“Okay, whatever. I’ve looked at all of the Idas I could find on these social media sites that modern people are using, and I’ve found an Ida Eklund that had the picture from the chat as a profile picture on Instagram.”

“Do you have her address, too?”

“260 Emil Hedelius Street.”

“Thanks,” Henrik said. “I wonder if she knows what happened, and why she hasn’t called us if she does.”

“Didn’t Robin Stenberg’s mother know about her?”

“She didn’t say so if she did.”

“What’s your plan now?”

Henrik looked at the clock. Almost six.

“I have to try to find Ida. Do you have a telephone number?”

“Just a second...” Ola said, typing on his computer again. “From what I see, there’s one registered phone number.”

“Give it to me,” Henrik said, putting in the numbers that Ola read to him and raising his phone to his ear.

“Straight to voice mail,” he said. “I’ll go to her place and try to get Mia to come with me.”

Henrik looked at the clock again. Mia should be here by now, he thought, dialing her number. He had tried to reach her a number of times without any luck. To his surprise, she answered on the first ring.

“Time to work,” he said in a chipper voice.

“Why is that?” she mumbled.

“We’re going to go talk with Robin’s girlfriend.”

“He didn’t have a girlfriend, did he?”

“In any case, we’re going to go talk with a girl named Ida. Right now.”

“But...I have to change.”

“Okay. I can pick you up.”

“But I’m not at home.”

“What do you mean, not home? Where are you?”

* * *

Her stomach cramped up when she heard the scream. It was so close. He was so close.

Her body shook uncontrollably. Pim couldn’t feel her feet anymore. Her fingers, either. She rocked back and forth in an attempt to get some warmth back into her legs.

She heard footsteps and tried to pull her legs in even more, making herself as small as she could behind the rocks.

The footsteps were close now, but suddenly they faded and she couldn’t hear him anymore.

Was he waiting? Trying to trick her?

She sat completely still, hardly daring to breathe.

She waited for five minutes, then stood up on unsteady legs. Hidden behind tree branches, she began to walk again. She took one step at a time, carefully and as quietly as she could, listening the whole time for sounds, branches snapping.

When she had gone one hundred steps from the rocks, she began to run. Her feet drummed against the snow. She didn’t feel the cold anymore and ran straight ahead, knowing that at some point, the forest had to end. At some point, she had to reach something that wasn’t white and cold.

Something that wasn’t snow.

* * *