.
What happened next? She doesn’t remember, just the feeling of being happy. One of the few good memories from her visits to Åre.
“Are you from Stockholm?” Karro seems determined to start a conversation.
“Is it that obvious?”
Karro laughs. “Åre’s not very big, and I haven’t seen you before. Plus, you can’t imagine how many Stockholmers are moving up here these days, wanting to get away from the big city. Where are you staying?”
“In Sadeln—in my sister’s house.”
“What’s your job?”
Hanna hesitates. She has no desire to tell Karro about her situation, but at the same time she doesn’t want to be unfriendly.
“I’m a police officer.”
“So is my brother!” Karro says. “Will you be taking up a post here in Åre?”
Hanna shakes her head. “I’m not working at the moment.”
Karro’s expression is openly curious. “Burnout?”
“Not exactly . . .” Hanna isn’t about to elaborate.
“Everyone burns out,” Karro says in the same tone as if she were discussing the weather. “Nobody can cope with this crazy tempo anymore. There are cuts and reductions all over the place. I work in a preschool; the constant idiotic suggestions from politicians about how to save money drive us crazy.”
“Mmm . . .”
Hanna chooses not to correct Karro. Better for her to think that Hanna has burned out rather than to discover she’s been fired.
The very thought of it makes her stomach turn over.
Hanna focuses on the search, fixes her gaze a few yards in front of her feet, and tries to find a steady rhythm. She pushes the pole into the snow at the same time as she puts down her right foot. They haven’t been out for very long, but Hanna is freezing cold despite the clothes she borrowed from Lydia’s extensive wardrobe: thick thermal dungarees and boots.
“Do you know the Halvorssen family?” Karro asks after a while.
“No.”
“In that case it’s good of you to help.”
Hanna mumbles something unintelligible.
“I saw the mother’s post on Facebook and immediately decided to join in,” Karro continues. “In a little place like this, you have to take care of one another. My oldest daughter is in elementary school with Amanda’s little brother and sister. Märta knows exactly who she is.”
Karro keeps chatting away, apparently undaunted by Hanna’s monosyllabic responses. She’s nice—sweetly disarming.
Hanna glances up toward the E14. They’ve been out for an hour and a half, but they haven’t gotten very far. If Amanda had set off along the E14 on foot, it seems unlikely that she would have turned off here to plod through deep snow and take a different route home.
Hanna is becoming increasingly convinced that they are wasting their time, but she doesn’t want to openly criticize Missing People’s input. Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet and follow orders; that’s something she’s learned from her mistakes over the past few months.
“You know he’s a politician?” Karro interrupts Hanna’s train of thought. “He’s actually the chair of the local council.”
“Who?”
“Amanda’s father—Harald Halvorssen.”
“Right.” Hanna had no idea what the parents did.
“I suppose he does the best he can, but . . .” Karro pauses, leaving Hanna to draw her own conclusion before adding, “He hasn’t made himself very popular.”
Hanna is reluctant to join in the gossip about Amanda’s parents, it doesn’t feel right, yet she can’t help asking the obvious question: “How come?”
Karro stops. She raises her right hand, rubs her thumb meaningfully against her fingers, though the gesture loses something inside the thick mitten she’s wearing. “It was that business of the world championship last winter.”
“The world championship?”
Hanna feels stupid—she doesn’t know what Karro is talking about. Well, of course she knows the world championship in downhill skiing recently took place in Åre, but that’s about it.
“The calculations were completely wrong,” Karro explains. “A lot of people lost big money. There was going to be a huge festival, the hotels would be full, everyone would have the opportunity to make plenty of money from the different events. But all the fuss surrounding the world championship frightened away the ordinary tourists, and most businesses lost revenue instead. And the weather was crap.”
Karro sounds upset, but she seems to want to share her feelings rather than badmouth individuals. Hanna can’t think of a good answer, so she keeps quiet as they set off again, pushing their poles into the deep snow.
“I also heard the boyfriend might be involved,” Karro suddenly says.
Hanna turns to look at her. “Who’s that?”
“His name is Viktor Landahl. He goes to the same school as Amanda, in a parallel class. The family lives in Björnänge.”
“And why would he be behind her disappearance?”
Hanna hears the sharpness in her tone, but Karro doesn’t seem to notice. She lowers her voice, a conspiratorial look in her eyes. “My friend’s kid brother knows him. Apparently, Viktor’s a bit of a . . . bad boy, if you understand my meaning.” Her cheeks are pink with the cold. “He beat up his ex-girlfriend. The family is from Umeå, so not many people around here know about it. They moved here after it happened—he was only fifteen at the time. Believe it or not, he wasn’t even fined or referred to youth services. He just got some kind of warning.”
