The Girl in the Woods. Camilla Lackberg
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you’d be hungry after the trip. How did things go?’
She reached out her arms to take Lisa.
‘Fine. Or rather, not so great,’ said Paula, gratefully handing over the baby. ‘Shoot me if I ever start talking again about how wonderful it would be to go away for a week with the kids.’
‘It was your idea,’ muttered Johanna as she tried to wake Leo, who had fallen asleep.
‘It was nuts,’ said Paula, taking a pinch of melted golden cheese from the top of one of the enchiladas. ‘Kids everywhere, grown people dressed up like cuddly toys walking around in the heat and singing some sort of battle song.’
‘I don’t think you could really call it a battle song,’ said Johanna, laughing.
‘Okay, but it was indoctrination from some kind of sect. If I’d been forced to listen to it one more time I was going to go over and strangle that big hairy bear.’
‘Tell her about the chocolate fountain,’ said Johanna.
Paula groaned.
‘Oh my God. Every night they had a buffet, specially designed for kids, so there were tons of pancakes, meatballs, pizza, and spaghetti. And a chocolate fountain. One boy made quite an impression. Everyone knew this kid’s name was Linus, because his mother ran around the whole time yelling: “No, no, Liiinus! Don’t do that, Liiinus! Stop kicking that girl, Liiinus!” Meanwhile the boy’s father was busy chugging down the beer, starting right after breakfast. And on the last day …’
Johanna couldn’t help giggling as Paula picked up a plate, helped herself to an enchilada, and sat down at the kitchen table.
‘On the last day,’ she went on, ‘Linus ran right into that huge chocolate fountain and knocked it over. There was chocolate everywhere! And he threw himself down in it and began smearing chocolate all around, while his mother jumped up and down, completely hysterical.’
She took a big bite of her food and sighed. This was the first taste of anything spicy all week.
‘Uncle Bertil?’ said Leo, starting to wake up as Johanna held him.
‘Yes, where is Bertil?’ asked Paula. ‘Has he already fallen asleep in front of the TV?’
‘No,’ said Rita. ‘He’s working.’
‘This late?’
Bertil rarely worked nights.
‘Yes, he had to go. But you’re still on maternity leave,’ said Rita, casting a hesitant look at Johanna.
She knew it hadn’t been easy to get her daughter to take time off, and Johanna was still worried that Paula might go back to work too soon. The plan was for the family to spend the whole summer together.
‘So what’s going on?’ asked Paula, putting down her knife and fork.
‘They went out to search for someone who’s gone missing.’
‘Who’s missing?’
‘A child,’ said Rita, avoiding her eye. ‘A four-year-old girl.’
She knew her daughter all too well.
‘How long has the little girl been missing?’
‘Since last night, but the parents didn’t discover she was gone until this afternoon, so the search has only been going on for a couple of hours.’
Paula cast a pleading look at Johanna, who glanced at Leo and nodded.
‘Go. They’ll need all the help they can get.’
Paula got up and gave her partner a kiss on the cheek. ‘Love you. I’ll be back soon.’ She went into the hall and pulled on a lightweight jacket. ‘Where are they?’ she asked her mother.
‘On a farm. Bertil called it the Berg farm.’
‘The Berg farm?’
Paula abruptly stopped what she was doing. She knew that farm well. And its history. And she was too much of a cynic to believe in coincidences.
Karim knocked hard on the door. He knew Adnan was inside, and he had no intention of leaving until he opened the door. The years they’d spent in a world where a knock on the door could spell death, for themselves or a family member, meant that many refugees were reluctant to open the door. Karim pounded on the door again. Finally it opened.
When he saw Adnan staring at him wide-eyed, he was almost sorry he’d knocked so hard.
‘I just talked to Rolf, and he said all of Fjällbacka is out looking for a missing girl. We need to help.’
‘A girl? A child?’
‘Yes. Rolf said she’s four years old. They think she might be lost in the woods.’
‘Of course we’ll help.’ Adnan turned to look back inside the room as he reached for his jacket. ‘Khalil, come here!’
Karim backed up a few steps.
‘We need you to help round everyone up. Tell them we’ll meet up at the kiosk. Rolf has promised to drive us there.’
‘Sure. And we’d better hurry. A little girl shouldn’t be all alone in the woods at night.’
Karim continued knocking on doors, and he heard Khalil and Adnan doing the same. After a while they’d gathered fifteen others to help out. Rolf would have to make two or three trips to get them all there, but that wasn’t a problem. He was a nice person. He wanted to help.
For a moment Karim felt uncertain. Rolf was nice, and he knew them. But how would the other Swedes react when they turned up? A bunch of roaches from the refugee centre. He knew that’s what people called them. Roaches. Or wogs. But a child was missing, and it was everyone’s responsibility to find her. It didn’t matter whether she was Swedish or Syrian. Somewhere a mother was crying in despair.
When Rolf pulled up in his car, Karim, Adnan, and Khalil were waiting along with Rashid and Farid. Karim glanced at Rashid. His children were back in Syria. Rashid met Karim’s eye. He didn’t know whether his own children were still alive, but tonight he was going to help search for a Swedish little girl.
It was blissfully quiet now the kids were in bed. Sometimes Erica felt guilty about how much she enjoyed the peace in the evenings. When Maja was little she’d joined the web forum Family Life in an attempt to find like-minded people and to get things off her chest. She thought she couldn’t be the only one who was experiencing a conflict between being a mother and needing time to herself once in a while. But she’d received such a hate-filled response when she’d honestly written about her feelings that she’d never gone back to the forum. She’d been caught off guard by the curses and insults other mothers had hurled at her, just because she didn’t love every minute she spent breastfeeding, getting up in the middle of the night, changing nappies, and listening to her baby crying. She’d been told she should not have had a child, that she was an egotistical and self-absorbed bitch because she felt the need for time on her own. Erica could still feel the anger surging inside her at the thought of those women judging her because she didn’t act and feel the same as them. Why can’t everyone do whatever is best for them? she wondered as she sat on the sofa with a glass of red wine, trying to relax in front of the TV.
Her thoughts soon turned to another mother. Nea’s mother, Eva. She could only imagine what anguish she must be feeling right now. Erica had sent Patrik a text to ask again whether she could help. She could get Kristina to come over to look after the kids. But he had told her they already had all the volunteers they needed, and she would be more useful staying at home with the children.
Erica didn’t know the Bergs, and she’d never been to their farm. Wanting to describe the setting as precisely as possible, she’d thought about going out there to have a look around and take a few pictures, but so far she hadn’t done it. There were old photographs available, so she knew exactly how the farm had looked when the Strand family lived