“He was standing outside the door, hiding, but I caught the smell of those cigarettes, I did. So I told him that in this leaseholders’ association we don’t smoke! And then he got out that . . .”
Britt-Marie can’t bring herself to say “knife” without her voice breaking again. She looks offended, as you do when you’re the last to learn a secret.
“You all know who he is, of course! But obviously none of you thought to warn me about it, oh no. Even though I’m the information officer in this residents’ association!”
She straightens out a wrinkle in her skirt. A real wrinkle, this time. The bag of lollipops and comics is by her feet. Maud tries to put a tender hand on Britt-Marie’s arm, but Britt-Marie removes it. Maud smiles wistfully.
“Where is Kent?” she asks softly.
“He’s at a business meeting!” Britt-Marie snaps.
Alf looks at her, then at the bag from the supermarket, and then at her again.
“What were you doing out so late?” Mum says.
“Kent’s children get lollipops and comics when they come for Christmas! Always! I was at the shop!”
“Sorry, Britt-Marie. We just didn’t know what to say. Look, why don’t you just stay here tonight, at least? It may be safer if we’re all together?”
Britt-Marie surveys them over the tip of her nose.
“I’m sleeping at home. Kent is coming home tonight. I’m always home when Kent arrives.”
The policewoman with the green eyes comes up the stairs behind her. Britt-Marie spins around. The green eyes stay on her, watchfully.
“It’s about time you turned up!” Britt-Marie says. The green-eyed officer doesn’t say anything. Another officer is standing behind her, and Elsa can see that he’s flummoxed by just having caught sight of Elsa and Mum. He seems to remember escorting them to the hospital only to be given the slip once they got there.
Lennart tries to invite them both in for coffee, and the summer-intern policeman looks like this would be preferable to searching the area with dogs, but after a stern glance from his superior he shakes his head at the floor. The green-eyed policewoman talks with the sort of voice that effortlessly fills a room.
“We’re going to find him,” she says, her gaze still riveted to Britt-Marie. “Also, the dog that Kent called about yesterday, Britt-Marie? He said you’d found dog hairs on the stairs. Did you see it tonight?”
Elsa stops breathing. So much that she forgets to wonder about why Green-eyes is referring to Kent and Britt-Marie by their first names. Britt-Marie peers around the room, at Elsa and Mum and Maud and Lennart and the boy with a syndrome’s mum. Last of all at Alf. His face is devoid of expression. The green eyes sweep over the front hall. There’s sweat all over Elsa’s palms when she opens and closes her hands to make them stop shaking. She knows that the wurse is sleeping just a few yards behind her, in Granny’s bedroom. She knows that everything is lost, and she doesn’t know what to do to stop it. She’ll never be able to escape with the wurse through all the police she can hear at the bottom of the stairs, not even a wurse could pull that off. They’ll shoot it. Kill it. She wonders if that was what the shadow had been planning all along. Because it didn’t dare fight the wurse. Without the wurse, and without Wolfheart, the castle is defenseless.
Britt-Marie purses her lips when she sees Elsa staring at her. Changes her hands around on her stomach and snorts, with a sudden, newly acquired self-confidence, at Green-eyes.