Hidden in Snow (The ?re Murders, #1)(78)
“I swear I had nothing to do with her death! I haven’t done anything to her!”
Lasse Sandahl licks his lips.
“Did you touch her?”
Hanna is going in hard, but that is her intention. She and Daniel agreed that she should push Sandahl as far as possible.
“That’s not what happened.” He looks down at the floor.
“You make it sound so dirty.”
It is dirty.
“You’ve got one chance to tell us what happened between you. One chance.”
Sandahl stares at a point on the wall. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
Hanna waits for him to go on.
“I just wanted to offer my support. In case she needed an adult to turn to.”
“Did you try to kiss her?”
“Yes.” His voice is almost inaudible.
“When?” Daniel’s question is like the crack of a whip.
“At the Walpurgis Night party in the spring. I’d drunk way too much.”
As if that’s an excuse.
“How did Amanda react?”
“She wasn’t interested. She left. That’s all, I swear. I regretted it right away.”
Hanna fixes him with her gaze. “Where were you on the night between December 12 and 13, when Amanda disappeared?”
“At home in my apartment.”
“Is there anyone who can confirm that?”
“No, I live alone—I already told you that.”
“Do you have a car?” Daniel asks.
“Yes.”
“What make?”
“Volvo.”
“Color?”
“Dark blue.”
Daniel nods, an exaggerated gesture that is meant to be seen by Sandahl, who looks as if he is on the verge of tears.
“I didn’t harm Amanda,” he whispers.
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81
As long as Lena stays in the darkened bedroom, it is like being inside a cocoon where no one can get to her.
She doesn’t want to be awake; she just wants to lie under the covers and never get up again, but eventually her bodily needs drive her from her bed.
She slips like a shadow into the bathroom, sits down on the toilet, and does what she has to do.
The acrid smell of dried sweat reaches her nostrils. She knows that she ought to take a shower and wash her hair, but she remains seated, not moving.
It can wait. It’s too much trouble; she doesn’t have the energy.
She barely manages to flush the toilet.
The sound of the TV in the living room and the low murmur of the twins’ voices penetrates through the bathroom door. It is like a different world, one that no longer concerns her.
Harald’s voice is missing. She doesn’t care. He must have slept in the spare room last night; she hasn’t seen him since yesterday evening.
It doesn’t matter.
On some level she knows that Mimi and Kalle need her, that she should pull herself together, but she has no idea how to do that.
Where is she going to find the strength to go on being their mom?
Everything she took for granted, the life that had been hers for so many years, no longer exists. Life with a noisy family, the kids and their friends, a constant round of activity and chat. Laundry, cooking, giving them rides all over the place.
All gone.
She has always regarded herself as a capable person, someone who could handle both success and adversity. Now she has been tested, and what she believed has turned out to be an illusion. She is weak and feeble, a pathetic, inadequate creature.
Lena sits down again, rocks silently back and forth on the toilet seat.
All that remains of her is an empty shell, a cardboard figure so flattened by grief that it contains nothing.
After a while she runs her tongue over her teeth, feels the gritty deposit, reaches for her toothbrush.
Then she lets her hand drop.
Why bother brushing her teeth when her very existence has no meaning?
She hears the twins laughing in the living room.
They are young; they will get over their grief, build a new life where the memory of Amanda fades away as they grow up.
They haven’t shattered into a million pieces like Lena has done.
She knows she can never be whole again.
She stands up, grabs a hold of the washbasin to stop herself from falling. Then she sneaks back to the bedroom and closes the door so she doesn’t have to listen to the children downstairs.
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82
On the way back to ?re, Daniel and Hanna stop for lunch at H?llandsg?rden. He is so pleased to have her on board; the interview with Sandahl clearly demonstrated how experienced she is.
It feels as if they’re going to work well together.
As they dig into homemade meatballs served with lingonberry preserve, mashed potatoes, and gravy, Daniel tells her what he knows about the place. It is a Christian center located right by Saint Olav’s pilgrim trail, which follows the rapids of the Indal River. Saint Birgitta allegedly passed this way in the fourteenth century.
He feels the tension of the morning begin to ease as he rattles off his tourist spiel.
“It’s lovely,” Hanna says, nodding at the surroundings.
“We all need a spiritual retreat now and again.”