It was a struggle to survive the classes and to pass him on the corridor a few times a day. Or knowing that while she was dealing with Marianne’s another outburst of emotions, he was spending time in his office, busy, talking to other teachers and bearing the whole school on his shoulders. Whenever he passed her, he smiled gently and she was sure that he noticed that she dressed differently than usual. She applied make-up even though she hadn’t bothered with it when she was with kids. She felt his look when she was having her corridor duty or when she was taking younger kids to class, as they couldn’t manage by themselves, while he was there to arrange some important business or deal with a juvenile delinquent, who was sent to him by the teacher. For the very first time in her life, Lena didn’t want to leave the school when she finished classes; she dragged for some time, left later than usual, knowing that he was still there, finishing his work, forgetting that there was the whole world to come back to, including his own family. It hurt Lena when thought about his family as if a big part of his life was taken away from her. Maybe if Gabriel Gacek hadn’t cheated on her, she would now be married and pregnant, but life held a different scenario for her.
She was entirely hit by the bug of love. She was waking up a couple of times at night and was virtually sleepless since three in the morning, looking at her phone, listening to some gloomy love songs she could play on repeat on YouTube. Her heart pounded every time she entered school, which made her twice as stressed during the day and twice as exhausted when she finally finished classes.
When she was sipping coffee in the teacher’s room (the only thing she was able to consume these days) she received a message from Robert. She knew something about Sweden, but not as much as she knew about England. But now she was glad she had a reason to come back home and forget that there was another reason for which she would stay at school till late at night and possibly not leave this institution at all.
There was also something else that bothered her since that fateful day she visited Karol Markowski’s office for the first time. In her feminist mood of being a cheated woman, she resorted to occasional porn films or romantic comedies, as hurt, she didn’t feel the need to make love as much. But now she had to be honest with herself, there was not even one appropriate candidate to make love to. Lena wasn’t a prude, but a few conditions had to be met to make her even consider the fact. She had to be attracted to the representative of the opposite sex and she had to have feelings towards this person. Lena was rather romantic and she didn’t treat sex as a sport. As a sport, she treated sex toys which Robert (as a joke) bought her for her birthday. But now she was thinking about sex almost every day, twice as often when she passed her director in the corridor, imagining his arms around her, and his lips kissing every inch of her body. No wonder she wasn’t able to eat.
She came to the flat, holding a grocery bag, with an intention to finally consume something healthy. When she was crossing the door, she almost tripped on a big backpack, which was left by someone in the hall. She didn’t have time to unpack her stuff, she had just left the bags on the kitchen cupboards when she heard a knock at the door. Behind it, she saw a tall blond man, who opened his eyes widely at the sight of Lena, then smiled and introduced himself:
‘Olaf de Palma, you must be Lena.’
Lena welcomed him to her room and instantly liked him, as he smiled towards her, and not many people have smiled at her recently. Olaf was the opposite of Karol. He was equally tall but younger, blond, beardless and completely devoid of character traits of her new boss. Apparently, he was backpacking all over the world for over a year, limiting his possessions to a few items he held in his backpack. It was refreshing to meet someone so free and uninhibited. Without responsibilities of a school, a family and a child. When she came back to the kitchen to grab something to eat, he even offered to cook something from the items she bought and soon they were sitting at the table, eating a tasty and filling vegetable stew. They both laughed as they were finishing their soup bowls, especially Lena, as it was unusual for a client to help in the kitchen.
‘I’m hungry. If I’m hungry, I can do everything for food,’ he explained the fact that he was so polite, and Lena laughed that she didn’t mind and it was nice of him to be of use.
The lamp shed a dim light on photographs and pieces of information which Olaf took from his backpack, spread evenly all over the table and presented to Lena.
‘I’ve been playing as a detective for years. You see, it always intrigued me. These children disappeared without a trace over the past twenty years. But there were no bodies found, no ransom demands, no letters of goodbye, nothing that would help their parents find them. The police left their cases after a year or two of a not very successful investigation. They just couldn’t find anything. They left, not bothering to even pay attention. The same as your partner. He was openly not interested.’
‘And these are?’
‘Newspaper articles. I’ve been cutting them out of various magazines. That was the only access to these stories. Of course, they appeared on the news, but after a couple of weeks, everyone forgot about them, as you do with outdated mysteries. There are always more to come and have their five minutes of fame. When the children went missing, they were from eight to thirteen-years-old, we’re not talking about little kids that needed parents’ protection. Six children. I have no idea what happened to them, but this is what bugged me my whole childhood. I’m no longer a child, but there has to be a reason why they haven’t been found. In the past, I thought about hiring a detective, but I’m not in any way connected to them, it’s always difficult to explain why I care so much. I’m just curious. We were all children. I would like somebody to take care of me if I went missing and parents were helpless.’
Lena looked again at the pictures.
‘But if these children went missing years before, they are no longer children. If they are alive, they are adults. They can live anywhere in the world and enjoy their lives, not knowing that you even bother. Or they might be dead for a long time.’
Lena quickly looked at the statistics online. Each year hundreds of thousand children went missing all over the world. She shared them with Olaf.
‘What makes you think we would find six missing children separated by age, distance, and time of disappearance?’
‘There is something that connects them,’ Olaf explained ‘They all disappeared during the Orienteering.’
‘What is this Orienteering?’
‘It’s a sport. It’s a race that requires using navigation skills to cover a particular route. They have been preparing for it for a long time to finally disappear somewhere in the middle. All of them.’
