I have been wandering Marholmen for two days. I have walked along the rocky beaches, climbed the rocks. I have searched among verdant ferns and austere pines. I have looked under firs and fallen trees. Methodically gone over plots and wandered aimlessly in the woods.
But he is nowhere to be found, my Samuel.
The fat police officer, Manfred, was here last night and tried to convince me to go home. He said there was nothing I could do. That they had gone over Marholmen with a fine-toothed comb and that Samuel wasn’t there.
That he was gone.
And when he said it I could no longer control myself. The tears gushed out of me and I collapsed next to my car. Felt the rough grass against my cheek and the coldness emanating from the ground, like a portent of the grief to come.
I couldn’t explain to him, actually I didn’t even try to explain why I wanted to stay here on Marholmen.
What would I have said?
That Samuel is my child? That I have carried him in my body, but that despite that I have let him down more times than I can count?
No.
So I went home. Showered. Tried to eat something.
I made the mistake of turning on the TV too. They were talking about the murders and about Samuel. And they interviewed Bianca Diaz, the girlfriend of one of the victims. Something about the young pregnant woman’s restrained despair woke me out of my own grief and compelled me to act. I know only too well how hard it is to raise a child alone.
I found her on the internet and drove out to her apartment in Jordbro. Hung the duffle bag full of money on her door, rang the bell and then hurried out.
I suppose I was paying penance, as if that would give me Samuel back.
Then I returned to Marholmen, because what is there for me at home without my child?
I close my eyes and open the wafer chocolate bar in my pocket. Break off a piece and put it in my mouth. Peek through the half-open door at the blackbird sitting in the cage in the grass next to the car. The wind catches a piece of the torn-up newspaper that covers the floor of the cage. Flaps it against the bars, where it gets stuck.
He’s not a chick anymore, but an almost full-grown bird that shouldn’t be imprisoned in a cage. I know Samuel would have wanted to be the one to let him out. But now that he can’t I want to do him the favour.
I look up at the house that Rachel rented from the old lighthouse keeper’s daughter who lived here her whole life. It lies quiet and still behind the blue-and-white crime scene tape.
‘Where did you go, Samuel?’ I whisper, slamming the car door. Then I take the birdcage in my hand and begin walking down the gravel path and think of the strange dream I had last night.
I dreamed of the wise king Solomon in the Book of Kings, the one who was going to settle the dispute between the two women who both claimed the right to the same child.
Solomon asks for a sword, and when it has been fetched he says:
‘Cut the living child in half and give the women half each.’
In the dream the women were Rachel and I, the child was Samuel.
Once again I think this cannot be true. He cannot be gone.
Two days. Nobody can survive for that long in the water, Manfred said.
But what if she didn’t throw him in the water?
Then we would have found him.
Manfred’s words echo in my ears.
*
Dusk lowers itself over the island, but the real darkness is still in its infancy, waiting patiently for summer to retreat and make way for autumn. The sky lies heavy above, bruised in shades of blue and purple. Mosquitoes and gnats buzz around me, but I wave them away. Distractedly scratch the bites I have already got and look in between the copper-glowing, scaly trunks of the pines. The ditch is frothy with cow parsley and here and there the yellow flowers of St John’s wort glow.
It is so beautiful it makes my heart ache.
The scent of Labrador tea and yellow bedstraw – lady’s bedstraw – permeates the air.
I think of Father, who knew everything about flora and fauna. He never wanted to call the plant by that name, our lady, the real Virgin Mary, lay on a bed of straw, not yellow bedstraw.
That was just something that ignorant peasants had come up with.
This will do, I think, placing the cage on the ground. Open the little door and wait for the blackbird to fly out.
But it just sits there, still and looking at me with its little yellow-rimmed button eyes.
In the end I put my hand in the cage and push it out.
‘There you go, good bird. Now fly!’
The blackbird hops out but then sits next to the high grass by the side of the road. I step toward it to force it to fly away and enjoy all of this freedom. The summer, the woods, the cool evening air.
Life, that is so short and unpredictable.
