an opening with old and beautifully shaped moulding. It too was light and visible from all the windows. There were two large cupboards in the kitchen and when Annie opened the yellow hardboard doors, she saw there were Swedish woollen blankets on shelves in one of them, and hard feather pillows with striped pillowcases. The other one was empty apart from some ancient hangers. There was an iron stove, rusty on top, a long kitchen work surface covered with self-adhesive plastic patterned like tiles, white with small blue windmills. There was a table by one of the windows and two wooden chairs. In the bedroom was a bed with a green bedspread patterned with irregular small rectangles and black and yellow lines. This had been audaciously modern in the 1950s.
Mia sat in silence in the kitchen on an iron bed with a flock mattress and when Annie saw her face she thought: What have I done?
‘There are people around in the area,’ Åke Vemdal said. ‘We must get those two out.’
He had spread the map out on Oriana’s kitchen table and told Birger he could go down to the camping site if he liked. More police had come from Östersund. The forensic squad, too. So he needn’t stay.
‘We must cover all movements in the area. Check lists of those leaving it.’
He had begun to use the same language as the technical chief, whose squad was now installed in Henry’s barn. The man kept holding up a finger and saying, ‘Yes, sir! Eyes right!’ whenever he wanted to make a correction.
‘Barbro’s still there,’ said Birger.
He was not allowed to go and look for her. The police had taken over. He had asked to see the lists, but Vemdal said not many people had come out and they had been noted down. Three. They had been questioned when Birger and he had been down by the river with Annie Raft. None of them had been anywhere near the place where the tent was, or the ford.
Birger’s memory was silent, as if a lid had closed over his ears. A wide stony riverbed glazed by thin water, mobile, silent.
Åke thought he knew who the dead girl was. They had found a passport made out to Sabine Vestdijk, thirty-three years old, studying. Or student. Åke was not certain of the exact meaning of
étudiante.
The red Renault parked up at the homestead had an NL badge with the owner’s name on it and the name was the same as that in the passport. The girl’s appearance matched the passport photograph. There was a tent in the car.
Two things were unclear; the man’s identity and the tent. Why had they had two tents in such a small car?
Birger was hardly listening. He was thinking that Barbro must still be out there somewhere. The other demonstrators had come shambling back with their rucksacks an hour or two before the church service. They had come from Byvången in a minibus which had stopped at a timber-loading bay about a kilometre from the Strömgren homestead. Most of them were teachers. A couple of elderly women, silver-haired and in old-fashioned outdoor clothes. He recognised them from the Peace and Freedom movement and from Amnesty. Barbro used to hold their group meetings at home.
The commune from Röbäck came in an old Volkswagen bus. They brought with them the Starhill people, who had stayed overnight with them so that the children would not have to walk the long way down from Starhill in the morning. They were wearing Inca caps, patterned jerseys, pointed Lapp shoes and had leather backpacks. They had left their placards on the bus after they had been told there would be no service at Björnstubacken. But the police brought with them two placards they had found up there.
URANIUM PROSPECTING BEGUN
TAKE A MIDSUMMER WALK!
EXPOSE LOCAL AUTHORITY LIES!
Birger had seen a great many variations of the texts on Barbro’s drawing board. Midsummer walk with us. See with your own eyes. The authorities are lying about the uranium. The council is not telling the truth. Come and see it on Bear Mountain.
He had asked what they
Mia sat in silence in the kitchen on an iron bed with a flock mattress and when Annie saw her face she thought: What have I done?
‘There are people around in the area,’ Åke Vemdal said. ‘We must get those two out.’
He had spread the map out on Oriana’s kitchen table and told Birger he could go down to the camping site if he liked. More police had come from Östersund. The forensic squad, too. So he needn’t stay.
‘We must cover all movements in the area. Check lists of those leaving it.’
He had begun to use the same language as the technical chief, whose squad was now installed in Henry’s barn. The man kept holding up a finger and saying, ‘Yes, sir! Eyes right!’ whenever he wanted to make a correction.
‘Barbro’s still there,’ said Birger.
He was not allowed to go and look for her. The police had taken over. He had asked to see the lists, but Vemdal said not many people had come out and they had been noted down. Three. They had been questioned when Birger and he had been down by the river with Annie Raft. None of them had been anywhere near the place where the tent was, or the ford.
Birger’s memory was silent, as if a lid had closed over his ears. A wide stony riverbed glazed by thin water, mobile, silent.
Åke thought he knew who the dead girl was. They had found a passport made out to Sabine Vestdijk, thirty-three years old, studying. Or student. Åke was not certain of the exact meaning of
étudiante.
The red Renault parked up at the homestead had an NL badge with the owner’s name on it and the name was the same as that in the passport. The girl’s appearance matched the passport photograph. There was a tent in the car.
Two things were unclear; the man’s identity and the tent. Why had they had two tents in such a small car?
Birger was hardly listening. He was thinking that Barbro must still be out there somewhere. The other demonstrators had come shambling back with their rucksacks an hour or two before the church service. They had come from Byvången in a minibus which had stopped at a timber-loading bay about a kilometre from the Strömgren homestead. Most of them were teachers. A couple of elderly women, silver-haired and in old-fashioned outdoor clothes. He recognised them from the Peace and Freedom movement and from Amnesty. Barbro used to hold their group meetings at home.
The commune from Röbäck came in an old Volkswagen bus. They brought with them the Starhill people, who had stayed overnight with them so that the children would not have to walk the long way down from Starhill in the morning. They were wearing Inca caps, patterned jerseys, pointed Lapp shoes and had leather backpacks. They had left their placards on the bus after they had been told there would be no service at Björnstubacken. But the police brought with them two placards they had found up there.
URANIUM PROSPECTING BEGUN
TAKE A MIDSUMMER WALK!
EXPOSE LOCAL AUTHORITY LIES!
Birger had seen a great many variations of the texts on Barbro’s drawing board. Midsummer walk with us. See with your own eyes. The authorities are lying about the uranium. The council is not telling the truth. Come and see it on Bear Mountain.
He had asked what they
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