Missing

a woman came in carrying a sheet of paper, which she handed to Roger Larsson. He read it quickly and put it away on the desk, text-side down. Then he looked at her again.
    ‘I didn’t do it.’
    ‘Didn’t do what?’
    The question had been immediate. She was very tired and hungry. Her thoughts seemed to go all over the place. Now she had led them on to the right track.
    ‘It’s the man called Ingmar who’s the murderer.’

    The two men exchanged knowing glances, almost smiling at each other.
    ‘Do you mean Ingmar Eriksson? A hospital porter, resident here in Vimmerby. He was hospitalised last night, after turning up in casualty with his right hand crushed and a nail file stuck in one eye. Is that the Ingmar you’ve got in mind?’
    By the end of all this, he sounded angry. She looked down at her hands. If she moved them to hide the chain between them, the cuffs looked like two silver bracelets. The man called Roger was putting an object on the table in front of her.
    ‘Why did you carry this about in your jacket pocket?’
    Inside a plastic bag was the crucifix. She found it hard to speak.
    ‘He gave it to me. He was going to murder me.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘To make me take the blame.’
    ‘Blame for what?’
    She sighed.
    ‘Everything. He had a relationship with Rune Hedlund.’
    One corner of Roger Larsson’s mouth was twitching.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Rune Hedlund. He died in a car accident on the fifteenth of March last year.’

    The men exchanged glances again. Neither said anything, but she realised what they were thinking. This woman was obviously deranged. Maybe they were right.
    Moon or no moon, God had never been on her side.
    ‘Phone Patrik. He knows that I didn’t do it.’
    ‘Who is Patrik?’
    ‘Patrik … eh …’
    She could not remember his surname. It had been on the door to their flat, but the memory had faded.
    ‘His mother is in the police. They live on Sågar Street. South End.’
    ‘South End in Stockholm – is that what you mean?’
    Another knock on the door. The same woman came in with a new piece of paper. There were two curious faces peering in through the door behind her. Roger Larsson read what was on the paper, nodded and checked the time.
    ‘Interrogation stopped at 9.03 a.m.’
    Sibylla closed her eyes.
    ‘We’ll have a break now. Do you want to wait here or in a cell?’
    She could barely keep her eyes open. Her whole being felt exhausted.
    ‘Is there a bed in the cell?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘The cell, please.’

H ours passed without anything happening. The bunk was hard and she slept only in fits and starts. One longer period of sleep was more like a restless semi-conscious state, marred by obsessive dreaming about being chased and desperately trying to escape in slow motion from an invisible enemy.
    They gave her food, but no one told her what they were all waiting for. She was too tired to ask. She was less troubled by the locked door than she had feared. It was actually quite nice just to lie there, freed from all responsibility. She had done her best, really done very well, if truth be told. But she had failed and all she could do now was accept her failure. They had won and she had lost.
    That was all there was to it.

    Later that afternoon, Roger Larsson came to see her. He told her that they were waiting to hear from the National Criminal Investigation Bureau in Stockholm. She had nothing to say to that. It seemed that she was considered such a hardened criminal that she was outside the remit of the pathetic little Vimmerby force. The elite team was coming to the rescue.
    ‘You have the right to request a solicitor.’
    ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’
    He shrugged and went to the door.
    ‘I think you’d better change your tune.’
    Then he left her alone.

    A little later, a man in his fifties came to see her. He seemed agitated, either terrified or under great stress. He dumped his briefcase on the table in the cell.
    ‘My name is Kjell Bergström.’
    She sat up, but her face contorted with pain. Her broken rib was announcing that it would rather she stayed horizontal.
    ‘I’m your legal adviser until further notice. They’ll presumably move you to Stockholm soon, and find you someone else to help you there. Your father is dead, did you know that?’
    She stiffened.
    ‘What did you say?’
    Kjell Bergström pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase.
    ‘This is a fax that’s just come in from a colleague in Vetlanda. They heard the news that