Earth Storm_The new novel from the Swedish crime-writing phenomenon_Malin Fors

by Mons Kallentoft

‘You’re leaving one thing out,’ Anders Åkerlund says. His voice is tight, authoritarian.

  Rebecka rolls her wheelchair out of the room towards the kitchen.

  ‘What isn’t she telling us?’

  ‘I know he received a threatening letter from someone in the party.’

  ‘Who?’ Malin asks.

  ‘He didn’t want to say.’

  ‘Did you see the letter?’

  ‘No, but he told us about it.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who it might have been?’

  Anders Åkerlund bites his tongue. Behind the grief in his eyes Malin can see his shame at his son’s attitudes, and she understands why Rebecka doesn’t want to talk about the letter. She wants to protect her son’s memory.

  ‘You might want to talk to Max Friman,’ Anders says.

  Malin makes a note of the name on her phone.

  ‘Do you know where we could find him?’

  Anders Åkerlund shakes his head as his wife returns. In her lap she has a tray that she keeps carefully balanced as she pushes the wheels in turn.

  A jug of pale red juice.

  Four glasses.

  ‘I thought you might be thirsty.’

  Once she’s put the tray down on the coffee table she turns towards Malin.

  ‘We were very young when Peder was born, but then I had my accident and we didn’t have any more children.’

  No more children.

  Malin can understand that sorrow, and perhaps Rebecka can tell, because the next moment she rolls over to Malin, takes her hand and whispers: ‘He was my only child.’

  Then she starts to cry, and Anders Åkerlund looks as if he wants to get up from the sofa to comfort his wife, but his muscles won’t obey him.

  ‘My only child. And now you’re here to tell me that he’s been murdered.’

  She lets go of Malin’s hand, rolls backwards, and with a sweeping gesture knocks the jug of juice from the table.

  ‘How dare you? How dare you do a thing like that? How DARE you?’

  11

  Being alone is bittersweet, Elin Sand thinks. The best thing about it is the silence. Not having to listen to anyone else shuffling about, not having to hear someone open their mouth without actually having anything to say, without thinking first.

  Her girlfriend, or former girlfriend, the doctor, was just like that. An opinion machine, as it turned out.

  Women’s rights.

  Equality.

  Feminism.

  Elin has never had much time for all that. Not the rhetoric, anyway. Her entire life has been a feminist act, proving by her actions that she as a woman is just as good as a man.

  That’s the only way.

  She looks around the sparsely furnished room.

  This is a single man’s home, she thinks.

  She and Waldemar Ekenberg have entered Peder Åkerlund’s flat together with a forensics officer. The flat is on the seventh floor of one of the tall yellow blocks of rented flats in Johannelund. You’re close to the sky up here, Elin thinks, and outside the weather has got even hotter, and over on the horizon, the world becomes bluer and bluer the more you stare at the various shades.

  The world feels infinite.

  Then it disappears.

  They’ve opened the balcony door to air the stagnant flat. The forensics officer is busy in the kitchen, God knows what he’s looking for. He’s already packed Peder Åkerlund’s computer away.

  The little one-room flat is neat and clean, despite being rather spartan. No signs of a struggle. The few pieces of furniture seem to have come from flea markets, but still indicate a degree of taste, all of it matching shades of brown. On the walls hang reproductions of paintings Elin recognises. Produced by that failed artist who became a dictator.

  Adolf Hitler.

  If you can’t paint, you might as well murder millions of people.

  If you can’t get acceptance, you might as well fight.

  It’s odd that Peder Åkerlund still has them on his walls after becoming a fervent anti-racist, she thinks, then looks away from the pictures and goes out onto the balcony.

  Looks out across Linköping.

  She’s lived here almost two years now, but knows she’ll never feel at home among all the self-important academics and civil servants. There’s something off-puttingly smug about the city. A lot of people here think they’re so fucking special without having any good grounds for doing so. Even the shop assistants are supercilious. A load of young girls who really think they’re something.

