Marked For Life. Emelie Schepp

up toward her chin.

      Suddenly the floor shuddered under her. She fell to one side and stretched out an arm to brace herself. Her mother got hold of her and held her close. It was silent a long, long time. Then the container was lifted up.

      They all hung on tight in the cramped space. The girl gripped her mama’s waist. But even so, she hit her head when the container landed hard on the ground. At last they were in their new country. In their new life.

      Mama got up and pulled her daughter up too. The girl looked at Danilo, who was still sitting with his back to the wall. His eyes were wide open, and just like all the others he was trying to hear sounds outside. It was hard to hear anything through the walls but if you really concentrated then you could perhaps distinguish weak voices. Yes, there were people talking outside. The girl looked at her papa and he smiled at her. That smile was the last thing she saw before the container was opened and daylight poured in.

      Outside the container stood three men. They had something in their hands, something big and silvery. The girl had seen such things before, in red plastic that sprayed water.

      One man started to shout at the others. Something weird was on his face, an enormous scar. She couldn’t help but stare at it.

      The man with the scar came into the container and waved the silvery thing. He was shouting all the time. The girl didn’t understand what he said. Neither did her parents. Nobody understood his words.

      The man went up to Ester and pulled at her sweater. She was scared. Ester’s mama was also frightened and didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. The man pulled Ester and held her in a firm grip around her neck as he backed away, all the time with the silvery thing pointed at Ester’s mama and papa. They didn’t dare do anything; they stood there completely still.

      The girl felt somebody take a firm hold of her arm. It was Papa, who quickly pushed her in behind his legs. Her mama spread out her skirt to cover the girl even more.

      The girl stood as still as she possibly could. Behind the skirt she couldn’t see what was happening. But she could hear. Hear how the grown-ups started to shout. They were shouting no, no, NO! And then she heard Danilo’s desperate voice.

      “Mama,” he shouted. “Mama!”

      The girl put her hands over her ears so that she wouldn’t have to hear the other children’s crying and shrieking. The voices of the grown-ups were worse. They were crying and shrieking too, but they were much louder. The girl pressed her hands even harder against her ears. But then after a while, all became silent.

      The girl took her hands away and listened. She tried to look out between her papa’s legs, but when she moved he pressed her hard against the wall. It hurt.

      The girl heard steps approach and felt her papa press her harder and harder against the steel wall. She could hardly breathe. Just as she was about to open her mouth to complain, she heard a popping sound and her papa fell down on his face on the floor. He lay there unmoving in front of her. When she looked up, the man with the scar was standing in front of her. He smiled.

      Her mama threw herself forward and held on to her as best she could. The man just looked at them, then shouted something again and Mama shouted back.

      “You don’t touch her!” she screamed.

      Then he hit her with the silver thing he had in his hand.

      The girl felt how her mama’s hands slipped down her tummy and legs until she lay on the floor with staring eyes. She didn’t blink, just stared.

      “Mama!”

      She felt a hand on her upper arm as the man yanked her up. He held her arm tightly, pushing her ahead of him out of the container.

      And as she left she heard the dreadful sound when they fired the silver things. They didn’t have water in them. Water didn’t sound like that. They shot something hard, and they shot straight into the dark.

      Straight at Mama and Papa.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      Tuesday, April 17

      JANA BERZELIUS WOKE up at five in the morning. She had had the same dream again; it never left her in peace. She sat up and wiped the sweat off her brow. Her mouth was dry from what she imagined was her shrieking. She straightened out her cramped fingers. Her fingernails had dug into the palms of her hands.

      She had experienced the same dream for as long as she could remember. It was always the same images. It irritated her that she didn’t understand what the dream meant. She had turned, twisted and analyzed all the symbols each time she fell victim to it. But that was no help.

      Her pillow lay on the floor. Had she thrown it there? Presumably, as it was a long way from the bed.

      She picked up the pillow and put it back against the headboard, then pulled the duvet back over herself. When she had lain there restless under the warm duvet for twenty more minutes, she realized it was pointless to try to fall back to sleep. So she got up, showered, dressed and ate a bowl of muesli.

      With a mug of coffee in her hand, she looked out the window at the unsteady weather. Even though they were already halfway through April, winter still made itself felt. One day it was a cold rain, and the next it was snowing with a temperature of close to freezing. From her flat in Knäppingsborg, Jana had a view of the river and the Louis de Geer Hall. From her living room she could also see the people who visited the quaint shopping area. Knäppingsborg had recently been renovated, but the urban planners on the council had managed to retain the genuine feel of the place.

      Jana had always wanted a flat with high ceilings, and when the first plans were approved for renovating the old buildings in the area, her father had put his name down to invest in a housing-association apartment for his then newly graduated daughter. As luck would have it, or thanks to a few phone calls, Karl Berzelius was given the opportunity to choose first. Of course she chose the apartment that was forty square meters larger than the others, with a total floor area of 196 square meters.

      Jana massaged her neck. Her scar always became irritated by the cold weather. She had bought a cream at the pharmacy that the pharmacist assistant said was the latest on the market, but she hadn’t noticed any improvement.

      Jana draped her long hair over her right shoulder, exposing her neck. With a careful touch, she gently rubbed the cream into the carved letters. Then she covered her neck with her hair again.

      She took a dark blue jacket out of her closet and put it on. Over that she buttoned up her beige Armani coat.

      At half past eight she left the flat, walked to her car and drove in the smattering rain to the courthouse. She was thinking about the first case of the day, which concerned domestic violence. The proceedings would start at nine. Her fourth criminal case, the last for the day, probably wouldn’t finish until half past five at the earliest.

      It would be a long day, she knew that.

      * * *

      It was just after 9:00 a.m. when Henrik Levin and Mia Bolander entered the Migration Board offices. They checked in at reception and were given a temporary key card.

      Lena Wikström, the secretary, was in the middle of a telephone conversation when they stepped into her outer office on the second floor. She held up her finger to signal that she would be with them in a few moments.

      From Lena’s office you could see straight into what had been Hans Juhlén’s. Henrik noted that Hans’s office looked tidy. The surface of the wide desk was uncluttered, with just a computer and a pile of folders next to it. Lena Wikström’s space was quite the opposite. Papers were strewn everywhere, on the desk, on top of file folders, underneath ring binders, in trays, on the floor, in the paper-recycling box and in the wastebasket. Nothing appeared organized. Documents lay all around.

      Henrik felt a shiver down his spine and wondered how Lena could concentrate in such chaos.

      “That’s