Blood was still flowing from her forehead as she raised herself up. She wasn’t the only person here. Not the only one alive. There was someone else in the room, she sensed someone breathing, just behind her.

A woman. Young. She held her weapon so confidently, a gun that looked like the ones the Swedish police used.

“Where are your children?”

The woman’s voice was just as confident. Warm and safe. As if she hadn’t just shot two people.

“In the closet. Are you with the police?”

The young woman looked into the empty closet, then at Zofia, then back at the closet.

“Yes. I’m with the police. But I think . . . you must be in shock. Surely you see they’re not in here. But I can hear a small child crying, somewhere. Please try to remember where you saw them last?”

“If you lift the floor of the closet. Underneath it. In the basement. An air raid shelter.”

The young policewoman kneeled down as she searched across the square board, while Zofia stayed on the bedroom floor, her legs didn’t really want to follow her up.

“What’s your name?”

“Under it, you said?”

“Who do you work with?”

She was beautiful, Zofia hadn’t noticed at first glance, but she turned to the side in the closet and her profile emerged. Her face was finely drawn, her hair dark and shiny, and her eyes seemed intelligent, full of experience even though she was so young.

“Sorry, I just wanted to know if your kids were okay. My name is Amelia, and I’m doing my training period for six months with a detective superintendent named Ewert Grens, and being supervised by another police officer named Mariana Hermansson. Answer me now—this bottom part, does it lift as well? Are you sure about that?”

“I just saw it. My son pulled it up from the top right corner.”

The policewoman whose name was Amelia found what she was looking for. She pulled on the knob and the hatch went straight up. She stared down into a hole and caught a glimpse of three children.

“Hello . . . everything is okay up here. There’s no danger anymore. I’m a police officer, and I’m helping your mom. Do you know how I can get down to you? Is there any other way besides through the hole?”

A boy who looked to be about nine, ten years old answered.

“I’m Hugo. You can go out into the stairwell and down to the basement and all the way until you reach a metal door with two wheels that you have to spin. We’re in there. I’m here and my little brother Rasmus and my little sister Luiza. And now I want to know . . . is Mom okay?”

“I’m fine, honey!”

Zofia had heard his question, and it felt so good to shout out an answer, as if she were following her own voice all the way to her three wonderful children.