‘Now we know,’ Karin says. ‘And the Murvall brothers can be told. Do you think one of them killed Bengt Andersson? And would maybe want to confess if they found out they got it wrong?’
Malin smiles.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘You’re good at chemistry, Karin,’ Malin says. ‘But you’re not quite so good at people.’
The two women sit in silence.
‘Why couldn’t you have told me this over the phone?’ Malin asks.
‘I just wanted to tell you in person,’ Karin replies. ‘It seemed better somehow.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re so shut off sometimes, Malin, tense. And we keep bumping into each other in the course of our work. It’s no bad thing to meet like this, in a calmer setting occasionally. Don’t you think?’
As she is walking out of the lab, Malin’s mobile rings.
Malin talks as she crosses the car park, past a garage with its doors closed, towards the parking spaces over by the bushes where her Volvo is parked next to Karin’s grey, shiny Lexus.
Tove.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Are you at school?’
‘On a break between maths and English. Mum, you remember that Markus’s parents want to have you over for dinner?’
‘I remember.’
‘Can you do tonight? They’d like to do it this evening.’
Smart doctors.
They’d like to.
The same evening.
Don’t they know that other people have busy lives?
‘Okay, Tove. I can manage that. But not before seven o’clock. Tell Markus I’m looking forward to it.’
They hang up.
As Malin opens the car door she thinks, What happens when you lie to your children? When you do your children harm? Does a star go out in the sky?
62
‘Are there stones left unturned?’ Zeke asks.
‘I don’t know,’ Malin says. ‘I can’t see the whole thing properly right now. All the pieces, they don’t seem to fit together.’
The clock on the brick wall is slowly ticking towards twelve.
The office at the station is almost deserted. Zeke is sitting behind his desk, Malin on a chair next to it.
Desperate? Us?
Not desperate, but fumbling.
When Malin got back from the forensics lab they had an endless meeting where they went through the state of the investigation.
First the bad news.
The disappointment in Johan Jakobsson’s voice from his seat along one side of the table: ‘The penultimate folder on Rickard Skoglöf’s computer only contained a load of average porn, Hustler-style stuff. Fairly hardcore, but nothing remarkable. We’ve got one folder left with some sort of ingenious password mechanism, but we’re working on it.’
‘Let’s hope there are some secrets in there,’ Zeke said, and Malin could hear that his voice concealed the fervent wish that this whole thing would soon be over.
Then they stumbled about together. Tried to find the investigation’s voice, the common, cohesive thread. But no matter how they tried, they kept coming back to the start: the man in the tree and the people around him, the Murvalls, Maria, Rakel, Rebecka; the ritual, the heathen faith, Valkyria Karlsson, Rickard Skoglöf; and the vanishingly small chance that Jimmy Kalmvik and Joakim Svensson might have done something really stupid during the few hours when only they could provide alibis for each other.
‘We know all that,’ Sven Sjöman said. ‘The question is, can we do much more with any of it? Are there any other paths that might be more productive? Can we see any other paths?’
Silence in the room, a long, painful silence.
Then Malin said, ‘Maybe we could tell the brothers that Bengt Andersson wasn’t the person who raped their sister? Maybe they’d have something else to say if they knew that?’
‘Doubtful, Malin. Do you think they would?’ Sven said.
Malin shrugged.
‘And they’ve been released,’ Karim Akbar said. ‘We can’t bring them in again just for that, and if we go out and talk to them now without anything more concrete, they’d doubtless make allegations that we’re harassing the whole family. The last thing we need is more bad publicity.’
‘No new tip-offs from the public?’ Johan tried.
‘Nothing,’ Sven said. ‘Total silence.’
‘We could make a new request,’ Johan said. ‘Someone must know something.’
‘The media are chewing us up already,’ Karim said. ‘We’ll have to manage without another request for information at the moment. It would only lead to more bad press.’