  Elin realises the way her thoughts sound, and she doesn’t want to be like that. Doesn’t want to be a bitter bitch, and thinks to herself that she needs to get away from here.

  In a way, there’s less racism here than in other cities. It feels as if people from other cultures are let in without too much fuss. As if the inhabitants understand that immigrants are needed.

  This goes hand in hand with a certain highbrow attitude. The majority of Linköping’s residents think too highly of themselves to look down on anyone because they come from somewhere else or have a different coloured skin. But their judgement of those of their own who show signs of eccentricity is all the harsher.

  She goes back inside.

  Waldemar snorts and rubs his brown trousers, making a rough, almost crackling sound. Elin can see how badly he wants a cigarette, how alone he seems to be without nicotine. She can’t help smiling at him.

  ‘Stop grinning, for fuck’s sake.’

  He used to behave in a terribly sexist way towards her. But he’s almost stopped that now, even if sometimes he can’t help commenting on her long legs.

  She likes him. Likes the fact that he can be rough.

  She doesn’t have any time for people who don’t realise that force is sometimes necessary, even for the good guys. Only weedy left-wing intellectuals would come up with an idea like that. People who’ve never experienced violence, or been faced with its consequences.

  ‘Tidy,’ Elin says, carefully opening a desk drawer. She doesn’t want to mess anything up for the forensics officer.

  ‘External order, internal chaos. Even if he had a point to start with. There are too many coloureds in the city.’

  ‘Come off it, Waldemar,’ Elin says. ‘Don’t start all that again. I thought you’d moved on from that sort of talk?’

  ‘How many coloureds do you think there are living in this building? Thirty per cent? Forty? Hardly surprising that he ended up a racist.’

  Elin shakes her head and goes through the rest of the desk.

  Nothing but bills, blank white paper.

  She looks inside the only wardrobe.

  Clothes, a few bits of sports equipment. In the bookcase she finds some leaflets from the Sweden Democrats. The usual patriotic nonsense. She also finds some books about Nelson Mandela.

  There’s a chest of drawers in the small hallway. Elin pulls out the top drawer.

  Underpants. Socks.

  The second drawer.

  T-shirts.

  The third drawer.

  Empty, apart from a few letters.

  Elin takes them out carefully.

  Peder Åkerlund’s name on the front of the envelopes.

  No address, no sender’s name.

  She opens one of the letters. Pulls the sheet of paper from the envelope and unfolds it, and finds herself looking at a photoshopped picture of Peder Åkerlund. His head has been chopped off, and under the picture is a mass of Arabic writing that Elin can’t decipher.

  ‘Can you read Arabic?’ she calls to Waldemar.

  He snorts.

  ‘I’d rather go gay than learn Arabic.’

  Then she calls to the forensics officer: ‘Simon, you need to take these letters.’

  12

  An open, freshly-ploughed field to the right, ridges of soil like curling snakes between the deep furrows. To the left thin pine forest.

  Malin toys with her phone as they head along Brokindsleden towards the city centre.
/>
  She hears a howl behind the car, then beside her, and sees a motorcycle disappear towards the horizon.

  Someone with the cheek to blast past them at what must be at least one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Black leather. A ghost-rider, playing his way towards death.

  They don’t take up the chase. More important things to be getting on with.

  It feels good to have the conversation with the Åkerlunds out of the way. Good to get out of Sturefors. She doesn’t want to have to go out there again, but as long as she lives in Linköping it’s inevitably going to happen from time to time.

  Google.

  Max Friman.

  Who’s supposed to have threatened Peder Åkerlund. Because that was what Anders Åkerlund was implying, wasn’t it?

  ‘What have you found?’ Zeke asks as they pull up at a red light outside Ekholmen Shopping Centre.

  Linköping, in miniature. On one side the flashy doctors’ villas of Hjulsbro. On the other the mass housing project of Ekholmen. Satellite dishes on the balconies, women in niqabs with pushchairs.

