‘Come to my place and freshen up,’ says Lena. ‘We’ll look for her together.’
‘I don’t need to freshen up.’
Flies are buzzing around the spring onions scattered on the asphalt. There are wasps and ants and bluebottles picking over Tam’s food.
‘It’s not even breakfast time,’ says Lena. ‘You haven’t slept. Let’s go to my place, have a quick sandwich, strong coffee, and come up with a plan.’
‘A plan?’ I ask.
‘An aggressive plan,’ she says.
We set off, her in her Saab and me in my truck. Then I change my mind and gesture to Lena and swerve and do a U-turn. I head in the direction of Tam’s apartment building. I have to check it. She could be there, injured or unconscious.
I see Lena in my mirrors. She turns and follows me.
I park outside Tam’s building and look up at her window.
Nothing.
I try the external door code and it hasn’t changed since I left town in February. I go in and sprint up the stairs to her floor.
‘Tam?’ I yell, banging on her door with my fist. ‘Tammy, you in there? Tammy?’
A door across the corridor opens and a young guy with a sunburnt face steps out in his robe.
‘You got any idea what time it is? It’s not even breakfast time.’
‘Who?’
‘Your closest neighbour,’ I say. ‘Twenty-two, black hair, runs the food van near ICA.’
‘I just moved here,’ he says, adjusting his robe.
I pass him my card. ‘If you see anyone come into this apartment or you hear anything at all, you call me on that number.’
He rubs his eyes.
‘You have to keep the noise down, it’s the building rules.’
‘You hear of anything. You see anyone suspicious, you email, text or call me right away. Okay?’
‘I’ll be talking to the head of the association about this.’
‘What?’ I say.
‘The chairman. Of this building. About the noise.’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘You do that, mate.’
Sunburnt shithead.
I try her door one more time and then walk back downstairs. Lena’s waiting outside.
‘Anything?’ she asks.
‘Locked,’ I say. ‘One guy who hasn’t seen anything. Let’s go.’
We drive in convoy up Storrgatan, past Benny Björnmossen’s gun store, past my old office, past the liquorice factory. Shallow sunbeams make St Olov’s church ruin look almost normal. We head back down the other side of the hill towards the cross-country ski trails. Fancy suburb this side of town. Well-kept houses. We park up outside Lena’s two bedroom detached house. White clapboards, neat garden, robot mower.
‘If you need a place to sleep,’ she points to the friggebod hut in the garden. It’s basically a shed with insulation. They’re so small they don’t need planning permission and so most Swedes stick one in their garden as guest accommodation.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I need to work out what happened. I know the cops are relaxed but I have a bad feeling. Small town like this, good light, everyone summer-extroverted, someone must know. And if they don’t, then I’ll find her myself…’
‘I believe you,’ Lena cuts in. ‘But the offer stands if you need it. Come inside.’
She opens her front door and I take a deep breath to calm myself. The house is spotlessly clean, it always is, but with this kind of summer light any house looks dusty. The light’s too clinical and it shows things, dead skin and old fluff, floating in mid-air.
‘Use the bathroom if you need to freshen up. I’ll make coffee.’
I use her bathroom. I spent time in this very house after Mum died. I spent days in this home being looked after by Lena, even though we’ve never really spoken about it – not then, not since. She just took me in like an injured sparrow, and she kept me alive for a while.
When I get back to the pine kitchen table there’s a thermos of coffee, rye bread in a basket, slices of cucumber and pepper, and a slab of Västerbotten cheese. I’m starving-hungry so I eat. Ten minutes. A refuelling stop. The cheese is the good kind with actual salt crystals that melt on your tongue, and the coffee is strong and smooth. My body gets the jolt it needs.
‘A strategy,’ says Lena, draining the last of her coffee.
‘You ever done this before?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. Then she pulls a pad of paper and a pen from next to her landline, and it occurs to me that I’ve never had a phone attached to a wall.
‘Top ten places to look first,’ she says.
‘I’m going to talk to Thord again,’ I say. ‘I’m meeting him at McDonald’s after his shift.’
‘Good,’ she says.
‘After that, there’s the reservoir. Tam goes there when she needs headspace, when a guy’s been a dick, when her mum’s difficult to contact on account of her backpacking around Mozambique or Colorado or someplace.’
‘Big reservoir,’ says Lena. ‘You’ll need help to search it all.’
I nod and get a battery warning in my left hearing aid.
‘Apart from that, there’s the university,’ I say. ‘But why would she leave her food van, cash in the till, door unlocked; leave her bag, leave her car and go there? Go anywhere?’
‘I have no idea,’ says Lena.
I rub my eyes and pour us both more coffee.
‘Was she dating anyone?’ asks Lena.
I shake my head. ‘I’m not sure.’ How can I not know this? What kind of friend am I? For a moment I despise myself. I’ve been selfish and shut off for months now. Cocooned. Not drinking. Focusing on my new job. On myself. Impressing Anders, my new editor. But Tam’s always been guarded, even with me. She dates via apps and websites. I only get a filtered version of events and, stupidly, I never push for more. ‘I’ll ask around,’ I add quietly.
‘Town this size and knowing you, you’ll find out by lunch,’ she says, a hopeful look in her eyes.
