Free The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin Page B

the clock. Ten past four. It was almost dark outside the window.
    He took out his cell phone and keyed in the number for Eel Point. Katrine should have picked up Livia and Gabriel and be back home by now.
    The phone rang out six times, seven, eight. No reply.
    He rang her cell phone. No reply.
    Joakim tried not to worry as he packed the last of his tools and carried them out to the trailer along with the furniture. But when everything was done and he’d turned out all the lights in the house and locked up, he took out his cell phone again and rang a local number.
    “Westin.”
    His mother, Ingrid, always sounded worried when she answered the phone, Joakim thought.
    “Hi, Mom, it’s me.”
    “Hi there, Joakim. Are you in Stockholm now?”
    “Yes, but …”
    “When will you be here?”
    He heard the pleasure in her voice when she realized it was him, and just as clearly the disappointment when he explained that he couldn’t come over and see her this evening.
    “But why not? Has something happened?”
    “No, no,” he said quickly. “I just think it’s safer if I drive back to Öland tonight. I’ve got our Rambe painting with me in the trunk and a load of tools in the trailer. I don’t want to leave them out overnight.”
    “I see,” said Ingrid quietly.
    “Mom … has Katrine called you today?”
    “Today? No.”
    “Good,” he said quickly. “I was just wondering.”
    “So when are you coming to see me?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “We live on Öland now, Mom.”
    As soon as they’d hung up, he rang Eel Point.
    Still no reply. It was half past four. He started the engine and pulled out onto the street.
    The last thing Joakim did before he headed south was to hand in the keys of the Apple House at the real estate office.Now he and Katrine were no longer property owners in Stockholm.
    The rush-hour traffic heading for the suburbs was in full swing when he hit the freeway, and it took him forty-five minutes to get out of the city. By the time the traffic finally thinned out it was quarter to six, and Joakim pulled into a parking lot in Södertälje to call Katrine one more time.
    The phone rang four times, then it was picked up.
    “Tilda Davidsson.”
    It was a woman’s voice—but he didn’t recognize the name.
    “Hello?” said Joakim.
    He must have keyed in the wrong number.
    “Who’s calling?” said the woman.
    “This is Joakim Westin,” he said slowly. “I live in the manor house at Eel Point.”
    “I see.”
    She didn’t say anything else.
    “Is my wife there, or my children?” asked Joakim.
    A pause at the other end of the phone.
    “No.”
    “And who are you?”
    “I’m a police officer,” said the woman. “I’d like you to—”
    “Where’s my wife?” said Joakim quickly.
    Another pause.
    “Where are you, Joakim? Are you here on the island?”
    The policewoman sounded young and slightly tense, and he didn’t have much confidence in her.
    “I’m in Stockholm,” he said. “Or rather on the way out … I’m outside Södertälje.”
    “So you’re on your way down to Öland?”
    “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been to pick up the last of our stuff from our house in Stockholm.” He wanted to sound clear and lucid and make the policewoman start answering questions. “Can you tell me what’s happened? Have any of—”
    “No,” she interrupted him. “I can’t say anything. But it would be best if you got here as quickly as possible.”
    “Is it—”
    “Watch your speed,” said the policewoman, breaking off the conversation.
    Joakim sat there with the silent cell phone to his ear, staring out at the empty parking lot. Cars with their headlights on and lone drivers whizzed past him out on the freeway.
    He put the car in gear, pulled out onto the road, and carried on heading south, doing twelve miles above the speed limit. But when he began to see pictures in his head of Katrine and the children waving to him outside the house at Eel Point, he pulled off the