Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(25)

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 ?re.

“Are you from Stockholm?” Karro seems determined to start a conversation.

“Is it that obvious?”

Karro laughs. “?re’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 ?re?”

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. M?rta 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.”