‘The National Criminal Investigation Department?’ Sven suggested. ‘Maybe it’s time to call them in. We have to admit that we’re not making any progress.’
‘Not yet, not yet.’ Karim sounding self-confident, in spite of everything.
They had left the meeting room with a general feeling that they were all waiting for something to happen, that they could really only follow developments, wait for whoever had hung Bengt Andersson in the tree somehow to make themselves visible again.
But what if he, she or they remained invisible? If the whole thing was a one-off?
Then they were stuck.
All the voices of the investigation had fallen silent.
But Malin remembered how she had felt out by the tree: that there was something left unfinished, that something was in motion out in the forests and the snow-swept plain.
And now the clock on the brick wall is almost at twelve. As it hits, Malin says, ‘Lunch?’
‘No,’ Zeke says. ‘I’ve got choir practice.’
‘You have? At lunchtime?’
‘Yes, we’ve got a concert in the cathedral in a few weeks’ time, so we’re squeezing in some extra practice.’
‘A concert? You haven’t mentioned it. Extra practice? You sound like a hockey player.’
‘God forbid,’ Zeke says.
‘Can I tag along?’
‘To choir practice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sure,’ Zeke says, nonplussed. ‘Sure, Malin.’
The assembly hall of the city museum smells musty, but the members of the choir seem happy enough in the large space. There are twenty-two of them today. Malin has counted them, thirteen women, nine men. Most of them are over fifty and they’re all well dressed and well ironed in typical provincial style. Coloured shirts and blouses, jackets and skirts.
The members have crowded together, standing in three rows on the stage. Behind them hangs a large tapestry with embroidered birds that seem to want to take off and drift around the room, up to the vaulted ceiling.
Malin is sitting in the back row, by the oak panelling, listening to the members tune up, giggle, chatter and laugh. Zeke is talking animatedly to a woman the same age as him, tall, with blonde hair and wearing a blue dress.
Nice, Malin thinks. Both her and the dress.
Then one woman raises her voice and says, ‘Okay, then, let’s get to work. We’ll start with “People Get Ready”.’
As if on command the members line up neatly, clear their throats one last time, and adopt the same look of concentration.
‘One, two, three.’
And then the singing, a harmonious sound, fills the hall and Malin is surprised at its gentle strength, and how beautiful it sounds when the twenty-two voices sing together as one single voice: ‘. . . you don’t need no ticket, you just get on board . . .’
Malin leans back in her chair. Closes her eyes, letting herself be embraced by the music, and when she looks up the next song has started and she can see that Zeke and the others really enjoy being up on stage, that they’re somehow united in their singing, in its simplicity.
And suddenly Malin feels an oppressive loneliness. She isn’t part of this, and she feels that this loneliness means something, that the sense of being an outsider somehow has a meaning beyond this room.
&
nbsp; Over there is a door.
An opening into a closed room.
Intuition, Malin. Voices. What are they trying to tell me?
63
Bad deeds.
When do they start, Malin? When do they end? Do they go in circles? Are there more of them over time, or is the practice of evil constant? Is it diluted or enriched whenever a new person is born?
I can think about all this as I move over the landscape.
I look at the oak where I hung.
A lonely place. Perhaps the tree liked my company? The balls. I fetched the balls and threw them back, and they came back again and again and again.
Maria?
Did you know?
Was that the reason for your friendliness? The connection between us? Does it matter? I don’t think so.
Air beneath and above me, I reside in my own vacuum. All the dead around me whisper, Carry on, Malin, carry on.
It isn’t over yet.
I’m scared again.
Is there a way out?
There has to be.
Just ask the woman down there. The woman that black-clad person is approaching from behind, hidden behind a row of bushes.
The early evening is silent and cold and dark. The garage door refuses to open, creaking and squealing, and the sound seems to catch on the frozen air. She presses the button on the wall again; the key is where it should be and the power is on, that much is sure.
