She’s felt like this before, and it’s simultaneously frustrating and satisfying.
Could the answer lie in something said by Yngve Karlsson in his holding cell earlier today, when he was talking to Elin Sand?
Was one of the investigations’ voices audible there, a voice that I can’t yet interpret?
Elin Sand has evidently questioned Dragan Zyber, how on earth did that come about? He has an alibi. And Ronny Andersson is just an upset son.
‘We’re making progress,’ Malin says. ‘But we don’t have a suspect yet. Everyone we’ve looked into so far has an alibi.’
Tove takes a small sip of her beer.
‘I still can’t understand it,’ she says. ‘Who would want to murder him?’
‘He never said anything to you? Anything at all? Nothing that ever seemed odd, unusual?’
‘No,’ Tove replies, and Malin remembers something that Berit Andersson said, something that struck her as odd when she first heard it.
I always tried to be nice to him.
Tried. That was what she said.
‘Do you know if Berit Andersson got on well with Konrad?’
Tove nods.
‘He liked her, I know that much. A lot. Why?’
Malin shakes her head.
‘Nothing, really,’ and she thinks that she’s just being over-sensitive about the meaning of words when it can’t always be easy to be nice at five o’clock in the morning, when you’re exhausted and full of pent-up bitterness.
They’ve finished eating.
A sense of calm settles around the table.
And mother and daughter look at each other, smile shyly, before Malin reaches across the table and takes hold of Tove’s hand.
They hold on to each other; in the warmth of the restaurant, then in the rain and darkness and wind, they hold tightly on to each other to stop themselves falling.
When they get home to the flat Malin calls Daniel. Listens to the phone ring. Hoping that he’ll pick up.
56
Daniel sounds sleepy.
‘It’s me.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I thought you were going to call.’
‘I’ve been run off my feet at work.’
He’s awake now. And Malin is talking in a quiet voice so Tove can’t hear, and shuts herself in the bathroom.
‘If you’d like to meet up, I’d like to meet up,’ she says.
He says nothing for a few moments.
‘Not now, Malin. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Can’t I come over now?’
‘In this weather?’
‘I don’t care about the weather.’
‘I’ve got to sleep.’
Why are we playing this game? she thinks. You want to, just as much as me. You need it just as much as I do.
‘We’ve got to take it calmer this time,’ he goes on.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Not to use each other as an escape, but to see each other because we really want to. And we need to know why.’
The yellow walls of the bathroom.
The stench.
‘You’ve turned into a proper philosopher.’
‘No, I’ve just got older.’
‘Wiser?’
‘With a bit of luck.’
She remembers his body. That’s what she needs right now, not words.
‘I want you,’ she says.
‘Well, you can’t have me. Not the way you want. Not this time, Malin. If we’re going to embark on something together, we need to start off on the right foot.’
Fuck you, she thinks, and hangs up.
57
Monday, 16 August
Malin is standing in the kitchen, reading the Correspondent on her laptop. Tove has already gone off to work, and the coffee tastes bitter and good, hot on her tongue in a way that makes her whole body wake up and snap to it.
Their case is no longer the lead story.
It’s been replaced by Morelia’s deal. Beneath a photograph of the Hotel Ekoxen, the article explains that it was the site of last-minute adjustments to a deal worth billions. The text is vaguely critical, suggesting that Morelia bought most of the institutions that make up his empire for a price that was way below their market value. And that he’s making an astonishing profit from what was a politically motivated sale of shared social assets.
Just reading it makes Malin feel sick.
It’s like me buying up a police district, slashing the funding with efficiency savings to the point where the staff can no longer do their jobs, then selling the whole lot to an American security company so that they can run the police service as a profit-making business.
The politicians responsible for creating this mess ought to be made to answer for it.
Someone ought to stop Morelia.
Malin knows it’s a naïve hope. What we’re witnessing now is part of a never-ending cycle. The way the rich and powerful team up to steal from everyone else. Shamelessly, consciously. It’s always the same.
Malin closes the laptop.
Only a short item about their case, saying that the police are investigating a man with previous convictions for murdering elderly men. Vincent Edlund’s name isn’t mentioned. The article was written by Daniel Högfeldt, and Malin can’t help thinking that he’s lost his edge.
But she knows she’s just annoyed with him for rejecting her again.
She can see him in her mind’s eye, his handsome face, and she hasn’t really got any sort of comeback if he wants to play hard to get.
Then she does something that she never usually does, and she doesn’t know why she does it this particular morning, with the storm raging at full force, broken branches scattering the ground in St Lars Park, pigeons cowering under the eaves of the church.
She goes into the living room and switches the television on, and finds herself staring at Steffo Törnqvist as he tucks into seared goose liver and apple sauce and sips happily from a glass of champagne.
Malin settles on to the sofa.
The news, followed by the weather. Nothing much has happened.
Nothing about Merapi, and nothing about the murder either.
