She only stayed a little while. It was a few hours before I noticed what she’d done.’
‘Can’t you just spit it out?’ Vanessa almost screams.
‘I had a gun in the basement,’ Jonte says slowly. ‘She’s taken it.’
Minoo can’t sit still. She’s pacing back and forth in Nicolaus’s living room with her mobile in her hand. Anna-Karin and Ida are sitting on a couple of spindle-back chairs. Their faces are tense. No one has said a word for ten minutes.
When Minoo’s phone rings, everyone jumps.
‘It’s Vanessa,’ she says to the others.
She listens and tries to take in what Vanessa is telling her. All of Linnéa’s talk about revenge wasn’t just talk. She’d never had any intention of going with them tonight. She was going to settle this alone in her own way.
She’s planning to shoot Max.
‘I’m on my way over to his house now,’ Vanessa says.
‘No!’ says Minoo. ‘It’s too dangerous!’
Nicolaus comes in from the kitchen with Cat behind him.
‘I have to stop her,’ Vanessa says.
It’s obvious that she’s not going to let herself be talked out of it. Minoo’s brain is working flat out, searching for arguments to stop Vanessa running straight into Max’s clutches. There isn’t even room in her mind to be angry with Linnéa – the situation is too critical. Everything has come crashing down. ‘Please, Vanessa, wait. You’re not going to solve anything by running over there. We don’t even know if Linnéa is there.’
‘If anything happens to her …’
Minoo’s gaze falls on the framed map of the town hanging next to the silver cross. ‘Give us ten minutes,’ she says. ‘Let’s try to find her first.’
‘We can’t wait!’ Vanessa shouts.
‘Five minutes, then. Just five minutes. I’ve got an idea. Please.’
Vanessa is silent for a second. ‘Okay,’ she says.
Minoo hangs up.
‘What’s happened?’ Nicolaus asks.
She tells him as fast as she can, continues talking even when Ida and Nicolaus try to interrupt with questions. ‘We have to find Linnéa,’ she says finally.
‘That dear child,’ Nicolaus says. ‘I never thought she’d … I thought all her talk of revenge was just an empty threat.’
‘I thought so, too,’ Minoo says, and lifts the town map off its hook. ‘Ida, you have to find her with the pendulum.’
Minoo places the map on the table while Ida takes off her necklace and moves closer. ‘It’s such a big area,’ she says, peering at the map. ‘I don’t know if it’ll work.’
Anna-Karin gets up and goes over to her. ‘Take my hand,’ she says.
Ida hesitates. Then she grabs Anna-Karin’s right hand. Anna-Karin stretches the other to Minoo, who clutches it.
Ida starts swinging the pendulum over Max’s house. The seconds tick past. Everyone’s eyes are transfixed by the little silver heart.
‘She’s not there,’ Ida says, and Minoo feels a powerful sense of relief.
Ida continues swinging the pendulum over Engelsfors, the area where Max lives and towards the centre of town.
‘Try the school,’ Anna-Karin says suddenly.
Ida moves the pendulum again. At once it swings in a wide clockwise circle. ‘She’s there.’
‘Is Max with her?’ Nicolaus asks.
‘I don’t know if I can pick up his energy.’
‘Try,’ Minoo says.
‘Maybe it’ll help if you think about him. You know him better than anyone,’ Ida says, sarcastically.
‘I’ll think of him, too,’ Anna-Karin says.
Minoo shuts her eyes tightly and thinks about Max. She tries to pretend he’s standing in front of her. She sees his face, which had meant something entirely different to her just a few days ago. Then he was the light of her life. Now he is darkness.
You know him better than anyone.
No, Minoo thinks. Quite the opposite. I was the one who didn’t understand what he was.
‘I’ve found him,’
Ida says, and Minoo opens her eyes. Ida’s face is glistening with sweat. She lowers the necklace. ‘He’s at the school, too.’
57
NICOLAUS PULLS UP in the car park behind the school and turns off the engine. The heater that has been humming at Minoo’s feet falls silent, and the windscreen wipers are stilled.
It’s snowing again. Fluffy flakes float slowly over the outside world.
Minoo looks towards Engelsfors High School, looming in the darkness ahead. Only a few streetlamps cast a yellow glow across the playground. The windows are blackened squares. Impossible to see into. But someone inside would have no difficulty in seeing out.
They have to cross the brightly lit car park. It’s either that or making their way across the equally well-lit playground outside the main entrance. There’s nothing to hide behind on the way into the school.
Someone knocks on the side window beside Minoo, who jumps