Malin hung up the phone. Her sister had made up her mind at once when Malin told her what had happened. She would come down and stay at least until Henrik was back from his trip.
Malin looked out toward the big ancient sundial that was squeezed between the treetops and a dramatic cloud formation to the west. The apples shone green and red in the warm glow and the pears had started to turn yellow. It was time to harvest. It surprised her that they could grow at all there in the stony ground.
Far away Kalbjerga’s metal roofs glistened above the pines. The family on the farm and Ann-Katrin and Bengt were their only neighbors. Then nothing. Just forest and meager meadows with bleating sheep. When the sun went down they were alone in the dark.
That thought was easier to bear since Maria said that she would come.
Everything that was whirling around in her head quieted down enough that she could think. She and Maria had always been close. From the very start it was mostly Malin who pitched in and took care of her little sister. But with every year that passed the three years between them meant less and less. Not even when Malin was fifteen or sixteen and should have thought it was awkward to have a little sister hanging at her heels did she push her away. That probably made Maria a little precocious, but also secure and self-confident. Confidence that Malin could lean against when she needed it.
Maria was the only one who had been on Malin’s side when she quit medical studies to open a café instead. Stubbornly, she had wrangled with Mother and their big brother, Staffan, who thought she was an idiot. Say no to becoming a doctor. How stupid can you be? She had probably never completely recovered from those quarrels. Superficial and bourgeois, Maria’s words echoed in the dining room during the family’s Sunday dinners.
Mother and Staffan had become a little more conciliatory when they saw that things were going well for her, anyway. The third year with Kakan she had received an award from the Entertainment Guide.
Maria would arrive on the eleven o’clock boat tomorrow. She would be on Fårö before four o’clock. Malin counted the minutes. It would feel so nice to have someone there who understood her one hundred percent and who made her feel safe.
She thought about Stina Hansson. As if it was not already bad enough as it was, perhaps this woman who carried off Ellen in her car had some sort of connection to Henrik. Had even had a relationship with him. Fifteen years ago, to be sure, but only three years before he met her. Malin had a hard time believing it was true. That he could have slept with that woman. Whispered that he loved her. Or maybe he hadn’t done just that. She hoped it wasn’t the case.
When Henrik had told about her it was as if she was suddenly there in their home. Moved in with them. Stina Hansson. Why hadn’t he said that he had seen her? Didn’t you do that? Would she have done that herself? She thought so anyway.
Maria had dismissed all such thoughts. Why should he have said anything about it, an old ex from when he was twenty? Knock it off.
Malin had Googled Stina Hansson. She wanted to see what she looked like. But she was nowhere. No Facebook page, no sports club, nothing. The slender figure with the light long hair, jeans, and military-green jacket who stood staring at her outside the school had etched herself in her memory. But the image was incomplete. The piercing, cold eyes continued to stare at her from a face that was no more than a light speck of skin.
Henrik must have pictures of her. Without a doubt. But Malin was reluctant to ask him. She was not sure she wanted to see Stina Hansson smiling lovingly at the man behind the camera.