“There’s no need,” I assured him.
Ulrika remained standing in the driveway for a moment to talk to him as I hurried into the bathroom. My whole body felt warm and my mouth was dry as sawdust. I drank straight from the faucet and sponged my forehead with water.
It was way past midnight when I went to the kitchen to find Ulrika sitting with her head in her hands. Despite the hour and my protests, she was soon calling around to every contact she had with the police, some journalists, and lawyers, anyone who might know something or be able to help. I sat across from her, scouring the internet for information about the incident on Pilegatan, about Christopher Olsen and his professor mother.
Time and again I looked at the clock. The minutes were dragging by.
Once a whole hour had passed, I could no longer sit still.
“Why aren’t we getting any answers? How long could this take?”
“I’ll call Michael,” Ulrika said, standing up.
There was a creak on the stairs and I heard her closing the door to her office. I brooded, my thoughts gnawing at my brain, all the creepy-crawlies of anxiety under my skin.
I walked aimlessly through the kitchen, out to the entryway, and back again. I was holding the phone in my hand when it rang.
“It’s Amina.”
She sobbed and cleared her throat.
“Amina? Is something wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I lied.”
Just as I’d suspected. She hadn’t seen Stella on Friday after all. They had talked about hanging out, but it never happened.
“I didn’t know what to say when you asked,” she said. “I lied, but only for Stella. I thought maybe something … I wanted to check with her first.”
I understood. There was no reason to get upset with her. It was a white lie.
“But there must be someone else who can give her an alibi,” Amina was desperate to add. “This is totally insane!”
It truly was surreal. At the same time, it was becoming more and more clear that this was reality. I pictured Stella locked up in the cold, squalid cell where they put murderers and rapists.
Ulrika came down the stairs at a jog.
“The prosecutor has given the order to remand Stella,” she said.
“Remand her?”
My heart was pounding. I broke out in a sweat.
“They’re holding her in jail.”
“How is that possible? There’s no evidence!”
“It may have to do with the investigation. Things the police want to check up on before she is released.”
“Like an alibi?”
“For one.”
I didn’t know what we should do. My body was in an uproar. I could only manage to sit down for short periods, then I had to get up and move around. I walked through the house like a zombie, all around the house in my stocking feet.
As the sun sent its first tentative rays across the eastern horizon, we still knew nothing. The lack of sleep had made my brain fuzzy.
At last Blomberg called. I stood across from Ulrika in the kitchen and held my breath.
Her answers were brief and mumbling. She stood there with the phone pressed to her ear even after the call had ended.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Ulrika was looking at me and yet her gaze was elsewhere.
“We have to leave the house.”
Her voice was thin as a spider’s silk, about to break.
“What? What’s going on?”
“The police are on their way. They’re going to search the house.”
My thoughts went immediately to the stained blouse. It couldn’t be blood, surely? Of course there would be a sensible explanation. It must be as Blomberg had said, rash decisions and misunderstandings.
Stella could never … or could she?
I stole into the laundry room and lifted the pile of clothes I’d shoved the top under. My hands stiffened.
It was gone.
“What are you doing?” Ulrika said from the kitchen. “We have to get going.”
I desperately dug through the other piles of clothing but didn’t find a thing. The clotheslines were empty. The top was gone.
“Come on!” Ulrika called.
12
The future was always bright, but in a glistening, almost blinding way, like the winter sun through billowing mist. There was no worry, even if our paths weren’t yet laid out before us. I recall tiny Stella, with baby teeth and pigtails.
And then I recall a very uncomfortable parent-teacher conference at preschool when Stella was five.
The teacher, whose name was Ingrid, first reported on all the activities, crafts, and educational games they had done during the autumn and winter. Then she took a deep breath, paged through her papers at random, and seemed unsure of where to focus her gaze.