My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(86)

“It’s about time you turned up!” Britt-Marie says. The green-eyed officer doesn’t say anything. Another officer is standing behind her, and Elsa can see that he’s flummoxed by just having caught sight of Elsa and Mum. He seems to remember escorting them to the hospital only to be given the slip once they got there.

Lennart tries to invite them both in for coffee, and the summer-intern policeman looks like this would be preferable to searching the area with dogs, but after a stern glance from his superior he shakes his head at the floor. The green-eyed policewoman talks with the sort of voice that effortlessly fills a room.

“We’re going to find him,” she says, her gaze still riveted to Britt-Marie. “Also, the dog that Kent called about yesterday, Britt-Marie? He said you’d found dog hairs on the stairs. Did you see it tonight?”

Elsa stops breathing. So much that she forgets to wonder about why Green-eyes is referring to Kent and Britt-Marie by their first names. Britt-Marie peers around the room, at Elsa and Mum and Maud and Lennart and the boy with a syndrome’s mum. Last of all at Alf. His face is devoid of expression. The green eyes sweep over the front hall. There’s sweat all over Elsa’s palms when she opens and closes her hands to make them stop shaking. She knows that the wurse is sleeping just a few yards behind her, in Granny’s bedroom. She knows that everything is lost, and she doesn’t know what to do to stop it. She’ll never be able to escape with the wurse through all the police she can hear at the bottom of the stairs, not even a wurse could pull that off. They’ll shoot it. Kill it. She wonders if that was what the shadow had been planning all along. Because it didn’t dare fight the wurse. Without the wurse, and without Wolfheart, the castle is defenseless.

Britt-Marie purses her lips when she sees Elsa staring at her. Changes her hands around on her stomach and snorts, with a sudden, newly acquired self-confidence, at Green-eyes.

“Maybe we misjudged it, Kent and I. Maybe they weren’t dog hairs, it may have been some other nuisance. It wouldn’t be so strange, with so many odd people running about on these stairs these days,” she says, half-apologetically and half-accusingly, and adjusts the brooch on the floral-print jacket.

The green eyes glance quickly at Elsa. Then the policewoman nods briskly, as if the matter is over and done with, and assures them they’ll keep the house under surveillance for the night. Before anyone has time to say anything else, the two officers are already on their way down the stairs. Elsa’s mum is breathing heavily. She holds out her hand to Britt-Marie, but Britt-Marie moves away.

“Obviously you find it amusing to have secrets from me. It’s amusing to make me look like an idiot, that’s what you think!”

“Please, Britt-Marie,” Maud tries to say, but Britt-Marie shakes her head, picks up her bag, and stamps out the door. Well-meaningly.

But Elsa sees the way Alf looks at her when she leaves. The wurse is standing in the bedroom doorway with the same expression. And now Elsa knows who Britt-Marie is.

Mum also goes down the stairs, Elsa doesn’t know why. Lennart puts on some coffee. George gets out some eggs and makes more mulled wine. Maud distributes cookies. The boy with a syndrome’s mother crawls into the wardrobe to find her son, and Elsa hears him laughing. That’s one good superpower he’s got there.

Alf goes onto the balcony and Elsa goes after him. Stands hesitantly behind him for a long time before joining him and peering over the railing. Green-eyes is standing in the snow, talking to Elsa’s mum. She smiles the way she smiled at Granny that time in the police station.

“Do they know each other?” Elsa asks, surprised. Alf nods.

“Knew, at least. They were best friends when they were your age.”

Elsa looks at Mum, and she can see that she’s still angry. Then she peers at the hammer that Alf has set down in a corner of the balcony floor.

“Were you going to kill Sam?”

Alf’s eyes are apologetic but honest.

“No.”

“Why was Mum so angry at you, then?”

Alf’s leather jacket heaves slightly.

“She was angry because she wasn’t there holding the hammer.”

Elsa’s shoulders sink; she wraps her arms around herself against the cold. Alf hangs his leather jacket over her. Elsa hunches up inside it.

“Sometimes I think I’d like someone to kill Sam.”

Alf doesn’t answer. Elsa looks at the hammer.

“I mean . . . sort of kill, anyway. I know one shouldn’t think people deserve to die. But sometimes I’m not sure people like him deserve to live. . . .”

Alf leans against the balcony railing.

“It’s human.”

“Is it human to want people to die?”

Alf shakes his head calmly.

“It’s human not to be sure.”

Elsa hunches up even more inside the jacket. Tries to feel brave.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

“Me too,” says Alf.

And they don’t say anything else about it.

They sneak out with the wurse when everyone has gone to sleep, but Elsa knows that her mum sees them go. She’s certain that Green-eyes also sees them. That she’s also keeping watch over them, somewhere in the dark, like Wolfheart would have done, if he were there. And Elsa tries not to feel reproachful toward Wolfheart, for not being there, for letting her down after he promised to always protect her. It doesn’t go very well.