That reminded Lena of history professors. One denominator finally led Robert and her to the murderer. She pondered for a while, looking at her school schedule and considering the fact that she was no longer a student, which gave her extra time.
‘Fine. I’ll try to do something about it. Are you planning to help me with it or am I on my own?’
‘I can give you a tour around Stockholm if you want.’
‘All these children were from Stockholm?’
‘One was. I can give you a tour around Sweden.’
Lena gasped. The stew made her even more tired and sleepy. It looked as if it was going to be an interesting year.
She was entirely hit by the bug of love. She was waking up a couple of times at night and was virtually sleepless since three in the morning, looking at her phone, listening to some gloomy love songs she could play on repeat on YouTube. Her heart pounded every time she entered school, which made her twice as stressed during the day and twice as exhausted when she finally finished classes.
When she was sipping coffee in the teacher’s room (the only thing she was able to consume these days) she received a message from Robert. She knew something about Sweden, but not as much as she knew about England. But now she was glad she had a reason to come back home and forget that there was another reason for which she would stay at school till late at night and possibly not leave this institution at all.
There was also something else that bothered her since that fateful day she visited Karol Markowski’s office for the first time. In her feminist mood of being a cheated woman, she resorted to occasional porn films or romantic comedies, as hurt, she didn’t feel the need to make love as much. But now she had to be honest with herself, there was not even one appropriate candidate to make love to. Lena wasn’t a prude, but a few conditions had to be met to make her even consider the fact. She had to be attracted to the representative of the opposite sex and she had to have feelings towards this person. Lena was rather romantic and she didn’t treat sex as a sport. As a sport, she treated sex toys which Robert (as a joke) bought her for her birthday. But now she was thinking about sex almost every day, twice as often when she passed her director in the corridor, imagining his arms around her, and his lips kissing every inch of her body. No wonder she wasn’t able to eat.
She came to the flat, holding a grocery bag, with an intention to finally consume something healthy. When she was crossing the door, she almost tripped on a big backpack, which was left by someone in the hall. She didn’t have time to unpack her stuff, she had just left the bags on the kitchen cupboards when she heard a knock at the door. Behind it, she saw a tall blond man, who opened his eyes widely at the sight of Lena, then smiled and introduced himself:
‘Olaf de Palma, you must be Lena.’
Lena welcomed him to her room and instantly liked him, as he smiled towards her, and not many people have smiled at her recently. Olaf was the opposite of Karol. He was equally tall but younger, blond, beardless and completely devoid of character traits of her new boss. Apparently, he was backpacking all over the world for over a year, limiting his possessions to a few items he held in his backpack. It was refreshing to meet someone so free and uninhibited. Without responsibilities of a school, a family and a child. When she came back to the kitchen to grab something to eat, he even offered to cook something from the items she bought and soon they were sitting at the table, eating a tasty and filling vegetable stew. They both laughed as they were finishing their soup bowls, especially Lena, as it was unusual for a client to help in the kitchen.
‘I’m hungry. If I’m hungry, I can do everything for food,’ he explained the fact that he was so polite, and Lena laughed that she didn’t mind and it was nice of him to be of use.
The lamp shed a dim light on photographs and pieces of information which Olaf took from his backpack, spread evenly all over the table and presented to Lena.
‘I’ve been playing as a detective for years. You see, it always intrigued me. These children disappeared without a trace over the past twenty years. But there were no bodies found, no ransom demands, no letters of goodbye, nothing that would help their parents find them. The police left their cases after a year or two of a not very successful investigation. They just couldn’t find anything. They left, not bothering to even pay attention. The same as your partner. He was openly not interested.’
‘And these are?’
‘Newspaper articles. I’ve been cutting them out of various magazines. That was the only access to these stories. Of course, they appeared on the news, but after a couple of weeks, everyone forgot about them, as you do with outdated mysteries. There are always more to come and have their five minutes of fame. When the children went missing, they were from eight to thirteen-years-old, we’re not talking about little kids that needed parents’ protection. Six children. I have no idea what happened to them, but this is what bugged me my whole childhood. I’m no longer a child, but there has to be a reason why they haven’t been found. In the past, I thought about hiring a detective, but I’m not in any way connected to them, it’s always difficult to explain why I care so much. I’m just curious. We were all children. I would like somebody to take care of me if I went missing and parents were helpless.’
Lena looked again at the pictures.
‘But if these children went missing years before, they are no longer children. If they are alive, they are adults. They can live anywhere in the world and enjoy their lives, not knowing that you even bother. Or they might be dead for a long time.’
Lena quickly looked at the statistics online. Each year hundreds of thousand children went missing all over the world. She shared them with Olaf.
‘What makes you think we would find six missing children separated by age, distance, and time of disappearance?’
‘There is something that connects them,’ Olaf explained ‘They all disappeared during the Orienteering.’
‘What is this Orienteering?’
‘It’s a sport. It’s a race that requires using navigation skills to cover a particular route. They have been preparing for it for a long time to finally disappear somewhere in the middle. All of them.’
That reminded Lena of history professors. One denominator finally led Robert and her to the murderer. She pondered for a while, looking at her school schedule and considering the fact that she was no longer a student, which gave her extra time.
‘Fine. I’ll try to do something about it. Are you planning to help me with it or am I on my own?’
‘I can give you a tour around Stockholm if you want.’
‘All these children were from Stockholm?’
‘One was. I can give you a tour around Sweden.’
Lena gasped. The stew made her even more tired and sleepy. It looked as if it was going to be an interesting year.
