He more or less spit out the words. The chair scraped loudly on the floor as he got up. Anneli heard his frustration and wanted to turn around, go to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Then her phone rang and interrupted her thoughts.

She didn’t recognize the number, but she recognized the voice.

“Anneli?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Anders. I saw you called me.”

His voice sounded so close that she had to look around to confirm that he wasn’t standing somewhere watching her. But she didn’t see him.

“I want to see you,” she said, her heart pounding harder now.

“Do you miss me?” he said.

She felt herself beginning to flush, and even though she stood with her back to the others on the team, she turned her gaze to the floor.

“Can I see you now?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you, and I think that you want to talk to me, too.”

There was a pause.

“Okay,” he said finally. “You’ll have to come to me.”

“I will,” she said. “Tell me where you are.”

* * *

Isra disappeared under the surface of the water. Jana Berzelius only saw the waves washing over the broken ice. She turned her gaze to Danilo again.

“How did you find this place?” he said.

“It wasn’t too hard.”

“But you must remember what I said. If you follow me...”

“I’ll regret it forever. Yes, I remember.”

“Yet you came here?”

“For many reasons. Mostly personal, actually.”

She scanned the area, evaluating the situation. She looked at him, trying to see if he held a weapon.

He usually drew his weapon immediately, without waiting, wanting you to see it, to see how it shone, to fear it from the very first moment. But now she only saw his clenched fists.

Then she heard Isra again, a weak yell, and understood that she wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. Soon the water would swallow her up for good.

“Is this what you do? Drown them?”

“Not all of them.”

“But you bring them all here?”

“Yes. Here they can whine as much as they want. Scream as loud as they want. No one can hear them. Who cares about a dilapidated boathouse in the winter?”

“Yet you tape their mouths?”

“Yes, but not too tightly. Mostly for the fun of it. There’s always a risk that they’ll break down and go crazy or that they’ll get it into their heads to try to escape.”

“One did escape. It’s thanks to her that I’m here.”

Danilo’s eyes became darker. “I should have taken the capsules out of her myself, drowned her immediately. Shouldn’t have waited.”

She heard Isra again. Jana turned around and stretched her hand out to her, finally reaching her thin, stiff fingers and pulling her toward her.

“Let her go,” Danilo said.