Page 67 of The Living and the Dead

In the distance he could make out the chapel. It stood there in the cold, under a vast sky on the other side of the maw, clean and white and untouched as though it were protected by the Lord himself. The cross reached for the sky.

49

The landslide, when it finally stopped moving, was the size of eight soccer fields and as deep as a lake. Siri stood in mud and brush up to her knees. It felt like the ground was trying to suck her into the depths. Later on they brought in boards and baffles to walk on, but not enough of them. They had to be moved around, and it took an unreasonable amount of time to search every square meter.

Helicopters hung in the air like insects. There was no parking lot around here big enough for the many vehicles that arrived, so they were all over the place. Police dogs barked and the area filled with people slowly picking through the rubble.

One second you might be walking by the remains of a splintered house, only to find yourself moments later in front of a garage that had fared so well the paint cans were still lined up on the shelves and tools were still hanging from their nails. Inside the houses, demolished bathrooms shared space with kitchens where late-night sandwiches still lay on plates, uneaten.

Siri stopped.

“Gerd!” she called.

A foot was sticking out from under debris. It wore a thick, handknitted sock that was now rusty brown with blood. From the toes hung a slipper.

Gerd and Siri began to dig with their hands, tearing at rubble andpieces of house, helping each other lift it away, but the house seemed to sink farther and farther into the muck the harder they fought to free the body.

“It’s impossible,” an exhausted Gerd said at last. “We need help.”

When they finally got her out, she could hardly speak. Hours spent stuck there, pressed into the mud, had brought on hypothermia. The internal bleeding was only discovered later, at the hospital.

“Felicia,” Siri said, crouching at her side. “We’re here now. We’re going to help you.”

“You have to…” Felicia said. “We’re…I’m having a baby.”

Gerd froze.

“We’ll do everything we can,” she said. “I promise. How far along are you?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Six weeks, I think. At the most.”

Felicia grabbed for Gerd’s hand and she took it, squeezed it gently. Sudden sorrow took hold of Siri’s heart and squeezed.

“Felicia, stay here with me. Look at me. Felicia. Felicia!”

50

Fresh snow fell between Christmas and New Year’s, settling like fine dust over everything. It hampered the search for the missing. Helicopters were still hovering; emergency vehicles and trucks were lined up just outside the cordoned area. Volunteers from the community turned up but couldn’t do much; it was still too risky. The media flocked nearby like they were up against the barricades at a concert.

The radio on Gerd’s shoulder crackled. It was one of the patrols on the other side of the crater.

“He’s back,” the crackle said. “Same question.”

“Next time, don’t answer him,” Gerd snapped. “Just let it be. I told him we’ll be in touch as soon as we know.”

Bill, Kjell Östholm’s new hunting dog, had been home alone on the farm. Kjell himself had survived; he had been spending Christmas Day with Frans and was on his way home when it all started. Thank goodness Frans had convinced him to stay for coffee, too, so he hadn’t gotten far. Now he was going around demanding information about the dog from every police officer, firefighter, and ambulance driver he saw.

“I never should have left him home alone,” he said. “I knew it. I knew it. But I’ve always let my dogs do whatever they please, and he didn’t want to come along to Frans’s place.”

“We’ll find him,” Vidar Jörgensson assured him, although he didn’t seem to believe his own words. “Don’t worry.”

Vidar was one of the many officers who’d been called out from Halmstad. When he first arrived at the site of the collapse, he was dumbfounded by the destruction. But shortly thereafter, he got hold of himself and began to pitch in, just like everyone else. So many people arrived during those days in Skavböke, so many people gritting their teeth and lending a hand. The community would remember that.

—

A little while later, Siri’s radio crackled. A discovery.

She and Gerd moved cautiously toward the spot; it wasn’t far.