“Let’s go and sit over here,” she suggested, taking him by the arm and towing him away to the far corner.He didn’t need to hear the lead detective arguing with his partner, and she didn’t want him to get involved in another dispute with Dalström either, who clearly didn’t like his authority being challenged.She’d been told to stick to Jiro like glue, and that was what she intended to do.There was going to be no active searching done until Dalström could sort out the mutiny within his ranks, and so Aurora decided to do what Mårten had always taught her to do; if in doubt, take time to regroup.Sit down and look at things from all angles to make sure you hadn’t missed anything.Find any weak spots.
At first, Jiro resisted until she said, “I know you feel helpless, but there’s nothing else we can do right now.We can’t go out and search alone without backup.You’ll be of no help if you—we—get lost or hurt out in the wilderness too.You need to wait until a decision is made.But maybe we can look at things from a different angle.”She thought back to Mårten’s words just before they’d left the cruise ship.He didn’t trust Jiro because he thought he was holding something back.Well, maybe now was the time to try and get the truth out of him.
Reluctantly, he followed her.“Let’s do some brainstorming.See if we can come up with any new angles,” she said as she pulled out a chair.
“Okay, okay,” Jiro replied reluctantly, his gaze fixed on Dalström and Moreau over by the bar, who were still debating, although now they’d both lowered their voices, suddenly aware how this might look to the son of the missing man.Unprofessional to say the least.
“So let’s concentrate on things we know for sure,” Aurora started, and Jiro finally turned his focus to her.She pulled out her notebook, flipping it open to a blank page and writing a heading at the top with a recently sharpened pencil.Mårten had taught her to take notes.Especially this early in her career, it helped to keep track of everything she heard and saw.
But before she could form her first clear thought, he said, “Drat, it’s so hot in here.”He stood and removed his jacket, gloves, and beanie, slapping them on the table before retaking his seat.She wanted to do the same, but she was more used to these constant changes in temperature.Going from a warm house out into the freezing weather and then back into a warm car, out into the cold again to get across the parking lot, and then into another warm building was part of life here in northern Sweden.It was a continual game of hot, cold, hot, cold, and most locals got to the stage where they left their jackets on inside unless they intended to stay for a long period, otherwise they would be constantly stripping off, putting back on, stripping off, putting back on.Compromising, she took off her gloves and beanie, quickly averting her eyes from Jiro’s nicely muscled shoulders, revealed once more by the stretch of his thermal shirt.But even as she did so, there was a strange twisting sensation in her gut, like butterflies trying to beat their way out from the inside.Drat, why did he affect her like this?She had to keep reminding herself this man was a victim and needed to be treated with calm efficiency, not viewed with some kind of strange, baseless lust.
“We know for sure that you left your father in this hut when you went out to do the ice plunge.And that’s the last time you saw him.Correct?”
“Correct,” he replied.
“What time was that?”
Jiro gave a shrug.“I wasn’t checking the time.But there were twenty of us doing the ice plunge, and so it probably took an hour or so.The buses left straight afterward at two p.m., but I didn’t have time to go back to the hut and collect Papa because we were running late by that stage.I just assumed my father would be boarding the bus with everyone else.I asked one of the tour guides if she’d seen him, and she said she was sure he must’ve got on the other bus.God, I wish I’d checked myself instead of believing her.”He clenched his fist on the tabletop.
“So the last time you saw him was probably around one p.m.then?”Aurora asked, hoping to keep him on track.Wanting to blame someone else was not going to help.
“That sounds about right,” he admitted roughly.
“And you didn’t report him missing to the police until around four-thirty.So he was unaccounted for for at least three and a half hours before anyone was alerted,” Aurora mused.
“Again, that is correct.But I’m not sure why this all matters.”There was exasperation in his tone.
“I’m just setting a timeline,” she replied.“Like I said, we need to document everything we know for a fact.”Aurora flicked her gaze back to the two police officers at the bar.Moreau seemed to be losing the argument, and he was now replacing his hat and stalking to the door, probably going to round up the other officers and bring them inside so Dalström could brief them.Was he going to send them out on a fruitless search?She would have to wait to find out, and in the meantime she and Jiro could continue to think this through logically.
“Dávvet Lindgren began a search almost straight away after we contacted him, using his staff and locals from the area.We arrived nearly three hours later, after we’d talked to the captain.And by that stage, Lindgren was pretty sure your father was nowhere to be found on the property.”
“Yeah, how can he be so adamant that Papa’s not here?”A deep frown creased Jiro’s forehead.“Three hours doesn’t seem like a long time to search such a large property and be so sure.”
Aurora tended to agree, but then the Sámi people were different from normal Swedish locals.They were more attuned to the country.This was Dávvet’s traditional land, owned by generations of his family, so he would know it like the back of his hand.Would know its every mood, every tree, every rock, every crevice.
“And if he’s nowhere obvious on this property, then where else can he have gone?He can’t have walked far in this snow and ice.Right?”
“Hmm,” Aurora agreed.
Before she could frame her next question, however, Jiro shrugged and said, “The only other option is for him to have fallen down a crevasse or somehow been swallowed up whole, never to be seen again.Is that a possibility?”
“Or a lake,” Aurora commented, then immediately wanted to slap a hand over her mouth.She needed to learn to keep her thoughts to herself, and not add to Jiro’s distress.
“Shit, I hadn’t even thought about frozen lakes.He could’ve fallen through the ice, and now he won't be found until the thaw.”Jiro’s dark eyes went wide in his expressive face.“We need to talk to the owner.He’ll be able to tell us if there are lakes on his property.We can search them first.”He went to stand, ready to go out into the cold and look for frozen lakes, not realizing they would need specialist teams if that was indeed what’d happened to his father.
“I’m sure Dávvet has already checked that.He would’ve said something if any tracks had been found on or near a lake,” Aurora placated, laying a hand on his arm.She instantly regretted touching him, as a frisson of awareness passed over her.Slowly, so as not to look like she was reacting as if she had just been branded, she took her hand away and laid it calmly on the table.
“I guess so.”Jiro re-took his seat.“God, this is just so…” He waved a hand in the air, his face crumpling as he suddenly looked close to tears.Aurora noticed the shadow of stubble forming on his chin and lower jaw, and it made him seem more defenseless somehow.“I can’t find words to describe how this feels.Like I’m helpless.I’ve never felt this helpless before.I don’t know what to do next.”
“Hmm,” Aurora murmured sympathetically, not really knowing what to say.
“And if he’s not lying out there in the snow, then, I mean, what else could’ve happened to him?”But even as he said the words, he sat up a little straighter, a light of apprehension entering his eyes.“We need to talk to the owner,” he said suddenly.
Aurora didn’t disagree.There were a million questions, a million small details that might make the difference in this search, and Dávvet was the man who might hold the answers.She didn’t understand why Dalström hadn’t kept him here to answer those questions.This was the first time she’d seen one man’s pride get in the way of an investigation.Working with Mårten had perhaps shielded her from other people’s egos; he was always fair-minded and aboveboard as far as she could tell.
“I’ll ask the detective inspector if we—”
“No!”Jiro’s reply was emphatic.“You know he’ll come up with some reason why we can’t.”