Behind her the buildings, the deep-frozen vegetation, lights in most of the windows. Almost everyone is home from work. The garage door won’t move. She’ll have to open it by hand. She’s done it once before. It’s heavy but not impossible, and she’s in a hurry.
Rustling in the bushes behind her. Maybe a bird. At this time of year? Maybe a cat? But don’t they stay indoors in this sort of cold?
She turns round and that’s when she sees it, the black shadow racing towards her, taking one two three four steps before it is on her and she flails with her arms, screaming but nothing comes out; something that tastes chemical pressed into her mouth and she tears and hits but the gloves on her hands turn her blows into caresses.
Look out of your windows.
Look at what’s happening.
He – because it must be a he? – is wearing a black balaclava and she sees the dark brown eyes, the rage and pain in his gaze, and the chemical smell is in her brain now, it’s soft and clear yet it still makes her disappear, her muscles relax and she can no longer feel her body.
She can see. But she is seeing double.
She sees the person, people standing over her. Are there several of you?
No, stop it, not like this.
But there’s no point fighting. As if everything has already happened. As if she is defeated.
The eyes.
His, hers, theirs?
They aren’t here, she thinks. The eyes are somewhere else, far away.
Sweet breath, warm, and it ought to be unfamiliar, but it isn’t.
Soon the chemical feeling reaches her eyes, then her ears. And pictures and sound are gone, the world is gone and she doesn’t know if she’s falling asleep or dying.
Not yet, she thinks. I’ve been drugged, haven’t I? His face there at home, my face.
Not yet, yet, yet, yet . . .
She is awake.
She knows that. Because her eyelids are open and her head is aching, even if it is completely dark. Or is she sleeping? Confused thoughts.
Am I dead?
Is this my grave?
I don’t want to be here. I want to go home, to my loved ones. But I’m not scared. Why aren’t I scared?
That sound must be an engine. A well-maintained engine that does its job with joy in spite of the cold. Her wrists and feet ache. It’s impossible to move them, but she can kick, tense her body in a bow and kick against the four walls of the space.
Shall I scream?
Of course. But someone, him, her, them, has taped her mouth shut, a rag between her teeth. What does it taste of? Biscuits? Apples? Oil? Dry, drier, driest.
I can fight.
Like I’ve always done.
I’m not dead. I’m in the boot of a car and I’m freezing and kicking, protesting.
Thump, thump, thump.
Can anyone hear me? Do I exist?
I hear you.
I am your friend. But I can’t do anything. At least not much.
Perhaps we can meet afterwards, when all this is over. We can drift side by side. We can like each other. Run round, round the scented apple trees in a season that is perhaps one eternal long summer.
But first: a car feeling its way forward, your body in the boot; the car stops in a deserted lay-by and you are drugged again, your kicks were too much; the car drives across the field and up into the very closest darkness.
64
Ramshäll.
The very brightest side of Linköping.
Perhaps the very finest part of the city, to which the door is closed to most people, where the most remarkable people live.
Maybe it’s the case, Malin thinks, that everyone, consciously or unconsciously, assumes the guise of importance if the opportunity arises, whether large- or small-scale.
Look, we live here!
We can afford it, we’re the kings of the 013 area-code.
Markus’s parents’ house is in Ramshäll, among houses owned by Saab directors, successful entrepreneurs, well-heeled doctors and successful small businessmen.
The villas are almost in the middle of the city, clambering up a slope with a view of the Folkungavallen Stadium and Tinnis, a large communal outdoor swimming pool whose site every property developer in the country covets greedily. At the end of the slope the settlement disappears into the forest or rolls away in narrow streets down towards Tinnerbäcken pond where the dirty-yellow boxlike hospital buildings take over. Best of all is living on the slope, with a view, closest to the city, and that’s where Markus’s parents live.
