The Girl in the Woods. Camilla Lackberg
you ate your ice cream and sat on the wharf. Did you do anything else?’
‘No. After a while we started walking back. Stella was tired. She fell asleep in the pushchair.’
‘So you spent about an hour in Fjällbacka? Does that sound right?’
Helen nodded.
‘Did you go the same way back?’
‘No, on the way back Stella wanted to go through the woods, so she got out of the pushchair and we walked the rest of the way through the woods.’
Leif jotted down a few notes.
‘And when you got back, what time do you think it was?’
‘I don’t know, but it took about the same amount of time to walk home.’
Leif looked down at the notes he’d written. If the girls arrived at the farm around one, played for twenty minutes or so, then walked to Fjällbacka in forty minutes, spent an hour there and then walked back in forty minutes, it would have been about 15.40 when they got home. Although considering Helen’s less than precise sense of time, he couldn’t rely on that, so he wrote ‘15.30–16.15’ in his notebook and drew a circle around it. Even that time frame might not be reliable.
‘What happened once you got home with Stella?’
‘We saw her father’s car in the yard, so we assumed he was home. And when we saw Stella running towards the house, we left.’
‘But you didn’t see her father? You didn’t see her go inside the house?’
‘No.’
Helen shook her head.
‘Did the two of you go straight home?’
‘No …’
Helen glanced at her parents.
‘What did you do?’
‘We went over to the lake behind Marie’s farm and went swimming.’
‘We’ve told you before you’re not allowed—’
A look from Leif stopped Harriet.
‘About how long were you there?’
‘I don’t know. But I was home for dinner at six.’
‘Yes, she was,’ said KG, nodding. ‘Though she didn’t tell us anything about going swimming. She said they’d been babysitting little Stella the whole time.’
He glared at his daughter, who was still looking down at her dress.
‘Obviously we noticed that her hair was wet, but she said they’d been running through the sprinkler with Stella.’
‘It was stupid to lie. I know that,’ said Helen. ‘But I’m not supposed to go there. They don’t like me to go anywhere with Marie, but that’s just because of her family, and she can’t help who her parents are, can she?’
Again her eyes flashed.
‘That girl is made of the same stuff as her family,’ said KG.
‘She’s just … a little tougher than others,’ said Helen in a low voice. ‘But maybe there’s a good reason for her to be that way. Have you ever thought about that? She didn’t choose to grow up in that family.’
‘Let’s all calm down,’ said Leif, holding up his hands.
Even though their argument told him something valuable about their family dynamics, this wasn’t the right time or place to be airing such matters.
He read aloud from his notes.
‘Does that match more or less what you remember about yesterday?’
Helen nodded.
‘Yes, it does.’
‘And Marie will tell me the same thing?’
For a moment he thought he saw a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. Then she replied calmly:
‘Yes, she will.’
‘How are you doing?’ asked Paula, giving Martin a searching look as they drove.
He wondered how long everyone was going to keep worrying about him.
‘Things are good,’ he said, surprised to hear that he actually meant it.
His grief at losing Pia would never disappear completely. He would always wonder what their life together might have been, and he’d see her like a shadowy presence at all the important occasions in Tuva’s life. Even at the less important occasions, for that matter. After Pia died, people told him a time would come when he’d be able to enjoy life again. That one day he would feel happy and find himself laughing. That his grief would never go away, but he’d learn to live with it, to walk side by side with his sorrow. At the time, when he was wandering in darkness, it had seemed impossible. In the beginning he frequently seemed to be taking one step forward and two steps back, but after a while it became two steps forward and one step back. Until gradually all movement was forward.
Martin’s thoughts turned to the mother he’d met at the playground yesterday. To be honest, he’d been thinking about her a lot. He realized he should have asked for her phone number. Or at least found out her name. But it was easy to think of things after the event. He’d felt flustered when he realized he’d like to see her again. As luck would have it, they lived in a small community, and he’d been hoping to see her at the playground today. That was his plan, anyway, until Nea was found murdered, and he’d been forced to end his holiday and go back to work.
Guilt flooded over him. How could he be thinking about a woman at a time like this?
‘You look happy, but also a little worried,’ said Paula, as if she’d read his thoughts.
Before he could stop himself, he told her about the woman at the playground. He nearly missed the exit and had to turn the wheel hard to the left.
‘Aha,’ said Paula. ‘She’s so cute you can’t even drive when you think about her!’ She reached for the grab-handle above the car window.
‘You probably think I’m a real idiot,’ Martin said, blushing so much that his freckles were even more noticeable against his pale skin.
‘I think it’s great,’ said Paula, patting his leg. ‘And don’t feel guilty. Life has to go on. And if you’re feeling good, then you’ll do a better job. So find out who she is and give her a call. We’re not going to be able to work round the clock. If we get too tired we’ll only make mistakes.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Martin, wondering how he should go about finding her.
He knew the name of her son. That was always a start. Tanumshede wasn’t a big place, so he should be able to find her. Provided she wasn’t a tourist just passing through. What if she didn’t even live in the area?
‘Aren’t we going to stop somewhere?’ said Paula as he drove past the first house they’d seen since turning on to the gravel road.
‘What? Oh, sorry,’ he said, blushing again.
‘I’ll help you track her down later,’ Paula told him with a grin.
Martin pulled into the driveway of an old, red-painted house with white trim and lots of gingerbread details. He found himself sighing from sheer envy. This was exactly the sort of house he’d dreamed of owning. He and Pia had been saving up for a house, and had almost scraped together enough for a down payment. Every evening they would search the property websites, and they’d even gone to their