  The car park a mixture of rusting wrecks and shiny Mercedes. A collision of worlds, yet somehow not.

  Max Friman.

  Leader of the five Sweden Democrats on the council, took over when Peder Åkerlund resigned. He’s twenty-two years old. A well-groomed lad who evidently sells computers at the I-Centre in Tornby. In all the pictures of the council Malin has been able to find he’s wearing a suit and tie, his gaze is focused and challenging, his face unremarkable. He has the same sort of military hairstyle as Peder Åkerlund, just slightly longer.

  ‘Head for Tornby,’ Malin says. ‘We’re going to talk to Max Friman.’

  The building in Tornby that houses the I-Centre has seen better days. The red-brown cladding is stained with mould, and the low white roof needs repainting.

  The car park is almost full, and the harshly lit showroom glows with some fifty or so computer screens. The room is hot, and the smell of sweat very noticeable.

  There’s an urge to buy in people’s eyes, the adverts have worked, desire has been stoked.

  You can’t live without me.

  I’m your new best friend.

  It’s as if the computers dangle those promises, Malin thinks, fulfilling the dreams of the empty advertising slogans.

  They go over to the information desk. A man in his thirties, dressing in a red shirt and blue tie, greets them far too familiarly.

  Zeke holds out his police ID.

  ‘We’re looking for a Max Friman.’

  The man gets nervous, fiddles with the bundle of receipts in his hand, and says: ‘What’s he done?’

  Then he pulls himself together, aware that he’s not going to get an answer to his question.

  ‘Max is standing over there with some customers.’

  He points towards the back of the showroom, at a thickset man with his back to them. A similar shirt, presumably a similar tie. The man is talking to some very attentive customers, it looks as if he’s got them hooked.

  ‘We’ll wait until he’s finished,’ Zeke says, but Malin isn’t so sure. It could take a long time; salesmen often seem to have verbal diarrhoea.

  Sure enough.

  Five minutes pass.

  Seven.

  That’s enough.

  Malin goes over to the corner where Max Friman is standing with his customers, taps him on the shoulder, and holds up her police ID.

  He turns around. Sees the ID.

  What’s your face showing? Malin wonders, staring at his thin features.

  Fear, shame, guilt?

  No, surprise, anxiety. That’s it, isn’t it?

  ‘Malin Fors, police. We’d like to talk to you.’

  He doesn’t appear to know what’s happened.

  ‘I’m busy with customers at the moment. Can you wait ten minutes?’

  The customers, two men and a woman, all dressed in suits, take a few steps back, and one of the men says: ‘We can come back another time.’

  They walk off.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Max Friman says. ‘A sale worth a hundred thousand just walked out of the door.’

  The windows of the staffroom look out onto two shipping containers on the loading bay. A truck has pulled up, and the driver and another red-shirt are unloading boxes of computers.

  They’ve explained about Peder Åkerlund, about him being found dead, probably murdered.

  Max Friman lost it when he heard the news. Picked up the cup of coffee in front of him. Drained it as if it was full of water, and his body reacted instinctively when great gulps of uncomfortably hot liquid entered his mouth. But he did at least manage to turn his head, and sprayed coffee across the shabby, cork-tiled floor rather than the table.

  As he wiped it up, he kept repeating: ‘That’s not possible. Who’d want to do a thing like that?’

  And now he’s sitting opposite them, fighting back tears.

  ‘Did you know each other well?’ Malin asks.

  ‘We were good friends. I should say straight away that he was around mine last night. We had a few beers and talked until half past one. Then he went home. A school night and everything.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ Malin asks.

  ‘On Ladugatan, down by Åhlén’s.’

  ‘So you still socialised even though he’d changed his political opinions?’

  Max Friman looks expressionlessly at Malin. Then he smiles.

  ‘We’ve been friends for a long time.’

  ‘So, good friends?’

  Max Friman nods.

  You met up yesterday. So you could be the last person to see him alive, Malin thinks.

