by Alex Dahl
A black Nissan Leaf is charging in the open garage. I rush from the car to the front door. A fierce wind jostles up the steep hillside, enveloping us like a small tornado. I pound at the solid oak door as hard as I can and press the doorbell at the same time. There’s a faint sound from within, a steady hum – a vacuum cleaner nudged against the skirting boards?
I need Lucia. Now. I need my girl. I need to press my nose into her wispy, golden hair, I need to feel her thin arms close around my neck. I can’t help myself: ‘Lucia!’ I scream at the top of my lungs. The faint noise from within stops, and we hear light footsteps approaching. The door opens.
4
Elisa
At the door is a very short Asian woman. Her hair is pulled into a severe bun and in her hand is a silver cordless vacuum cleaner.
‘Hello,’ I say, hysteria edging into my voice. ‘Is my daughter here? Lucia? She’s Josephine’s friend.’
Blank stare.
I step forward and look past her into the brightly lit hallway for a sign of Line or the girls. ‘Do you speak Norwegian?’
The woman nods. ‘Nobody here,’ she says in a heavy accent. ‘Changeover.’
‘Changeover? What do you mean?’ asks Fredrik.
‘I do the changeovers. For Airbnb. New people coming Monday.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand, you have to help us!’
The woman looks weary now, her knuckles tightening on the half-opened door.
‘Look. My daughter is with the people who live here. The owners of this house. Line and… you know. Line and her husband. She’s playing with their little girl. Josephine. I need to know where they are.’
The woman looks genuinely confused. ‘Nobody lives here. This house is owned by a man who lives in Stockholm. He uses it for Airbnb. I’m sorry I can’t help you.’
I turn my gaze from her to Fredrik and his face begins to blur and melt away with the onset of desperate, frightened tears.
‘We need to come inside,’ says Fredrik.
‘No,’ says the woman, and begins to push the door shut. ‘Nobody here.’
‘Open the fucking door,’ shouts Fredrik but it is shut firmly in our faces.
I sink to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably now. ‘Call the police,’ I whisper.
*
The walls are stark white, and the floor is a light grey concrete, pockmarked with darker splotches. Fredrik and I sit close together at the center of a long table, and across from us sit two police officers. One is a man in his thirties, a good-looking guy who seems to be of South American origin. He has kind eyes, and smooth brown skin, and as I speak, hiccupping and crying, stopping to take short, strained breaths, he nods gently. The other is an older woman, a stern-looking blonde who surprises me by reaching across the table and squeezing my hand as I blurt out everything I can remember in the lead-up to this impossible moment. Fredrik looks stunned, his ashen face contorted into a grimace of sheer disbelief.
The policeman slides a series of photographs across the table. They are of various women – white, black, Asian, old, young, plain and more distinctive-looking. I shake my head; none of them are of Line.
‘Are you sure?’
I nod again. I’d know her anywhere.
‘Did she mention her husband by name at all?’
‘No. She only said he was in New York. And that he’s French. No, maybe she didn’t say he’s French. She said he’s a banker who works for Paribas.’
The policeman writes ‘Paribas’ on the notepad in front of him. ‘Did she mention any other place or name?’
‘No. Wait. Yes, she said she had a son as well as the daughter. “My son has settled well at his senior school”, she said. But she didn’t mention a name or the name of the school. And she said that the girl used to go to the French school in Oslo. She spoke French to her mother at one point.’
‘And that could have just been a lie,’ says Fredrik. ‘Every single thing she said could just be a straight-up lie.’
A cold panic spreads out in my insides at the thought of this. We believe what we are told, accepting what others say as truth, countless times every day. But should we?
There is a knock at the door and another policeman appears.
‘We’ve managed to get in touch with the secretary at the school. Josephine wasn’t yet formally registered at Korsvik School.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘Line said they’d arrived at the beginning of term. It’s already mid-October. How could she not be registered?’
‘It would seem that isn’t true. Josephine only arrived on Wednesday and was just signed in for three trial days.’
