Every heartbeat feels like a tiny explosion, every single beat seems like more than enough to draw their attention, Klara thinks, huddled in the foetal position beneath the cover. She holds her breath as the legs of the police officer brush against the cover that forms her only defence. He’s unbearably close to her.
Then she hears more steps enter the courtyard. A breathless voice. ‘Berg!’
A woman’s voice. The other officer.
‘Witnesses say she disappeared to the left up Svartman- gatan.’
‘Svartmangatan?’ Berg answers. ‘I could swear that I saw her sneak in here.’
‘Well, she’s not here,’ the woman replies impatiently. ‘We’ll lose her if we waste any more time.’
‘But you can’t trust eyewitnesses,’ he mutters. ‘I know what I saw.’ He runs a hand over the cover.
‘Forget it,’ the woman says impatiently. ‘If she was the one driving, I don’t know why they didn’t take her in immediately during the crackdown.’
The bike shakes as Berg accidentally hits it with his hip. ‘Oh, damn!’ he mutters.
‘We don’t even know if she’s got anything to do with this,’ the woman continues.
‘But you know how it is,’ Berg says. ‘You don’t run if you’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘That’s not our problem right now anyway,’ the woman says. ‘They want us back at our post. Anttila is covering for us now, but he goes off duty in three minutes.’
The man sighs. ‘A terrorism crackdown on a law firm, and we decide to leave loose ends. Fucking amateur hour.’
‘Save it for the break room,’ the woman sighs, exhausted. ‘No one else wants to hear it.’
Their boots crunch across the snow that covers the inner courtyard as they slowly head out through the archway onto Österlånggatan again.
*
Klara stays there until she loses all track of time and starts to shake violently from the cold. Finally, she slowly gets up on her hands and knees. She’s lost all feeling in her fingers and struggles to take off the cover so she can stumble out of the cargo bike.
Terrorism crackdown. The words echo in her head.
Has Gabriella been arrested in a terrorism crackdown?
Klara remembers the phone call last night, the one she heard from outside Gabriella’s door. She was going to meet someone in Brussels. A little sceptical, but still willing to fly to Brussels. After the terrible slaughter at the Bataclan in central Paris just a week ago, it feels like the whole world is on edge.
If this isn’t Bronzelius’s way of making good on his threat, then it must be a huge misunderstanding. What else could it be?
She’s out on Österlånggatan now, but soon turns off again onto one of the smaller streets. She can slowly feel the warmth returning to her limbs. Does she dare go back to Gabriella’s car? The police could have it under surveillance. But how would they even know where it was parked?
She continues down towards Kornhamnstorg where she abandoned it before her failed attempt to talk to the police.
When she arrives at Mälartorget, the car is still standing on the disabled spot at Trattoria Romana. She stops fifty metres from it and scans the street. No police officers. Nothing unusual at all. Just a normal, sleepy winter Sunday in central Stockholm.
Not so much as a parking ticket, she discovers when she reaches the car. Her hands tremble after the events of the past few hours, and she glances at the Italian restaurant she parked at, feels that familiar desire for a glass of wine. Just one. To calm down, to think clearly.
But she steels herself, unlocks the car and hops in. It would be too ironic if she were to hide for twenty minutes from the police and then end up arrested for drunk driving. She presses the start button and puts it into gear. From the corner of her eye she sees a bag on the passenger side. Gabriella didn’t take it with her.
Klara stops, turns off the engine and puts on the handbrake, then bends down and grabs the bag, a spacious leather tote, decorated with a familiar golden monogram pattern. She takes out a sweater, a vanity case, and the clothes Gabriella wore yesterday, and puts them on the passenger seat. She was only going to Sankt Anna archipelago for a night, so she packed light.
No computer, no phone either – she must have had it on her – only a charger in the bottom of the bag, a hairbrush, an old pack of chewing gum, a pot of expensive face powder and a half-full bottle of water.
Something jingles and Klara grabs hold of the keys to Gabriella’s apartment. But that’s all. Nothing of value. Nothing that gives the slightest clue as to what Gabriella was up to, the reason for her arrest.
Klara notices something curious on the face powder’s label, and deeper in the bag she feels the contours of something else. She grabs hold of a thin black notebook she didn’t notice at first. She takes it out, puts the rest of Gabriella’s things back into the bag, then opens the notebook to the first page.