The Ice Child. Camilla Lackberg

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СКАЧАТЬ if he understood her. It was a wordless form of communication that she’d never experienced with any other animal. Or even with any person. Not with her mother. And not with Lasse. The mere thought of Lasse made her brush Fanta harder, but the big white mare didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying the strokes of the brush, snorting and moving her head up and down as if bowing. For a moment Tyra thought it looked like the mare were inviting her to dance. She smiled and stroked Fanta’s grey muzzle.

      ‘You’re great too,’ she said, as if the horse had been able to hear her thoughts about Scirocco.

      Then she felt a pang of guilt. She looked at her hand on Fanta’s muzzle and realized how trivial her jealousy was.

      ‘You miss Victoria, don’t you?’ she whispered, leaning her head against the horse’s neck.

      Victoria, who had been Fanta’s groom. Victoria, who had been missing for several months. Victoria, who had been – who was – Tyra’s best friend.

      ‘I miss her too.’ Tyra felt the mare nudging her cheek, but it didn’t comfort her as much as she’d hoped.

      She should have been in maths class right now, but on this particular morning she hadn’t felt able to put on a cheerful face and fend off her worry. She had gone over to the school bus stop but instead sought solace in the stable, the only place where she could find any respite. The grown-ups didn’t understand. They saw only their own anxiety, their own sorrow.

      Victoria was more than a best friend. She was like a sister. They had been friends from the first day of school and had remained inseparable ever since. There was nothing they hadn’t shared. Or was there? Tyra no longer knew for sure. During those last months before Victoria disappeared, something had changed. It felt like a wall had popped up between them. Tyra hadn’t wanted to nag. She thought that when the time was right, Victoria would tell her what was going on. But time had run out, and Victoria was gone.

      ‘I’m sure she’ll come back,’ she now told Fanta, but deep inside she had her doubts. Though no one would admit it, they all knew that something bad must have happened. Victoria was not the kind of girl to disappear voluntarily, if such a person existed. She was too content with her life, and she didn’t have an adventurous nature. She preferred to stay home or in the stable; she didn’t even want to go into Strömstad on the weekends. And her family was nothing like Tyra’s. They were super nice, even Victoria’s older brother. He had often given his sister a lift to the stable early in the morning. Tyra used to love visiting their home. She’d felt like one of the family. Sometimes she’d even wished that Victoria’s family was hers. An ordinary, normal family.

      Fanta gave her a gentle nudge. A few tears landed on the mare’s muzzle, and Tyra quickly wiped her eyes with her hand.

      Suddenly she heard a sound outside the stable. Fanta heard it too. The mare pushed her ears forward and raised her head so swiftly that she rammed into Tyra’s chin. The sharp taste of blood filled the girl’s mouth. She swore, pressed her hand to her lips, and went outside to see what was going on.

      When she opened the stable door she was dazzled by the sun, but her eyes quickly adjusted to the light and she saw Valiant coming across the forecourt at full gallop with Marta on his back. Marta pulled up so abruptly that the stallion almost reared. She was shouting something. At first Tyra didn’t understand what she was saying, but Marta kept on yelling. And finally the words made sense:

      ‘Victoria! We’ve found Victoria!’

      Patrik Hedström was sitting at his desk in the Tanumshede police station, enjoying the peace and quiet. He’d come to work early, so he’d missed having to get the kids dressed and take them to the day-care centre. Lately that whole process had become a form of torture, thanks to the twins’ transformation from sweet babies into mini versions of Damien in the film Omen. He couldn’t comprehend how two such tiny people could require so much energy. Nowadays his favourite time with them was when he sat next to their beds in the evening and watched them sleep. At those moments he was able to enjoy the immense, pure love he felt for his sons without any trace of the tremendous frustration he felt when they howled: ‘NO, I WON’T!’

      Everything was so much easier with Maja. In fact, sometimes he felt guilty that, with all the attention he and Erica devoted to her little brothers, Maja often ended up neglected. She was so good at keeping herself busy that they simply assumed she was happy. And as young as she was, she seemed to possess a magical ability to calm her brothers down even during their worst outbursts. But it wasn’t fair, and Patrik decided that tonight he and Maja would spend time together, just the two of them, snuggling and reading a story.

      At that moment the phone rang. He picked it up distractedly, still thinking about Maja. But the caller quickly grabbed his attention, and he sat up straight in his chair.

      ‘Could you repeat that?’ He listened. ‘Okay, we’ll be right there.’

      He threw on his jacket and shouted into the corridor, ‘Gösta! Mellberg! Martin!’

      ‘What is it? Where’s the fire?’ grunted Bertil Mellberg, who unexpectedly showed up first. But he was soon followed by Martin Molin, Gösta Flygare, and the station secretary, Annika, who had been at her desk in the reception area, which was the furthest away from Patrik’s office.

      ‘Somebody found Victoria Hallberg. She was hit by a car near the eastern entrance to Fjällbacka, and she’s been taken by ambulance to Uddevalla. That’s where you and I are headed, Gösta.’

      ‘Oh, shit,’ said Gösta, and he dashed back to his office to grab his jacket. No one dared venture outdoors without the proper warm clothing this winter, no matter how big an emergency it was.

      ‘Martin, you and Bertil need to go out to the accident site and talk to the driver,’ Patrik went on. ‘Call the tech team and ask them to meet you there.’

      ‘You’re in a bossy mood today,’ muttered Mellberg. ‘As the chief of this station, of course I’m the one who should go out to the scene of the accident. The right man in the right place.’

      Patrik sighed to himself but didn’t comment. With Gösta in tow, he hurried outside, jumped into one of the two police vehicles and turned on the ignition.

      Bloody awful road, he thought as the car skidded into the first curve. He didn’t dare drive as fast as usual. It had started snowing again, and he didn’t want to risk sliding off the road. Impatiently he slammed his fist on the steering wheel. It was only January and, given how long Swedish winters lasted, they could expect at least two more months of this misery.

      ‘Take it easy,’ said Gösta, clutching the strap hanging from the ceiling. ‘What did they say on the phone?’ He gasped as the car skidded again.

      ‘Not much. Just that there had been a traffic accident and the girl who’d been struck was Victoria. Unfortunately, it sounds as though she’s in bad shape, and apparently she has other injuries, which have nothing to do with being hit by a car.’

      ‘What kind of injuries?’

      ‘I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get there.’

      Less than an hour later they arrived at Uddevalla hospital and parked at the front entrance. They hurried to the ER and accosted a doctor named Strandberg, according to his name badge.

      ‘I’m glad you’re here. The girl is just going into surgery, but it’s not certain she’ll make it. We heard from the police that she has been СКАЧАТЬ