Fredrik and I exchange another glance. My heart is beating too hard; I feel faint. I also feel strangely cool-headed and alert, as if every cell in my brain has been sharpened. I need her back. I need to stay calm to get my baby back. But all I want is to scream, and I can’t help unleashing an anguished sob.
‘I don’t understand – she must have provided a passport, a birth certificate, something…?’
‘It would seem she gave a social security number, which hadn’t yet been checked by the school. We’ve checked it now, and unfortunately it isn’t a real number. She told the secretary she’d bring in the passport on Monday.’
‘What about the house? If she rented through Airbnb, she would have been registered. We’ve used Airbnb before – they make you verify your profile and you have to use a credit card—’
‘We’re working on establishing what credit card was used, as well as the IP address the booking came from.’
‘And her phone?’
‘We believe she’s discarded it, but are working on recovering it right now.’
‘Wait,’ says Fredrik. ‘So if she took our daughter and left last night shortly after my wife went home, she will have had, what, almost twenty-four hours? They could be anywhere by now?’
The policeman nods gravely. ‘I can assure you that we will find Lucia. We will find her. This kind of thing very rarely happens in Norway. And almost all children that go missing are recovered alive within forty-eight hours. We’re putting a lot of resources into this case. We’ve decided to appeal very broadly across all the media channels in the hope that key witnesses will step forward.’
‘But… But what if they kill her in the meantime? This is my baby!’
‘Mrs Blix, it would be impossible not to have such thoughts in your situation. But let me assure you that we will work around the clock with all the resources we have available to locate your daughter.’ It is the woman, Kristine Hermansen, who’s talking. ‘The psychologists will speak with you next. It is of extreme importance that you take care of yourselves over the next few days. For Lucia, okay? Be strong for her. She is out there and we are absolutely certain she is alive. She will need you more than ever when we get to her. And we will get to her. Do you understand?’
Fredrik and I exchange another glance. It physically hurts to look into his haunted eyes.
‘After you’ve spoken to the psychologists, we hope you’ll feel able to participate in a press conference. We seem to get the best results when the parents appeal directly to the public. Tomorrow we’ll need to take you back to Asnestoppen to see if anything of Lucia’s has been left behind at the house. Our technical team is already there, but unfortunately the cleaner got there before them.’
‘Why are you so certain she’s alive?’ I whisper.
‘Because, statistically speaking, no matter what the motive for this crime is, Lucia is worth a lot more alive than dead. Children are very rarely killed in a kidnap situation, regardless of what the sensationalist media might have you believe. The fact that she was taken by a woman is also relevant – women are, quite frankly, much less likely to be involved in a murder plot.’
*
‘Please,’ I say, into the wall of bright flashing lights. ‘Please just let her go. We will do anything. Anything.’ My voice is strangely calm, as if it’s been pre-recorded. I remember seeing o
ther mothers – people like me, now – on television, in another life. In that life I had no idea what it is like to stand here, to say these words. To beg. I’d turn away from their desperate eyes, from the photograph of their child clutched in a white-knuckled hand, from their painful, impossible fear. How could anyone live even for a second without knowing where their child is, I’d wonder. I still can’t answer that. I can’t think straight.
‘You seemed like a truly lovely, kind woman,’ I continue, speaking as if directly to Line, making my voice clear and soft. ‘I felt like we could have been friends. I don’t understand what the reason for this could be. But I want to say this to you – please, please don’t harm Lucia. I beg you. From one mother to another, please do not harm my child. If you come forward now, the consequences of this will be so much smaller than if you don’t. We can all go back to our lives. We won’t hate you, we will spend our lives in gratitude. Lucia needs to be with us. Please, please end this now.’
