‘It wasn’t Abeba texting Cesar,’ Sara practically shouted when Anna eventually answered. ‘It was the father! And he was the one who deleted it afterwards!’
Sara was running as fast as she could, zig-zagging between sauntering tourists along Kindstugatan and Köpmanbrinken.
‘How do you know that?’ said Anna.
‘It was the way he went to fetch the mobile for her. She didn’t make the slightest effort to get it for herself. Her eyes didn’t even search for it when we asked for it, because he looks after it for her. If anyone asks for my mobile, I have an impulse to get it out. She didn’t.’
‘OK. I buy that.’
‘I’m in the old town. Where can you meet me? We need to bring them both in,’ Sara panted.
‘I’m at home. Is this something we need to do now?’
‘Yes! Anna, think! The visit to the convenience store!’
‘What about it?’
‘Why would Abeba sneak off, if she was just going to buy a newspaper? What can you buy in a shop like that which you’d want to keep secret?’
‘Condoms,’ said Anna.
‘On the right track,’ said Sara. ‘Try again.’
‘Pregnancy tests!’
‘Exactly.’
‘She’s pregnant!’
‘Or at the very least, she had cause to check. I’ll get the car and pick you up by the Ringen mall so that we can go together.’
Sara put her mobile away as she ran down Österlånggatan towards Slottsbacken, where she took a left, passed the pissoir and reached the way down to the underground car park which was embedded into the wall under Slottsbacken itself. While Sara was heading down to the car park and her Golf, Anna called back.
‘I just spoke to the surveillance team. Abeba and her father just left, they say.’
‘Where for?’
‘No idea.’
‘Tell them to follow,’ Sara said, taking three steps at a time towards the basement level.
‘What do you think they were going to do? Stick around and stare into space?’
‘Sorry. I’ll pick you up in five.’
Sara drove the car out of the car park, looped around the old town and then drove down into the tunnel on Hornsgatan. Anna lived on Tullgårdsgatan in the high rise shadow of Folksamhuset, but she had made her way to the Ringen shopping mall so that Sara could drive across the Skanstullsbron bridge to Årsta and onto the E20 motorway southbound. She was constantly switching lanes and flashing at cars that didn’t pull in when she wanted to overtake.
‘Don’t kill us getting there,’ said Anna, glowering at her.
‘I just have a feeling that this is urgent.’
‘I thought I was the one with premonitions.’
‘Abeba and her father aren’t dead. It’s ghosts you talk to.’
‘Only when it’s a quarter to three and I’m in a bar,’ her friend grinned.
Just as they reached the E4, Anna’s mobile rang. She answered, listened for a couple of seconds and then turned towards Sara.
‘She’s thrown herself out of the car. In the middle of the motorway.’