After the news Steffo Törnqvist accompanies an elderly woman to a corner of the studio, where she picks a scratch card at random.
What would she do with the money?
That depends how much she wins. Go on a cruise, maybe. And make some improvements to her little place in the country.
And the woman scrapes. First one square, then the next, and by the time she’s finished she’s won three hundred thousand kronor, and the mixture of happiness and disappointment is clearly visible on her face.
Then the woman is gone, already on her way back to normal life in Karlstad, Borås or Gävle. But Malin can’t stop thinking about the woman, and she realises what it is that she hasn’t noticed, what she’s been missing, and the case opens up, a tiny opening, improbable, perhaps, but still a possibility, the way openings in investigations often are.
She stands up.
Thinks: Shall I call, or do it face to face?
Thinks: Face to face.
I’ll go and see her. Who knows what might have happened.
Is all of this going to reach its conclusion today?
Malin looks out of the living-room window. The storm is gathering the rain into steel cables that stretch through the air. Part of a roof flies past. And she hears Steffo Törnqvist’s voice, advising people to stay indoors today. It could end up being even worse than the big January storm of 2005.
Be careful, Malin, she thinks.
Take it nice and gently.
Hans Morelia hasn’t slept all night. He got up several times to stare down into the storm-ravaged garden. He thought he saw Ronny Andersson’s car drive past, but it didn’t come back, and could have been a hallucination brought on by tiredness.
Lova came to their bed at four o’clock in the morning. Crept in between them, and she was warm, and put
her arm around his neck the way she always does. She did it in her sleep. An unambiguous sign of love.
He’s going to see the security consultants today. It would be just as well to get some bodyguards.
He pulls Lova closer to him.
Are the police going to be able to solve the old man’s murder?
Point nine of his letter to the paper. Hans Morelia can still remember it:
Treat others the way you yourself would like to be treated.
The old boy certainly wasn’t stupid. Far from it.
But now he’s silent.
For ever.
And my money’s on its way.
58
Gabriella Karlsson lives on Vasagatan, close to the Abisko roundabout, on the third floor of a yellow-plastered building that looks like it was built in the thirties.
Malin is standing in the pale pink stairwell, she’s shaken off the rain, after dodging another piece of roofing out in the street. It was slicing through the air like a ninja star, seemed to be aiming at her throat.
Malin has rung the doorbell, but can’t hear any footsteps behind the door. She’s hoping to surprise Gabriella in case she really has got something to do with this, if there’s any truth to Malin’s theory.
No one home.
She tries calling Gabriella instead. No answer.
So she calls Zeke, says she’s on her way in, has an idea she wants to run past him.
She heads back down the stairs.
Perhaps Gabriella is at the university?
Might try to find her there, Malin thinks, but first the station, must talk to Zeke first. Perhaps I’m being too hasty?
She goes out on to Vasagatan and hurries through the rain towards her car, parked just outside the door, but stops on the pavement. She can feel the storm tugging at her, the rain drumming angrily on the hood of her raincoat.
She sees a blue Volvo drive past.
Elin Sand is sitting in the passenger seat. It is her, isn’t it?
A woman in the driver’s seat. I’ve seen her before, Malin thinks, and searches her memory, but can’t remember who the beautiful woman is.
The gutters are rattling above her as a figure approaches along the pavement, huddled up, trying to make itself smaller, and Malin can’t help thinking that the person could be snatched off the ground at any moment.
It’s Gabriella Karlsson, her red hair sticking out from her hood, and she makes a dash for the door to her building with an anxious look in her eyes. When she reaches Malin she grimaces and bends over to catch her breath before straightening up again.
‘Hello. Have you found out something about Granddad? Or are you still treading water?’ She’s evidently been out for a run, seeing as she’s wearing black jogging bottoms beneath a tight rainproof jacket.
If Gabriella Karlsson had previously looked uncertain, she is now clipped and correct. The water, rain mixed with sweat, is running down her forehead, and Malin finds herself thinking that there is unexpected power in that body.
‘Or do you suspect me now?’
‘I don’t suspect you,’ Malin says. ‘You seem to have been the only person who really cared for Konrad.’
Gabriella nods.
Lets out a deep breath.
‘Can we go inside?’ Malin asks, and a few moments later the world is free from howling wind and rain.
‘He’s going to be buried soon. A simple coffin, but with some carving by Kanevad.’ Gabriella’s words echo in the stairwell, and Malin realises that this sudden practicality is a way of keeping her grief under control.
‘The carving sounds nice,’ Malin says, before asking the question she came here to ask: ‘How many scratch cards did you take when you went to see your grandfather the evening before the murder?’
Gabriella looks surprised.
As if it were the stupidest question in the world.
