She knows it looks worse than it is. The wound was stitched on the scene, and the bandage is bloody, along with her top and jacket. ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘And you didn’t have to cancel Kvikkjokk for my sake.’
He shrugs. ‘Don’t be silly. What the hell would I do up there? Make snowmen?’
For the first time in over twelve hours Jeanette smiles. Nothing more needs to be said, because she knows he realises that she’s deeply grateful he’s there.
She opens the door to the passenger side and helps the old lady out of the car. Hurtig has already shown the woman a picture of Johan, and Jeanette has been warned that her evidence is weak. She wasn’t even able to say what colour Johan’s clothes were.
‘Was that where you saw him?’ Jeanette points towards the stony beach by the jetty where the lightship Finngrund is moored.
The old woman nods and shivers in the cold. ‘He was lying asleep on the stones and I shook him awake. What sort of behaviour do you call this? I asked him. Drunk, so young and already –’
‘I see,’ Jeanette said impatiently. ‘Did he say anything?’
‘No, he was just mumbling. If he did say anything, I didn’t hear it.’
Hurtig pulls out the photograph of Johan and shows it to the woman again. ‘And you’re not sure if this was the boy you saw?’
‘Well, like I said, he had the same colour hair, but the face … It’s hard to say. As I say, he was drunk.’
Jeanette sighs and walks towards the path that runs along the shoreline. Drunk? she thinks. Johan? Rubbish.
She looks across the water towards Skeppsholmen, bathed in sickly grey mist.
How could it be so bloody cold?
She goes down towards the water and walks out onto the stones. ‘Was this where he was lying? Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ the woman says firmly. ‘Here somewhere.’
Hurtig turns towards the woman. ‘And then he walked off? Towards Junibacken?’
‘No …’ The woman pulls a handkerchief from her coat pocket and blows her nose loudly. ‘He staggered away. He was so drunk he could hardly stay on his feet …’
Jeanette feels annoyed. ‘But he went that way? Towards Junibacken?’
The old woman nods and blows her nose again.
Then an emergency vehicle passes by along Djurg?rdsv?gen, on its way further into the island, to judge by the noise of the siren.
‘Another false alarm?’ Hurtig says through clenched teeth, and Jeanette shakes her head disconsolately.
This is the third time she’s heard ambulance sirens, and neither of the previous occasions was anything to do with Johan.
‘I’m going to call Mikkelsen,’ Jeanette says.
‘National Crime?’ Hurtig looks surprised.
‘Yes. The way I see it, he’s best suited for something like this.’ She gets up and strides quickly across the stones to get back to the path.
‘Crimes against children, you mean?’ It looks like Hurtig immediately regrets saying this. ‘Well, I mean, we don’t really know what this is about yet.’
‘Maybe not, but it would be a mistake not to include that as a possible hypothesis. Mikkelsen’s been coordinating the search of Beckholmen, Gr?na Lund and Waldemarsudde.’
Hurtig nods and gives her a sympathetic look.
When Jeanette takes her mobile phone out she sees that the battery’s dead; then the police radio crackles in Hurtig’s car ten metres away.
She feels a heavy weight inside her as she understands.
As if the blood in her body is sinking, trying to drag her into the ground.
They’ve found Johan.
Karolinska Hospital
AT FIRST THE paramedics thought the boy was dead.
He was found by the old windmill at Waldemarsudde, and his breathing and heartbeat were almost non-existent.
His body temperature was dangerously low, and they could see that he had been sick several times during the unusually cold late-summer night.
There were initial concerns about his breathing, in case any of the gastric acid had ended up in his lungs.
Just after ten o’clock Jeanette Kihlberg climbed into the ambulance that was going to drive her son to the intensive care unit of Karolinska Hospital.
The room is unlit, but the weak light of the afternoon sun finds its way through the venetian blinds and the yellow strips form a pattern on Johan’s bare torso. The pulsating artificial lights of the heart-lung machine play across the bed and Jeanette Kihlberg has a feeling that she is inside a dream.
She strokes the back of Johan’s hand and glances at the monitor at the side of the bed.
His body temperature is approaching normal.
She knows he had large quantities of alcohol in his body. Almost three parts per thousand when he arrived at the hospital.
She hasn’t slept a wink, her body feels numb, and she can’t even work out if the heart pounding inside her chest matches the pulsing sensation in her forehead. Thoughts she doesn’t recognise are echoing in her head, and they’re frustrated, angry, frightened, lost and resigned all at the same time.
She has always been a rational person. Until now.
She looks at him lying there. It’s the first time he’s ever been in hospital. No, the second time. The first time was thirteen years ago, when he was born. Back then she had been completely calm. And so well prepared that she predicted she would need a Caesarean section before the doctors decided on one.
She hasn’t prepared for this.
She squeezes his hand tighter. It’s still cold, but he looks relaxed and is breathing calmly. And the room is quiet. Apart from the electric hum of the machines.
‘Listen …’ she whispers, aware that people who are unconscious can still hear. ‘They think everything’s going to be fine.’
She breaks off her attempt to instil hope in Johan.
They think? More like they don’t know.
They were able to tell her about the ECGs, oxygen and drips, and explain how a probe in his throat is monitoring his temperature, and how a heart-lung machine is slowly raising his temperature again.
They were able to tell her about critical hypothermia, and how a prolonged period in the water followed by a night of heavy rain and strong winds could affect the body.
They were able to explain that alcohol expands blood vessels and accelerates a drop in temperature, and that there’s a risk of brain damage as a result of the decline in the blood-sugar level.
They said they thought the worst of the danger was over and they explained that his blood gases and lung X-ray looked positive at first glance.
What does that mean?
They think. But they don’t know anything.
If Johan can hear, then he’s heard everything she’s been told in this room. She can’t lie to him. She holds her hand to his cheek. That isn’t a lie.
Her thoughts are interrupted when Hurtig comes into the room.
‘How’s he doing?’
‘He’s alive, and he’s going to make a full recovery. It’s OK, Jens. You can go home.’
Bandhagen – a Suburb