The Snow Angel (Detectives von Klint and Berg) by Anki Edvinsson

Author:Anki Edvinsson [Edvinsson, Anki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2023-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

31

TUESDAY, 26 JANUARY

Linn was holding her phone in her hand. The glazed square she was standing in was a central place in Umeå and she was often there with Frida. They would pretend to search for reading material at the city library but mostly sat at the bakery drinking fizzy water and craving pastries they never ate. Linn looked at one of the tables where they almost always sat and her stomach knotted up.

It was Tuesday and her mother was in the Duå delicatessen. Camilla circulated among the shelves, a metal basket hanging over the crook of her arm. Still empty, Linn saw. It would be a long wait.

An arm hit her thigh and when Linn looked around she saw a little boy who was already moving away from her. Tableware clattered from the Gotthard restaurant directly adjacent; people were talking, laughing, chair legs scraped on the stone floor. No one seemed to care that Frida was missing, that soon she would have been missing for three days. Linn wanted to scream out loud that they ought to go home and worry, not sit here and be happy.

But she let that remain a thought. The feeling of being observed became increasingly intrusive. Sometimes she was sure she was imagining things, and at the next moment be dead sure that someone was standing behind her. Linn had started holding on to the keys in her jacket pocket. With the sharpest key ready.

Linn noticed the guy who was working the register at Duå, one of the brothers who owned the place. She was annoyed by his big glasses, which were an attempt to look hip, but he was always cheerful and kind. He constantly poked at the frame on the bridge of his nose with his index finger.

Her mum’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Linn, sit up straight – you look like a sack of hay!’

She waved at Linn to come into the store. ‘Have you heard anything more from Frida?’ she asked, putting a jar of green olives in the basket.

Linn looked at the screen of her phone for the umpteenth time. ‘She didn’t show up at school today either,’ she replied.

Her mother straightened Linn’s long fringe, looked sincerely worried, as if she actually cared. ‘The police called. They want to talk with you again about Frida. Ask more questions that have come up during the investigation. What do you actually know?’

Linn shrugged her shoulders and tried to decide whether Camilla really wanted to know or was just playing worried mum.

‘Nothing really, but now I don’t know . . . She’s strange,’ said Linn.

Her mother started moving again, looking for something on the shelves. Linn followed her.

‘She’s alive,’ Linn said firmly, grabbing a bunch of tomatoes that sat like grapes on a branch. Set it in Camilla’s basket.

Her mother stopped mid-motion, looked at Linn with a serious expression before she moved on.

‘I’m sure she is,’ her mother said.

‘She has to be,’ said Linn.

Her mother stopped again. ‘Linn, you don’t think that Frida has done something to herself? I mean, she hasn’t been doing so well at times.

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