‘Four,’ she says. ‘You can buy four scratch cards for a hundred kronor. They’re supposed to cost thirty kronor each these days, but there’s an offer on at the moment at the old price, twenty-five each, so I bought four. There’s also another offer on right now, giving you an extra chance if you actually win something. Granddad loved scratch cards. He liked the fact that it was all down to chance, nothing else.’
‘So you’re sure – four cards?’
‘Quite sure.’
Gabriella wipes the water from her face.
‘Why? Is there something funny about that?’
Malin considers what to say, looks at Gabriella, then replies: ‘We only found three scratch cards in your grandfather’s room. All of them losing cards. There should have been a fourth one.’
‘We only did three of them. He wanted to save the last one until later that night. In case he was up late. He thought he might want a bit of entertainment later on.’
Why didn’t you say so before? Malin thinks. You probably didn’t even think about it.
‘Thanks,’ she says, instead of reprimanding her. ‘Where did you buy the cards?’
‘From the tobacconist’s on Djurgårdsgatan.’ Gabriella pauses before going on: ‘If the fourth one was a winning card, there are plenty of people who could do with the money.’
Zeke is sitting opposite Malin in the open-plan office at the police station.
He’s leaning forward, and Malin can see that he’s listening intently to what she’s saying. She goes on, calmly and methodically:
‘So imagine,’ she says, ‘that this fourth card turned out to be a big win, two hundred and fifty thousand, half a million, a million, and someone saw the card after Konrad Karlsson had uncovered the win, took it, and murdered him to keep him quiet.
‘You mean someone killed him for a lottery win?’
Malin nods slowly.
‘It’s a bit far-fetched, but it feels like the only good lead we’ve got right now.’
Zeke’s turn to nod.
‘If the winning scratch card is the motive, then one of the night staff could be our perpetrator after all,’ Malin goes on. ‘Or Margaretha or Yngve, who could have gone to see him later that evening, after Gabriella.’
‘But what are the chances of that fourth scratch card actually getting a big win? Vanishingly small, surely?’
Malin frowns, but isn’t sure why.
‘It’s about as likely as an old man being murdered. We’ll have to check with the Swedish Lottery to see if a winning card has been sold in Linköping recently. If any prize has been claimed.’
‘Gabriella could have scratched all the cards for Konrad, then went back later to get the fourth card – which would mean that she did it.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Malin says. ‘She loved him, and she seems to be the only one connected to this whole business whose finances aren’t a complete mess.’
She thinks for a while.
‘Berit Andersson,’ she says eventually. ‘She could have done with the money.’
‘Always assuming the missing card was actually a win.’
‘We’ll have to investigate,’ Malin says. ‘See if anyone who might have been in Konrad’s room, no matter what their alibi, has had any money paid into their bank account recently, the sort of sum that matches a lottery win.’
‘Are we telling Sven about this?’
‘I’ll do that,’ Malin says. ‘You and Johan can start digging.’
Sven sits up on his desk chair, and through the window behind him Malin can see the white panelled façade of the hospital, the green canopy above its entrance.
People visiting the sick in spite of the storm, hurrying in through the revolving door, they can’t get in fast enough.
‘It’s an interesting theory,’ he says. ‘A little far-fetched.’
‘I know. But it’s worth a try.’
‘Don’t talk to anyone until you’ve spoken to the Swedish Lottery company. If this checks out, you may be able to get a confession if you’ve already got all the facts.’
‘We’ll hold back,’ Malin says, even though she
’d rather start questioning people at once.
Sven looks at her intently.
‘You’ve been listening to the voices of the investigation.’
Malin smiles.
Says nothing.
‘You know I’m leaving at Christmas,’ Sven Sjöman goes on. ‘Have you given any more thought to taking over when I’m gone?’
‘I’ve done some more thinking.’
‘And the answer’s still no?’
‘I don’t know, Sven. It feels like I need to shake up my whole life. And that includes the possibility of taking over from you. But I don’t know if it would suit me. At the moment.’
‘You know what I think,’ Sven says.
He leaves another long pause.
‘It’s time for you to grow,’ he says. ‘You’re too good to carry on playing solo. And you seem to be keeping everything under control.’
Malin closes her eyes.
I’m no good at anything really.
Just look at Tove. She couldn’t have had a worse mother.
And now this desire for Daniel again. Not only to feel him inside her, but just to have his body close to hers.
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself the whole time, Malin.’
She opens her eyes and looks into Sven’s face, the reassuring, warm smile that has always been able to calm her down, drive her on.
‘Now go and catch our killer,’ he says.
He shakes his head.
‘A sodding scratch card. Bloody hell. There’s not a lot you don’t see in this job.’
59
Johan Jakobsson clutches the phone in his hand. He is being put through to someone at the Swedish Lottery who’s responsible for winning tickets.
In his mind’s eye he can see a wind-tormented Gotland, with bewildered Stockholmers cycling around in the driving rain, wondering what happened to their holiday.
Souls of Air (Malin Fors 7) Page 23