The blackbird flies up, passes in front of my face and lands on a branch just a few yards from me. Then it turns to me. Cocks its little head and looks at me again.
‘Samuel should see you now!’ I say out loud.
And at that moment.
At that moment it hits me that he really is gone. That Samuel will never come back again and that the fat police officer was right.
My body contracts in a spasm, forces me onto my knees and presses my forehead against the gravel. My body drains me of tears and forces me into submission. And I let it happen. I shout out my pain, on my knees on the roadway, as if I were a woman in labour.
After a while the tears dry up and my breath calms down. I become aware of the forest sounds again; hear the birds sing, the wind whispering and rustling the canopies. The creaking and squawking from a heavy branch somewhere above me. The rattle of a woodpecker working his way into a tree trunk.
Just as I am about to get up, brush the gravel off my dirty dress that smells of sweat, I see the blackbird again.
It is sitting next to the shoulder of the road.
But I see something else too – wedged between two rocks next to the blackbird.
I take a few steps, squat down, reach out my hand and grasp the blue glass bead between my thumb and my index finger.
I look around. Scan the long shadows, search among dry leaves and rocks.
But all I see is the gravelly, light brown roadway disappearing in among the pines.
Then I sense something very small, but intensely red, in the middle of the road, a few yards further down. I gasp for air, run there, sink into a squat and pick up yet another glass bead. Turn it over and see a letter.
‘M’
The tears come again, but this time they are tears of joy.
My energy returns when I understand what I need to do, I begin to look along the road.
I find more beads. A blue one, a yellow one, a brown one. They appear to be scattered at regular intervals along the side of the road. Almost as if they were placed there on purpose.
I cup my hand and hold it up. Move the beads around with my index finger to form the word. ‘MUMMY’.
‘Samuel,’ I whisper. ‘I’m coming!’
I keep looking for the small glass beads, find another three, but then there are no more.
Right when I am about to give up I see the small path veering off to the left.
The light is dim under the large trees, so I pull out my phone, turn the torch on and shine it in among the branches. An enormous pine partially obscures my view, but behind its needle-less pinafore I glimpse some kind of ruin, almost completely overgrown by saplings and bushes.
I duck, bend under the dry branches and walk toward the dilapidated building. Halfway there I stop, bend over and pick up a white bead gleaming on the bed of dry pine needles and moss. Then I stand up and look around.
The door to the collapsed building is askew and the plants form a green wall in front of the bared bricks.
‘Samuel?’ I whisper.
But all I can hear is the low rustle of the canopies and the mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
I sweep the phone torch around me.
To the right of the ruin there is an old well and next to it . . .
Wait a minute.
A fresh twig with drooping leaves sticks out, squeezed between the well and the lid, as if someone had recently opened the well and the branch had got stuck there when it was closed.
I go over to the well and bend down. Next to the rough stone there is something orange. The small item glistens in the light from my phone.
It is a ladybird. Or rather, an enamel earring shaped like a little ladybird.
I put the beads and the earring in my pocket and pull tentatively at the rusted handle on the old lid. It is heavy and I need to use all of my body weight to move it.
The lid gives off a scraping noise and moves a few inches to the right.
I let go and gasp for breath. Pant and brace against the well.
It is heavy, really heavy.
A second later I hear it.
A knocking sounds from the well makes me jump. I scream, but then there is a spark of hope inside my chest.
I knock so hard on the lid of the well that my knuckles start to bleed.
Knock-knock-knock
I grab on to the rusted handle again. Pull until I black out. I pull and pull and all I can think is that I need to remove the lid. That I have to open this hellhole before it is too late.
Each time I lean back and brace with my legs the lid moves a few inches. In the end a crescent of darkness gapes at me from the underground.
I pick up my phone and shine the flashlight into the black hole.
And there he is.
My child.
He looks straight up at me and blinks several times.
Under him there is a body lowered into the water. The surface is partially covered with some sort of plant with tiny, tiny green leaves, but I can see a hand stick out in one spot.
‘I knew you would come,’ Samuel says.