She walked past Henrik with determined steps. She saw that he raised his eyebrows and felt how he watched her as she strode toward the house.
She had a weird feeling in her body, as though she was shut in behind some thick glass, as if she had stood still and watched herself walk up the gravel path to the house...as if her body reacted but not her being.
Her legs were taking her in the direction of the house.
Mechanically.
Then suddenly she had the urge to rush forward and yank open the door. Something about the house was familiar to her. It was... What was it?
She came to a halt.
Henrik stopped too, right behind her.
She looked up at the house and felt an equally strong urge to turn around and run back to the boat. But she couldn’t do that. She had to control herself now. She looked down at the gravel and picked up a few of the small stones. In her memory some vague images appeared and she saw now how, as a little girl, she had struggled with her small feet in the gravel. And she remembered how painful it had been when she fell on it. She held the gravel in her open hand, looked down at it and then squeezed it tightly with her fingers. She clenched her hand so hard that her knuckles went white.
Henrik cleared his throat.
“I’ll go ahead,” he said and walked past her. “Stay here. I’ll make sure it’s safe first.”
He walked quickly across the grassed area and stopped a few meters from the front steps. He noticed no movement inside the house. He walked slowly up the rotting wooden steps, pulled out his gun and knocked on the door with its peeling paint. He waited but there was no answer.
At the side of the house, rainwater dripped into an overflowing barrel from a crooked and rusty drain pipe.
He walked all around the house and stopped at every window, but couldn’t see a living soul. But he did discover a barn a bit further away.
He signaled to Jana then disappeared behind the corner in the direction of the red barn.
She stayed where she was for a few moments with the gravel in her hand. Silence surrounded her. Her muscles relaxed, the blood came back into her hand and she let the gravel fall to the ground. She slowly walked up toward the house and stopped in front of the steps. Then she went to the side of them, closer to the cracked wood-paneled fa?ade, and crouched down by the base of the building to look in through a dirty, narrow cellar window. She saw a small room. The ceiling was low. There was a workbench along one side, two shelves with cardboard boxes and newspapers. Some stairs, a stair railing and a little stool.
Like a pressure wave, another memory came flooding back to her. She immediately realized that she had been inside there. In the dark. And somebody had been inside there with her.
Who was it?
Minos...
“Have you found anything?”
Mia Bolander had arduously made her way along the gravel path. Her earlier face, so pale, was now bright red. She must have run to catch up.
Jana got up from the cellar window.
“Where’s Henrik? Has he checked the area? Is he inside the house?” Mia said.
Jana had no desire to talk with Mia. And she certainly didn’t want to examine the area with her or anyone. Another unsettling feeling welled up inside her. In some inexplicable way she felt an enormous need to protect the place. To drive Mia and Henrik away. They had no right to be here. It was her house. Nobody else should go inside. Nobody should nose around here. Nobody. Only her.
Mia came closer.
Jana tensed her muscles and lowered her head. Made herself ready to defend.
To fight.
Then Henrik came running. He ran in panic with eyes like saucers and his mouth half open.
When he saw Mia he shouted as loud as he could: “Call for backup! Get everybody here, everybody!”
*
Phobos was barely nine years old, but even so he was an old hand.
He washed the bend of his arm with soap and water. Then he used gravity to get the blood to the right place. He swung his arm and clenched his fist. Sat down on the floor and tied the compress hard.
The needle hit his vein with the angular filed edge upwards. It was the same vein, the same procedure, in the same room, in the same building. As usual. Everything was as usual.
He drew the syringe handle back and saw the dark red and thick blood flow into the syringe. He immediately released the tie around his arm and slowly injected the rest of the drug.
When there was one unit left in the syringe, he started to feel it. It wasn’t the same feeling. He immediately pulled the needle out of his arm. Two drops of blood ended up on his trousers.
The last thing he remembered was that he shouted out with an unrecognizable voice. His heart rushed. His head spun round. Suddenly he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel. The pressure over his chest was enormous. He gasped for air. Tried desperately to stay awake.
Slowly, slowly he came back.
And when his vision returned, he saw Papa in front of him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Papa said and hit him hard on the cheek.
“I...”
“What?”
Yet another slap.
“I just wanted to sleep,” Phobos mumbled. “Sorry...Papa.”
*
The grave was oblong and looked like a ditch. The children had been cast down there like animals. They lay there in several layers, tightly packed together and covered with what was presumed to be their clothes.
“There are about thirty skeletons,” said Anneli. “But here are also bodies that have been buried about one year.”
From the bottom of the ditch she looked more like an archeologist than a forensics expert. She had come by helicopter as had most of the other police officers and forensics who were now on the island.
The house was being examined in great detail.
“What do we do?” said Gunnar, overcome by resignation, from the edge of the ditch.
“Every skeleton must be taken up one at a time, examined, photographed, weighed and described,” said Anneli. “The bodies must be taken to the pathology lab.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Four days. At least.”
“You’ve got one day.”
“But that’s impossible...”
“No buts. Make sure you get help and do it. We must act quickly now.”
“Gunnar? Can you come here?”
Henrik Levin came out from the barn and waved toward his boss with both hands.
“And call Bj?rn Ahlmann right away. Make sure he prepares the lab immediately!” he said over his shoulder to Anneli while he strode across toward the entrance to the barn.
It was damp inside and it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He blinked a few times before he could look around.
What he saw, confounded him.
A gym. About 100 square meters.
Gunnar let his gaze sweep the premises. A rubber mat on the floor, a banister along one side and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. In one corner lay ten-kilo weights on top of each other with a thick rope next to them. On the left was a shabby storeroom with old furniture and next to that a door which looked as if it hid a lavatory. At the far end was yet another door with a lever tumbler lock. Here and there, rain water had seeped in and together with the dirt on the floor formed brown pools. It smelt of fungus.
“What the hell is this place?” he said.
*
Jana Berzelius had come to the interior staircase in the house. She stopped there a few moments. She felt nauseous, uncertain. Should she go up and look or not?
“Just don’t touch anything,” said police officer Gabriel Mellqvist who was standing by the entrance.