Page 126 of Hidden in Memories
Hanna looks at him inquiringly when he returns to the kitchen. He shakes his head. Tiina lets out a sob when she understands the significance.
The gun is gone.
Daniel checks his watch; the CSIs should be here at any minute.
“Do you really have no idea where your husband might have taken Filip?”
“I don’t know,” Tiina whimpers. “I honestly don’t know.”
“You don’t own a summer cottage or a hunting lodge?”
Each scenario passing through Daniel’s mind is worse than the previous one. If Mogren is both armed and aggressive, and has already committed two murders, any hope of finding Filip alive is fading fast.
A man who has already crossed so many lines has nothing to lose.
“Please think carefully, Tiina. He must have gone somewhere.”
She shakes her head.
“I swear I have no idea! We don’t own another property. If I knew anything, I’d tell you, but it’s impossible to work out how he thinks. He’s been like a different person recently.”
Hanna is standing by the sink, with an odd expression on her face.
“What is it?” Daniel asks.
They make eye contact for a few seconds.
“This might sound completely crazy ...” She breaks off, as if she can hardly believe what she is about to say. “Is it possible that Mogren has taken Filip to Storlien? Gone back to the place where it all began?”
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Hanna can’t explain why, but her whole body is telling her that she is onto something. The spooky, abandoned mountain hotel could be the answer to the riddle.
She can’t believe she stood face-to-face with the perpetrator and didn’t realize who he was. Instead of seeing Erik Mogren as a cold-blooded killer, she accepted him as a conscientious and dutiful individual, an employee who was trying to do his job, but was uncomfortable at having to pass on his concerns about a colleague.
Mogren had deliberately led them in the wrong direction, and she had willingly followed.
How could she have been so gullible?
The pressure and the irritation with herself make her feel shaky when she calls Leffe again. She has gone into the hallway so that Tiina won’t hear. Mogren’s wife is still sitting at the table, clearly in shock. Her daughter is on the way from Östersund to be with her.
“Have you seen a man aged about fifty moving around the hotel area, either last night or this morning?” Hanna asks as soon as Leffe answers. “Possibly with a younger man in his twenties?”
She gives him the names and descriptions of both Mogren and Filip.
“Mogren drives a 2022 silver-gray Volvo V70, registration XZK 937,” she adds.
“Do you want me to drive over and take a look?” Leffe offers. “It’s only five minutes from my house.”
“Please. As quickly as you can.”
Does Leffe understand the gravity of the situation? Hanna doesn’t want to scare him, but at the same time, it’s important that he doesn’t put himself in danger.
“If you do see him, you absolutely must not approach him or show yourself,” she adds. “Keep out of the way and call me immediately.”
“Okay. Will do.”
Leffe sounds shaken as he ends the call. Through the window Hanna sees a patrol car pull onto the drive. Carina and her team will also be here before long; the whole place will be crawling with police officers.
