Any sane person would naturally have called the police. Kerstin talked it over with herself, weighing the pros and cons against each other before eventually deciding that there was more to lose than there was to gain. Karl-Erik might have good cause to keep out of the way for a while—for Kerstin’s sake, if nothing else. What did she know about who or what he had come into contact with since their call? If she sent the police after him, it wouldn’t make anyone happier—on the contrary, it would ruin everything they had struggled so long to get.

It wasn’t yet late enough for all traffic to be off the roads. Even if most people tried to remain indoors given the conditions, someone would have reported it by now if an accident had taken place. The police would already have been on the scene, and if Karl-Erik had been arrested on the basis of the contents of his boot, she would be informed soon enough.

In summary, there was nothing Kerstin could do. She would just have to bide her time. Sooner or later, she would get an answer to all her questions. And no news was good news—wasn’t that the saying? At least, that’s what she told herself when she finally blew out all the candles and crept under the duvet to try and sleep.

In the days that followed, her hopes of a happy ending fell to pieces. Kerstin felt absolutely dreadful, and couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than occasionally get on the bus to go somewhere along the route that Karl-Erik should have driven. Then she would take long, draining walks in the piercing wind without making any progress. She would spend her nights in a state of spiritual darkness that she had never come close to during her eight long years of waiting. Time came to a standstill; four days of uncertainty felt like more than had eight years with a defined end point.

But eventually the sun came back, and with it a return to temperatures above zero that made the snow melt away. This was the explanation offered by the two police officers who knocked on her door one afternoon, faces grave and caps in hand, asking to come inside. They said that was why the badly smashed-up car hadn’t been spotted from the road until now.

“The car was recovered from the ravine at Madvar,” the more talkative one of the duo said. “And it must have been completely covered in snow. Do you know where that is?”