Not if I know Gavrik. People here cover for each other, they lie and deceive and watch each other’s backs. Families are interconnected and grudges run deep down into the Toytown bedrock. There have always been rumours here and in the surrounding towns. Urban myths. Young women going missing. Gone ‘travelling’ or ‘moved to the USA’ or ‘just upped and left.’
Too much wilderness this far north. Too much space. Too many hiding places.
‘I’d better get off to meet Thord,’ I say. ‘Is Johan upstairs?’
‘Some hydroelectric conference up in Östersund,’ she says. ‘I’m home alone.’
‘Lock your door behind me,’ I say after a pause.
Lena’s eyes widen.
McDonald’s looks like lunch not breakfast. The sun’s already beaming down hard. Light bouncing off car roofs and cooking the interiors to the point where you could fry a McEgg on any one of them.
‘Long time no see,’ says Thord as I walk in. He’s still in uniform, short sleeves this time of year, and he looks tired.
We hug, an awkward half-hug, by the drinks dispenser. His gun’s right there on his hip. I order coffee and he orders a McMuffin with tea, and we sit down away from the window.
‘Tell me everything,’ I say.
‘Thought I already did on the phone,’ he says.
‘It’s not normal for Tammy to leave cash in her till, her bag, her car, or leave the van unlocked. She wouldn’t do it. It’s totally out of character. She’s never done anything like this.’
‘People do strange things this time of year,’ he says. ‘Insomnia. Stress or money problems. People sometimes up and leave. I seen it a dozen times before.’
‘You don’t think she was kidnapped? Abducted?’
‘Well,’ he says. ‘We can’t rule that out but it’d be mighty unusual for a full-grown woman to get kidnapped.’
‘But you do think something is off, otherwise you wouldn’t have put police tape around the van.’
He chews his McMuffin and swallows and wipes his mouth with a paper napkin. He sighs and then he moves closer.
‘It probably ain’t nothing, and we haven’t gone public with this yet.’
I bend forward to be closer to him and he recoils a little.
‘Don’t get worried, it probably ain’t connected.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Chief Björn found some blood splatter on the ground near them onions.’
I put my hands to my neck.
‘No.’
‘I said don’t get worried, Tuvs. It could be someone else’s blood, it could be nothing. Just a few drops. Maybe a bleeding customer, or Tammy cut herself on a knife and a customer took her to the hospital, something like that.’
‘Have you checked the hospitals?’ I ask.
He nods.
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Not yet, anyways. We’ll keep checking.’
‘You have any leads? Any witnesses? Any fingerprints?’
‘Blood’s getting tested. We got people checking all the traffic cams but there aren’t too many in Gavrik town. CCTV from ICA doesn’t reach to the far side of the van. Doesn’t cover that exit of the car park. Only leads we got are that scream and some gossip about her dating history.’
‘And?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me, fill in the gaps.’
‘Sure,’ I say, taking a gulp of lukewarm coffee. ‘Tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the gaps.’
‘Rumour was she was having an affair with a married man, some kind of dam designer. A married engineer. No proof, mind. Rumour was she was head over heels in love and wanted him to leave his wife but he wasn’t having any of it. Ring any bells?’
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Not her style.’
‘Then there’s the fella up at Snake River Salvage, up at the big junkyard. I never did like that place. Word is they’ve been dating on and off.’
‘His name Karl-Otto, by any chance?’ I ask.
‘That’s him. Karl-Otto Sandberg’s a big shot eBay trader so they say. Car parts. Good economy. So she mentioned Karl-Otto to you?’
‘A little,’ I say. ‘Just in passing. Who else?’
‘Kid who works in the shoe shop.’
‘Freddy Bom?’ I ask. ‘Young-looking guy?’
Thord snort-smiles. ‘That’s the one. Looks like he still needs a bottle-feed but they tell me he’s well over thirty.’
‘Tam never mentioned him,’ I say.
‘Tinder dot com,’ he says. ‘Just saying what I heard.’
‘I’ll talk to them both.’
‘Don’t go breaking laws or stirring up no hornets’ nests,’ he says. ‘You hear anything or you sense something ain’t right, you call the station right away, you hear?’
‘I’ll be careful,’ I say. ‘Snake River’s just past Utgard forest, right?’
‘On the far side,’ says Thord. ‘Practically merge into one another at some points. Used to be called Black River in my granddaddy’s day. Unusual people out there, so you be real careful. Watch your back, Tuva. Them Snake River folk don’t like the government much, otherwise I’d go with you. And that Freddy Bom might look like a harmless kid but my ex-girlfriend went to him for a fitting once and she reckons he got overfamiliar with her arches, too much touching her toes, reckons she won’t ever set foot in that shoe shop again.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thing with summer,’ says Thord, rolling his McMuffin wrapper into a tight ball, ‘is that people don’t see the threats. It’s like they’re tricked by it every year. Midsommar looks nice from the outside, but folk are drinking too much and you get people driving under the influence. There’s a hundred-thousand elk calves born right around now in Sweden and that means there’s a lot of hormonal, protective half-ton mothers out there in the woods. Just cos there’s no night-time don’t mean there’s no darkness. I have people falling off their scaffolding when they’re re-painting their houses, had others drowning to death in the reservoir. And then there’s the poor old folks dehydrated in their own homes. Silent killers. People let their guard down cos they think nothing bad can happen in summertime. In truth, it’s my busiest time of the whole damn year.’