Karin Alvtegen - Missing

His whole mind was focused on her, his body intent on hers. He gave himself to her.

Two of them, locked together She would do everything for just seconds of such closeness. Anything.

The fried potatoes were expanding into an unmanageable lump in her mouth. Her parents were chewing in silence.

It was pure anguish, waiting for the eruption of anger.

She couldn't swallow.

There were two forks in her hand. No, three. The table was moving up and down. She had to swallow. But the fear in her stomach wanted to come back up.

Swallow. For God's sake, swallow. Don't make it any worse than it is.

Forgive me. Please forgive me. Tell me what I must do to be forgiven. Don't keep me waiting, please. I'll do anything to be forgiven. Anything at all.

Beatrice Forsenström put down her knife and fork. She still avoided looking at Sibylla as she opened the abyss with a simple statement.

'Sibylla, I understand you're riding about in somebody's dreadful old car.'

A woman with a bulldog saved her. Sibylla spotted the woman from a distance, standing on the corner of Gras Street where the path to the Eriksdal allotments began, alone but gesticulating energetically. As she came closer, she spotted the small loudspeaker ear-piece and the flex connecting it to the mobile phone. It was the latest mobile gadget, meant to keep precious parts of the brain from being micro-waved to a frazzle, or so the papers said.

'It makes me so effing furious! If you pardon my French.'

Curiosity made Sibylla slow down almost to a standstill. The bulldog had settled down at the feet of his agitated mistress, looking at her with real interest.

'Christ almighty, is this some police state we're living in or what?! So you're looking for some freak on the run? Frankly, I don't give a monkey's. When I'm out walking in Sweden I don't expect to have a gun shoved into my face all of a sudden. It's bloody well out of order.'

By now Sibylla was rooted to the ground.

'Calm down? Don't hold your breath! I'm not feeling calm at all! I'm going to charge these gun-toting lads of yours, take my word for it. Made me show my ID card before letting me walk my dog… I ask you! Not a word of apology did I get either. I'll get somebody for this!'

The woman fell silent for a while, listening to someone on the other end of line. She glanced at Sibylla, who promptly looked the other way.

'I see… yes. No, I won't. And if you don't accept my complaint I'll take it elsewhere.'

The woman pocketed her mobile. Her dog got up. 'Kajsa, come on!'

The woman and her dog crossed the street. Sibylla still did not move.

'Don't go in there.'

Sibylla smiled at the woman.

'Why not?'

'It's crawling with police in there, but out of sight. You don't know they're there until you get a gun shoved in your face. No idea what they're up to. Made me furious, I can tell you.'

Sibylla nodded.

'Sure, thanks. I think I'd rather avoid all that.'

The woman and her dog wandered off, leaving Sibylla breathing deeply. It must have been Uno Hjelm. The allotments' own little old Judas. Fuck him.

She had to get away. Fast.

How long could she stand living like this? Surviving, that's one thing. She could do that. She had done it. But being on the run…?

She was hurrying now, feeling that they were already at her heels. God, how could Hjelm have spotted her? Surely he couldn't have recognised her from the photo in the newspapers? If so she was lost, unsafe anywhere.

She had to change her hair. She was close to Ringen now. There were plenty of people about and she could just mingle with the crowds. But weren't people staring at her? How odd it was. What about the man walking towards her, why did he look at her like that? Her heart was beating hard. She looked down and the man walked past her.

If she told them the truth, would they believe her? Couldn't they understand that she had simply wanted to sleep in a proper bed, just for once? She would have paid him later. Of course she would have! She had… lost her wallet. Really.

Lots of people were converging on the underground station. She kept walking.

But – where was she going?

Once on Renstierna Street she changed direction and walked up the steps leading to the Vitaberg Park with Sofia Church towering above her like a fortress. She was tired and needed to sit down for a while. Turning, she checked the deserted path sloping down towards the street. No one had followed her.

The silence inside the church seemed solid, tangible. Just inside the door was a glass-fronted cubby-hole. An elderly man peered at her through the glass and nodded. He seemed friendly. She nodded too, before taking her rucksack off and stepping inside.

The church was empty apart from someone sleeping in one of the pews, a man with his hair in a pony-tail. The pony-tail guy was vaguely familiar, she'd seen him a couple of times at the City Mission Centre. Now he was in a deep sleep, his jaw drooping toward his chest. She sat down in a pew at the back with her rucksack at her feet. Closed her eyes.

Peace and quiet, simply. It was all she wanted.

The man in the cubby-hole coughed. The sound reverberated between the walls. Then the silence solidified again.

God hears your prayers. It said so on a poster near the door.

She opened her eyes again and spent some time examining the huge altarpiece. Over very many years, very many people had put their lives in His hands. They built enormous edifices for the worship of their God and turned to Him in their prayers. When she was little, she too prayed to Him. ‘If I should die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take.' Then: 'Dear God, look after mummy and daddy and make it so they don't die.' He must have heard that bit, since they were apparently getting on very nicely, thank you. 'When I lie down and go to asleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.' Keeping my soul seems to have slipped His mind. Maybe He is wholly on their side?

Well, on all their sides, the sides of those who fit in.

Where did the Stationmaster's prayers end up? He jumped off Vast Bridge last month, after realising that his fourth detox treatment had failed. Was anyone up there listening to Lena? She used to be on the Salvation Army's food vans, but had to stop because she had an inoperable brain tumour. Exactly what had Lena done to deserve that? What about Tova? Or Jonsson? Or Smirre? All dead, after subsisting for years in his or her own special living hell. Presumably none of their prayers were ever heard.

God, this prayer story of Yours simply doesn't wash.

Come to think of it, what about Jorgen Grundberg? Whatever he might have been punished for, why bring me into it? Am I supposed to be punished for something? And if so, WHEN will my punishment be over and done with?

She sighed, rose and heaved the rucksack onto her back. There was no peace to be found here. She left the church without looking at the man in the cubby-hole.

The sun was setting when she came out of the church. She stepped back to see the church clock. Quarter past five.

She would really have liked sleeping in a bed tonight, but hotels were too risky and she didn't even dare try the Klara doss house. They were always short of room, so if she got a bed then someone who hadn't and was in the police's bad books, might well do a little informing to make up for past sins.

She felt for the purse round her neck. She was tempted to draw on her treasure, for the first time since she made up her mind about saving. A real drinking session, so she could forget for just one night.

Shit. What stinking, rotten luck.

She turned into the lane leading to Skane Street. About twenty yards along was a charming small piece of cultural history, a green door set in a wooden fence painted a nice shade of red. To the right of the door the fence joined the gable-end of a humble wooden house. She stopped and examined the wall of the house. The hatch of what might have been the coal-chute was almost level with the ground and had been nailed into place. A second opening about a metre up had a door with only a peg through a hasp to hold it shut.