  So you could be the person who killed him.

  ‘How did you find him? What happened?’

  ‘We can’t go into that,’ Zeke says. ‘Did you often drink together?’

  ‘Once a week or so. So you’re saying that Peder was murdered on his way home from mine?’

  Neither Malin nor Zeke replies.

  ‘You weren’t angry with him about his new views?’ Malin goes on.

  ‘You don’t think that I …? That I’ve got anything to do with this?’

  If you did, you probably wouldn’t volunteer the fact that he’d been around at your flat before saying anything else, Malin thinks. But, on the other hand, you don’t seem particularly bright.

  ‘We don’t think anything,’ Zeke says. ‘We’re trying to uncover the facts.’

  ‘We heard that you threatened him,’ Malin says. ‘Sent him threatening letters.’

  Max Friman holds his hands up in front of him, palms out, as if to protect himself.

  ‘I’ve heard the rumours as well.’

  So there were rumours. That’s what Anders Åkerlund meant when he mentioned Max Friman’s name.

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’re completely wrong.’

  Perhaps you didn’t send any letters, Malin thinks. Perhaps those rumours spread because of the other letters? The ones Elin and Waldemar found. Elin called her a while ago to tell her.

  But stick with it, for now.

  ‘You didn’t think he’d become a problem after he was expelled from the party?’

  ‘What do you mean, a problem?’

  ‘When he changed his opinions. Wanted to go to schools and give talks?’

  ‘No, like I said,’ Max Friman says, ‘that wasn’t a problem. He probably felt the party had let him down.’

  Malin sees Max Friman’s pupils contract. He isn’t lying, but he could well be hiding something.

  Then he leans back, and the fact that his friend is dead, gone for good, seems to sink in, and he gets angry. He slams his fist down on the table, making the coffee cups jump.

  ‘It’s the fucking Muslims who’ve done this. Or left-wing bastards. They made threats against him, no one can deny that. They didn’t give a damn about his conversion.’

  ‘You mean the letters showing him with his head cut off? The ones written in Arabic?’ />
  Max Friman looks at them in surprise.

  Unmasked.

  But he says: ‘I don’t know anything about any letters. None at all.’

  ‘But you just said he’d been threatened.’

  ‘On his website. Sure. In the comments on there.’

  ‘Have you ever received any threats yourself?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘No,’ Max Friman says. ‘I keep a low profile. Jimmie prefers it that way.’

  Jimmie.

  Jimmie Åkesson.

  Holding the lunatics in his party on a short rein, as best he can.

  ‘But you know that Peder received threats?’

  ‘Yes. From anonymous Muslims and left-wingers. On his website. The new one as well as his old one. Maybe a few anonymous emails.’

  ‘Do you have any names?’ Malin asks.

  ‘No, nothing definite. But you can check with the mosque, and the Revolutionary Front here in the city. That’s where you’ll find the dregs of humanity.’

  Malin tries to control her rising anger, but only half succeeds.

  ‘It’s probably best to keep that sort of talk to yourself. I could take you in for that.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Max Friman says. ‘We live in a country with freedom of speech, and what I just said doesn’t count as incitement to hatred. It’s just the truth. And I want you to be very clear about one thing: Peder was seriously fucking smart. A thousand times better than you’ll ever be.’

  ‘You were drinking beer last night,’ Zeke says. ‘Did you argue about anything?’

  Max Friman shakes his head.

  ‘How many beers did you drink?’

  ‘Six each, maybe.’

  ‘And you didn’t disagree about anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Malin asks.

  ‘We talked about the state of the police,’ Max Friman grins. ‘About how bad the cops in this city are at protecting its citizens from the scum. And how they waste loads of time harassing innocent people when they ought to be trying to solve crimes instead.’

  Max Friman pauses. Looks Malin straight in the eye with barely concealed contempt.

  ‘That’s what we talked about. Happy now?’

  13

  Books that rhyme. Books with nothing but pictures, books that are too long, books that are too short.