Ewert Grens felt a bit ashamed. He hadn’t planned to play that card until it was absolutely necessary. The guilt card. He really hated that one. But it seemed like the only thing that could drown out that little doorbell’s song. And it had the intended effect. The woman with the silver hair looked both surprised and curious. And somewhat confused.

“I don’t understand—it was you? So long ago? What are you . . . Has something happened?”

The surprise, the curiosity, even the confusion was gone.

“Do you know something about Hannah we don’t?”

And was immediately replaced by fear.

“After such a long time, after you’ve stopped hoping, you realize as a parent that the worst has happened. And if the worst has happened, you just want it to stop. Do you understand, Superintendent?”

Then finally she invited him in. Through a hall that was as narrow as it was tidy, past a kitchen that looked like it always smelled of freshly baked buns, then a bedroom with a double bed and another with a twin, which still bore traces of having belonged to a young person.

“Hannah’s room. And I see what you’re thinking. That all her girly things are still on the walls and on her desk. Although she should be so much older now. But we haven’t changed anything. Since she disappeared.”

The girl’s adoptive mother showed him into the living room, to a lovely armchair, and her husband came in with a tray carrying three coffee cups. Grens didn’t really know how or where to start. They seemed to assume that his knowledge was greater than it was. He had no idea what she was talking about.

“Since she disappeared?”

“Yes?”

“You said that?”

“Yes.”

“When did she disappear? Where did she go?”

The woman leaned forward, looked at him. Examining him. As if she thought he might be joking and needed to find the answer on his face.

“Isn’t that why you’re here? Because you found out something new?”

She was right—without understanding why. Ewert Grens was certainly here in her living room because he knew something new. But he wasn’t here to share it with her adoptive parents. Not until he understood how to use it to get close to the girl who had once lived here.

“I’ll need you to explain what you mean by disappeared. I came here because I need to find her before she disappears for good. But if I understand what you’re saying, the little girl whose room is still intact, has already disappeared?”

The man and woman exchanged a glance. In that way people who have known each other for a lifetime do. A language without words. And they both seemed to have realized why the superintendent poked his head into every room looking for something that just wasn’t there.