I step back off the podium and catch Fredrik’s eye. Tears are streaming down his face and he gives me a light nod. The policewoman, Kristine Hermansen, places a hand on my shoulder and leads me away from the press and their cameras and their cacophony of shouted questions, into a small room with a red sofa and two blue arm chairs. I sink into the sofa and close my eyes, the ghosts of flashing lights still blinking on my retina. After a long while the noise in my head stops and the lights fade and all that is left is a numb, quiet darkness. This is my life now.
5
Elisa
We sit in the car outside our home looking at its modest but sweet façade. It’s a good set-up we have here, and now it is over. No matter what happens, the ordinary family life we have led has been destroyed forever. I can’t bear to turn my head even an inch, nor meet my husband’s eyes. How will we manage this night here, without her?
We walk slowly to the door, like sleepwalkers, and Fredrik fumbles with the lock. We stand entirely still in the hushed, dark silence of the hallway cluttered with shoes. Everything seems the same as usual, but nothing is. I force myself to imagine that this is just like all the other times when both kids have gone to Fredrik’s parents for a sleepover, like they often do. We liked it when they were gone. We’d look forward to them not being here.
I dig my nails into my palms as hard as I can and unleash a flood of tears. Fredrik puts his arms around me but I can’t tell if he is holding me up or using me to support himself from collapsing. We cling to each other, sobbing, for a very long time.
‘We should get some sleep,’ whispers Fredrik. ‘The police will be here in less than six hours.’
‘How?’
Fredrik pulls the little box of sleeping pills given to him by the police doctor from his pocket and rattles the box softly.
*
We are picked up by Gaute Svendsen, the nice South American police officer, and Kristine Hermansen in a plain blue BMW police car and driven out to Asnes. Passing the MIX ice-cream kiosk on the corner, I feel a sharp wrench in my gut at the memory of Lucia and Lyder sitting outside on the wooden bench slurping blue slush after a boat trip last summer, precious little faces beaming. I force my eyes away from the empty bench and let them rest on my hands, held tightly clasped in my lap, and don’t look up again until the car comes to a stop.
The house on Asnestoppen is not like I remember it. It’s impersonal, stark, empty. Was it like this before? No. There were candles burning and a cozy, if somewhat sleek atmosphere. It looked like someone lived there; a very stylish home, but a home nonetheless. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that’s different now except that it feels like a blank canvas. I hold Fredrik’s hand tight as we follow two police officers and a technician in a forensic suit upstairs. We’ve each been handed a pair of gloves and our shoes are covered by blue plastic covers.
‘Anything at all,’ says Gaute Svendsen, ‘even the smallest detail or item that you recognize as Lucia’s, could prove crucial.’ He points to the bronze kitchen island, on top of which several items are displayed. ‘These are some of the things the technicians have recovered which may or may not belong to your daughter.’ There is a pink hair slide, a green child’s toothbrush with a dinosaur head cover, a little notebook, a set of plastic toy keys and a black wool sock.
I point to the toothbrush. ‘That’s hers,’ I say, my voice emerging as a whisper.
‘That’s good,’ says one of the technicians, a petite bird-like woman with a frizzy black perm, reminiscent of a nest. ‘We will be running DNA tests on it, and a toothbrush should give us a lot to work with.’
‘Why will you be running DNA tests?’ My heart is beating so fast, I have to place a hand on the cool metal surface of the kitchen island.
‘Because as the investigation advances, we will be able to identify potential forensic matches with your daughter.’
‘What, like if you find a… a body?’ asks Fredrik.
Gaute Svendsen and the technician exchange a quick glance.
‘If, for example, we recover a car we suspect has been used to transport Lucia, we can ascertain whether or not she has been in the car.’ A heavy silence ensues, before Gaute indicates again to the few pitiful objects laid out in front of us. ‘Nothing else that belongs to her?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘We also found this upstairs,’ says another technician, a young woman with a dyed pink fringe emerging from a plastic hair cap, holding a small metal box. She hands it to me and inside is Minky Mouse.
I close my eyes and bring the tatty toy mouse with her knitted pink tutu to my face, drawing the unmistakable scent of my child deep into me.
‘Jesus,’ says Fredrik.
