Page 1 of Hidden in Memories
Prologue
Aada Kuus, the cleaner, is standing in the bathroom of room 633 at Copperhill Mountain Lodge in Åre. She has just hung up two towels when she hears a noise from the Silver Suite next door.
Was that someone groaning . . . ?
It is late, after midnight. She was just about to finish her shift when she noticed that 633 needed clean towels. She had to sort it out before she went home—guests are due to check in first thing tomorrow morning.
Now she is standing there as if she has been turned to stone, her eyes fixed on the bathroom wall adjoining the large suite.
A woman screams, her desperate cry slicing through the night. Then comes a curse from a deep voice, followed by a muted thud, almost as if a lamp has been knocked onto the floor.
What is going on?
Aada hears a whimpering sound, and something within her reacts. A paralyzing horror takes over, as it had in the past when her stepfather was drunk and used his fists to beat her mother black and blue.
She is seven years old again.
Fear floods her body. Her blood turns to ice.
Aada meets her own terrified gaze in the mirror above the washbasin. There is silence next door now, but she has adopted a defensivestance—shoulders up, body hunched. Her nerves are exposed, on the outside of her skin.
Her breathing is jerky, her mouth open. Should she go and knock on the door? Call reception?
Raise the alarm?
She doesn’t know what to do, it is becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. It is as if the oxygen is getting jammed in her throat; her tongue is sticking to the roof of her mouth. Her brain is telling her to do one thing, but her body wants her to hide.Nobody must find out you are here,a voice yells inside her head.Something bad might happen to you too.
Aada stares at a fixed point on the tiles until her eyes sting.
The feeling that she has to get away picks up speed like an avalanche; in the end it is so strong that her muscles actually cooperate. Legs trembling, she edges into the hallway and fumbles for the black door handle.
That is when she catches a glimpse of him.
Just as he is on his way out.
She has opened the door a tiny fraction, her hand is still on the latch, but she instinctively recoils when a man rushes out of the Silver Suite clutching a shiny, bloodstained object.
His cap is pulled well down over his forehead, and he is wearing a black mask over his mouth and nose. Aada can see only his burning eyes.
A second later she closes the door for her own protection.
Her mind whirling, she stands there frozen to the spot. She is so frightened she cannot move. In the end she drops to her knees and puts her head in her hands. Tries to suppress the nausea as she rocks back and forth in shock.
Something terrible must have happened in the Silver Suite.
The man was covered in blood.
Is he still out there?
What if he tries to get into this room to attack her too?
Saturday, March 27, 2021
1
It looks like the place that God forgot.
Charlotte Wretlind knows that she ought to be horrified, standing here in front of the Storlien mountain hotel. It is Easter season, but the sky is overcast. The afternoon light is gray. The whole area is enveloped in a desolate mist.