Malin and Tove are walking side by side in the glow of the streetlamps, and their bodies cast long shadows along the well-gritted pavements. The residents would probably like to put up a fence around the whole area, or an electric fence with barbed wire and a security guard on the gate. Ideas of gated communities aren’t entirely alien to certain right-wing politicians on the city council. So a fence around Ramshäll isn’t perhaps as unthinkable as it might seem.
Stop. Thus far but no further. Us and them. Us against them. Us.
It doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes to walk from the flat to Ramshäll, so Malin decided to brave the cold, in spite of Tove’s protests: ‘Look, I’m coming with you. So you can walk with me.’
‘I thought you said it was going to be fun?’
‘It will be fun, Tove.’
On the way they walk past Karin Johannison’s villa. A yellow-painted house from the thirties with a wooden façade and a veranda.
‘It’s cold, Mum,’ Tove says.
‘It’s healthy,’ Malin says, and with every step she feels her restlessness subsiding, how she is preparing herself to get through the dinner.
‘You’re nervous, Mum,’ Tove suddenly says.
‘Nervous?’
‘Yes, about this.’
‘No, why would I be nervous?’
‘This sort of thing always makes you nervous. Going to someone’s house. And they are doctors.’
‘As if that makes any difference.’
‘Over there,’ Tove says, pointing along the street. ‘Third house on the left.’
Malin sees the villa, a two-storey building of white brick, surrounded by a low fence and with clipped shrubs in the garden.
Inside her the house expands. It becomes a fortified Tuscan hill-town, impossible for a lone foot-soldier to capture.
Inside the house there is a smell of warmth and bay leaves and the cleanliness that only a hard-working Polish cleaner can conjure forth.
The Stenvinkels are standing in the hall, they have shaken
Malin by the hand and she is swaying, unprepared for the unrelenting friendliness.
Mum, Birgitta, is a senior physician at the Ear Clinic, and wants to be called Biggan, and it’s sooo lovely to meet Malin at laaast, when they’ve read so much about her in the Correspondent. Dad, Hans, a surgeon, wants to be called Hasse, hopes they like pheasant, because he got hold of a couple of lovely ones down at Lucullus. Stockholmers, upper middle class, brought to the back of beyond by their careers, Malin thinks.
‘Am I wrong,’ she asks, ‘but can I hear that you’re both from Stockholm?’
‘Stockholm? Does it really sound like it? No, I’m from Borås,’ Biggan says. ‘And Hasse’s from Enköping. We met when we were studying in Lund.’
I know their life history, Malin thinks, and we haven’t got further than the hall.
Markus and Tove have disappeared into the house, and now Hasse is leading Malin into the kitchen. On a sparkling stainless-steel worktop sits a misted cocktail shaker and Malin capitulates, doesn’t even contemplate trying to resist.
‘A martini?’ Hasse asks.
Biggan adds, ‘Watch out, though. He makes them very dry.’
‘Tanqueray?’ Hasse says.
‘Please,’ Malin replies, and minutes later she is standing with a drink in her hand and they say a toast, and the alcohol is clean and pure and she thinks that at least he knows his drink, Hasse.
‘We usually have an aperitif in the kitchen,’ Biggan says. ‘It livens up the atmosphere so.’
Hasse is standing by the cooker. With one hand he waves Malin over to him as his other hand opens the lid of a blackened, well-used cast-iron casserole.
The smell hits Malin as she approaches.
‘Take a look,’ Hasse says. ‘Have you ever seen such lovelies?’
Two pheasants swimming in a puttering yellow sauce and Malin feels hunger grip her stomach.
‘Well?’
‘That looks wonderful.’
‘Oops, that disappeared quickly,’ Biggan says, and at first Malin doesn’t understand what she means, then she sees the empty glass in her hand.
‘I’ll mix you another,’ Hasse says.
And as he is shaking the cocktail in the air Malin asks, ‘Does Markus have any brothers and sisters?’
Midwinter Sacrifice Page 32
