For the Lost (Detective Charlie Lager) by Lina Bengtsdotter

Author:Lina Bengtsdotter [Bengtsdotter, Lina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409179429
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2022-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

I stare at the pillow I’ve fluffed up to keep her from falling. How easy it would be to put it over her face, just put it over her mouth and nose, press down, hold it still, and end it all.

I pick up the pillow, lean in closer, and tell myself I’m going to do it. I’ll do it, and then … then I’ll off myself. But then she whimpers in her sleep and waves her arms above her head.

And I can’t do it.

23

Charlie woke up half an hour before her alarm. She picked up her phone from the nightstand and scrolled through her newsfeed. Beatrice’s disappearance was the lead story in all the big papers. Who took Beatrice? The lack of leads confounds the police. No word yet on a ransom.

She went into the bathroom and felt relieved that she had stopped after one pint the night before. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

She washed her face with cold water and rubbed some lotion on it from one of the hotel’s miniature bottles. Then she grabbed her phone again, sat down on the bed, and went to Flashback. There was a lot of crap on Sweden’s biggest discussion website, but among all the idiocy, you could occasionally find something of substance. She hadn’t seen anyone talking about Beatrice’s disappearance the day before, but she was pretty sure she was going to today. And, lo and behold, there it was, a thread: Beatrice nine months missing.

The first post was a brief background note, followed by a question by the original poster of what everyone thought might have happened.

When a child as young as that goes missing, it’s almost always

the parents, a user called Justitia had written, adding a link to a page with child murder statistics.

Gargamel2 had chimed in: Wouldn’t surprise me if it were the mother. We went to the same school growing up and she was bloody weird.

User 666 had asked in what way she was weird and Gargamel2 explained that she’d always worn clothes that were several sizes too small and hadn’t exactly loved to bathe. Hehehe.

What are you on about Gargamel2? the next user, who used the logo of the local hockey team as his profile picture, had asked. Frida Sandell, as she was known back then, was the fittest girl in school.

Gargamel2 had replied almost instantly. Sure, in secondary school, but when she was younger, she was just odd.

Charlie thought about what Anton, Niklas Sandell’s friend, had said about Frida, that she had been odd through eighth grade but had then transformed into the girl all the boys wanted.

She quickly skimmed a long series of observations about the Sandell family from so-called schoolmates. It was everything from little anecdotes about Frida’s dad, who apparently used to drive around town drunk, knocking over letterboxes with his car, to stories about her mum, who had sung along far too loudly at end-of-year ceremonies and used to wear so much make-up she looked like a clown.

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