I sink to my knees, clutching Minky, Lucia’s most prized possession, knowing she would never have parted from her unless by force. I keep my eyes tightly shut, conjuring the last few moments I saw her in my mind.
‘Honey,’ says Fredrik, gently trying to pull me back up, but I keep my eyes shut because she’s there, in my mind, doing cartwheels and laughing, entirely happy and trusting in what she perceived to be a safe environment. I failed her. All those nights when she was little and I sat at her bedside, whispering into her ear that I would protect her, no matter what. That she would be my whole world. That life would be exciting and fun and good. But I failed.
‘Come on, honey,’ Fredrik says again, and this time I stand up.
‘I’m going to kill that woman with my bare hands,’ I say.
*
It’s nearly 9 p.m. by the time we leave the police station. No news, no nothing, no Lucia. All that remains is the vast black hole she has left behind.
‘Fred, can you stop by your parents’? I want to bring Lyder home.’
‘They said he could stay for as long as we need him to, honey, don’t you think it’s a good idea to—’
‘I need my son, Fredrik,’ I say, and he realizes that there is no point in trying to talk me out of this, and turns right towards his parents’ bungalow, ten minutes’ drive away, in Bugården.
‘Where’s Lula?’ asks Lyder as soon as the door opens, looking past me into the dark night, his little face pinched and anxious.
‘We don’t know, darling,’ I say, dropping to my knees and pulling my son close. Though he doesn’t usually, he lets me hold him for a long while.
‘Has somebody killed her?’
‘No, of course not,’ whispers Fredrik, emotion thick in his voice.
‘They said it on the TV.’ I glance past my son into the house, and pick out the tinny sound of television voices.
‘It’s not true,’ I say, gently stroking my son’s soft, longish hair back from his forehead. Lyder keeps staring at the closed door behind me as I kick my shoes off, as if his sister might have been left outside in the cold night, alone.
‘Can you make them turn that off?’ I say, to Fredrik.
We sit for a while in my in-laws’ over-furnished living room as Fredrik recounts the most recent developments. Vigdis wrings her hands
and shakes her head mournfully. Lyder listens in from where he’s sitting beside the train set that he’s laid out on the carpet, Percy the engine held suspended in mid-air.
‘I just don’t understand,’ Vigdis keeps saying.
Karl nods furiously, his red face redder than I’ve ever seen it, but he doesn’t speak.
We drive home in silence. I don’t turn around; I’m pretending in my head that both of my children are in the back seat. My mind is racing wildly, and I have to use all of my self-control to keep it off the worst scenarios. But I can’t fight them all off. A still, dark lake appears in my mind, its surface a vast mirror reflecting the sliver of a brilliant new moon, and far below it – my beloved daughter. Next I see an unremarkable hillside somewhere, a place only animals ever roam. A small patch of earth has been upturned and carefully rearranged, and there, deep beneath the soil – my beloved daughter. I see a drooping, old wooden cabin in the pine forests, far from any neighbors, the kind of place where the silence is so heavy it becomes a sound itself, and there, locked away in a cold, timber-walled room – my beloved daughter.
My palms are slick, my mind is churning. All I can do is say her name over and over in my head like I do every moment of every day. Lucia: ‘light’, ‘pure light’, ‘love’. I think of the others, the children whose faces we all know, the ones who disappeared and never returned, the ones whose parents launched appeal after appeal – will my child go down in history as one of them?
I force myself back to the present moment, to being in this car with my husband and son, and let my eyes rest on Fredrik’s tired face, lit ghoulishly by the orange streetlights. He pulls up in front of the house and the three of us sit a long moment in the dark silence of the car. It feels impossible to go into the house and continue our lives without her when she’s out there somewhere, alone.
I’m walking up the shingle path to the front door when Lyder, who has rushed ahead of us, shouts, ‘Mummy, Daddy! Look – a letter!’ In his hands, he’s holding a plain white envelope addressed to the ‘Blix Family’.