“A caution,” Hanna says. It just slips out. A caution is used for young offenders who haven’t committed a crime in the past and who are deemed to be able to get the help and support they need from their own family. If the individual reoffends within six months, then the caution is withdrawn and the case goes to court. Otherwise, the crime is struck from the records.
“If I was a cop, I’d arrest him right away,” Karro says.
Hanna doesn’t comment. Karro means well—she’s just making small talk.
Karro pushes down her pole with some force. “They say that once doesn’t count . . .”
“Do the police know about the boyfriend and his background?” Hanna asks. “Have you mentioned him to your brother?”
Karro laughs out loud. “To Anton? There’s no point.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a preschool teacher. I don’t know anything about police work.”
“What you said sounds important to me.”
Karro looks embarrassed. “It’s probably just gossip.”
They have reached a flat area of virgin snow, and the team spreads out. Hanna sinks up to her knees with each step. They are no more than five minutes by car from the central square in Åre, yet this place feels desolate and deserted.
So there’s a boyfriend with a history of abuse. Could he be involved? Hanna wouldn’t be surprised if there were a crime behind Amanda’s disappearance.
In ninety percent of cases of violence against women, the perpetrator is someone close to the victim.
27
When the police car pulls up outside the Halvorssens’ house, Lena’s body reacts with sheer panic. A buzzing sound fills her ears, as if a swarm of bees has taken up residence inside her head. She is shivering, her skin clammy with cold sweat.
It’s the same two officers as the previous day.
The one with the beard looks up at the house and shakes his head, the other says something and locks the car. Then they begin to walk toward the front door, their expressions grave.
They have come to tell Lena that Amanda is dead. She knows it—a mother’s instinct is never wrong.
Dear God, what has she done to be punished like this?
The doorbell rings, but she doesn’t move. Then she hears Daniel Lindskog’s deep voice from the hallway.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
Lena wants to yell Go away! but she knows her voice will break.
“Can we come in?”
The paralysis eases, and she manages to croak, “Of course.”
Lena isn’t able to stand up when Daniel and his colleague Anton enter the kitchen. She grips the edge of the table to stop herself from fainting, forces out her question through lips that barely move: “Is she dead?”
Daniel’s look of surprise gives her the answer.
“No. Or to be more accurate, we don’t know. We’ve circulated her description, and we’re still searching.”
The relief is so great that Lena sways on her chair. Daniel quickly puts an arm around her shoulders to support her. The physical contact brings her back to reality. She buries her face in both hands and begins to cry.
“Can I get you some water?” Daniel asks. Without waiting for her to reply, he finds a glass and fills it. Lena takes tiny sips as she struggles to regain control.
Daniel sits down opposite her, gives her a minute.
“The search is ongoing,” he assures her. “We’ve brought in additional officers from Östersund, and Missing People is looking too—I saw that your husband had joined them. We just need to talk to you, if that’s okay?”
Lena nods and puts down the glass. Her hand is shaking so much that the glass rattles against the surface of the table, but at least she doesn’t knock it over.
Daniel leans forward, his elbow touching a gouge in the table—the result of Amanda slamming down a cast-iron trivet when she lost her temper. She was sent to her room as a punishment. Right now Lena would give anything to have her standing here throwing a tantrum.
The tears are still flowing.
Why did they argue so much? She can’t even remember. Instead she pictures Amanda in the twins’ room, reading them a story with such enthusiasm that it turns into a full performance. When Lena is washing the dishes, Amanda often creeps up behind her and surprises her with a hug. She still curls up on the sofa with her head on Lena’s lap to watch TV, purring like a cat and wanting her mother to rub her back, like she did when Amanda was a little girl.
“We need to understand more about your daughter and her habits,” Daniel goes on. “She may have been seen on the E14 in the early hours of Friday morning. Someone called our hotline and said he saw a pedestrian on the road and a dark-colored car that stopped in the rest stop where her scarf was found.”
Lena’s mind is working in slow motion. “Oh?” she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Do you know if Amanda has any enemies? Anyone who might have followed her when she left the party?”
“I find that hard to believe.” Lena turns the idea over; it seems completely bizarre. “Why would someone want to hurt her? She’s only a child!”
“We’re looking into every possibility.” Daniel’s expression is unreadable.
“Does she have many friends?” Anton asks, taking the chair next to his colleague.
