We Know You Remember (24)

Olof realized he was sitting in the same place he had back then, at the very edge of the sofa. His mother had been beside him, at a slight distance so that her body didn’t touch his. She seemed to have shrunk, as though he had outgrown her, Dad in the armchair and Ingela on Mum’s other side, close to her. No one looked at Olof. His body filled the entire room. They stared at the floor, out of the window. He stared at the floor and at his hands, his disgusting hands.

As far as he could remember, no one had said a word.

Then the footsteps on the stairs as the police officers came back down, one of them holding a plastic bag. There was something soft inside it, something yellow.

They had been rummaging around in the boxes beneath his bed. The policeman placed the bag on the table. Yellow as a dandelion, like the sun, dazzling. Everyone’s eyes suddenly knew where to turn. Landing like flies on the bag.

Can you tell us what this is, Olof?

How did this end up under your bed?

He couldn’t say it, not while they were all looking at him, though they were pretending to look elsewhere. What that scent had done to him. Her perfume, or maybe it was her deodorant or her hair, her body that smelled so strong.

It’s a cardigan, Olof.

He didn’t know whose voice it was. As he looked up, he met his father’s eye. He didn’t recognize it.

She was wearing one just like this when she disappeared.





Chapter 13





The clouds had drifted by without spilling any rain, and the air was hot, dry, and dusty as the coldblood trotters warmed up at the start line.

“So this is where everyone is,” August said, his eyes on the numbers on the digital screens. Fr?cke Prins was the overwhelming favorite, with odds of 11:1, though a win by Axel Sigfrid would bring in 780 times as much. August had been quick to volunteer when he heard they needed someone else to join her at the harness racing track.

“This is the cold blood criteria,” said Eira. “It’s one of the most important events of the season, after the V75.”

“Is it OK if I put a twenty on?”

She gave him a look.

“Just kidding,” said August.

The racetrack at Dannero hadn’t been the same since the old restaurant burned down. The new buildings were bright and airy, and lacked the weary, social democratic folkhem feeling of the past. Her family had occasionally come there together, for the midnight race in particular—the biggest party of the summer. Eira remembered the drunk spectators and the unbearable excitement of being given ten kronor to bet on the horses, she and Magnus. Not to mention crawling around among the adults’ feet, searching for betting slips people might have dropped in their drunken state. She could still remember the rush of dreams within reach, the idea that anyone could become rich in the blink of an eye.

The new restaurant and VIP lounge were packed, and the space outside soon filled up. That was where Sven Hagstr?m used to stand, according to Karin Backe. So close that you could feel the breeze as the pack charged by, the thundering of the hooves, the intense, heady scent of the horses. Eira caught snatches of conversation from the people around her. Older men in caps and fleece jackets, despite it being twenty-five degrees, standing close, speaking softly. She overheard a tip from someone with a contact in the stables: Byske Philip had run well in training, but Eldborken wasn’t expected to have a particularly good season after his injury the previous winter.

The loudspeakers barked faster and faster as Eldborken took a surprise lead, passing Byske Philip and crossing the line with odds that made someone cry out.

After the winner had been handed his bouquet and completed a lap of honor, she felt her phone buzz. The track’s managing director, most likely; he had been unreachable earlier, but would be by the cashiers’ desks in two minutes, behind the hot dog stand.

“There’s a lot to do on a day like this,” he explained, wiping the sweat from his brow. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and could give them three minutes, at most, between sponsors.

The name Sven Hagstr?m was not one he knew, “but there are a lot of people you recognize without knowing them by name.”

Eira showed him the photograph taken roughly thirty meters from where they were then standing.

“Yeah, OK,” said the managing director. “I know him. He’s usually with the group over there, they’ve been regulars since before I arrived, mostly bet small sums.” He pointed to a scattered cluster of older men standing close to the fence. Another two sitting on a bench might be part of the group too, he said. “Has he done something?”

“We need to talk to people who knew him.”

“Knew?” The man’s eyes wandered, darting between the two officers and out across the spectators’ area, pausing on the screens where the odds for the next race had just flashed up. “Does that mean it was him who . . . ? Oh, man. Talk to the old boys over there. Hacke’s one of the veterans, and there’s a guy called Kurt Ullberg, from Pr?stmon. He used to keep horses . . . I don’t know the others . . . Don’t think I can help you any more than that, I’m afraid.”

He was already dashing off as they thanked him.

The race was underway. Eira went to buy a couple of coffees in paper cups. Once J?rvs? Johanna had come in as the fastest mare, they walked over to the men. The small group between the benches was both elated and depressed; one of them had won, another lost. There was no need for the photograph. Of course they bloody knew Sven, knew what had happened to him.