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

by Mons Kallentoft

  Zeke stands there silently.

  Breathing in and out, then rubs his head with one hand.

  ‘The bastard has a point, though,’ he says. ‘What do we do with our freedom of speech? Write a load of crap about celebrities, a lot of drivel, spewing out anything and everything.’

  That’s what scares me, Malin thinks, looking over towards Daniel and the photographer. That evil seems to have a point this time, that it loves something, has a passion that every thinking person must surely sympathise with.

  The importance of words.

  An evil that loves humanity. An evil that is so black that it becomes white, and then red? Beyond the white light where she found Maria Murvall’s nemesis? That case took years for her to solve.

  Malin walks away from the others, towards Daniel.

  He’s about to ask her something when she reaches him, but something in the look on her face stops him.

  Instead he holds his arms out to her.

  And she lets herself fall into his embrace.

  36

  You can never silence me.

  Göran Möller has written those words on the whiteboard in the meeting room.

  Outside, the sun is sinking in the sky, making it pulse in shades of pink, playing tricks on Malin’s tired eyes.

  What colour am I?

  Now pink, red, yellow, then icy blue, and soon black.

  Malin can see confusion in her colleagues’ faces. Where is this going to end?

  And the certainty: there is a desperate urgency.

  Nadja Lundin might still be alive. Even if the message implied that she’s been murdered.

  You can play for a while.

  Whoever it is they’re hunting, whoever it is they’re being hunted by, that person sees murder and kidnap as a game, a diversion.

  A buried calf’s tongue beside a magic oak. A cryptic but not so cryptic message.

  ‘So what have we got?’ Göran Möller asks. He’s standing by the whiteboard, dressed in a thin white shirt. ‘The floor’s all yours. Because I have no idea where we should start.’

  At first Malin feels irritated by Göran Möller’s passivity, his admission of weakness, but then she has to admit that he’s doing the right thing, he’s showing them what they’ve got to work with, showing that we’re in the eye of the storm and that there are rules here that we don’t yet recognise, we need to react and act accordingly.

  ‘We’ve checked out Nadja’s father,’ Waldemar says. ‘Nothing remotely suspicious about him. His business looks very solid, and I can’t find anything else odd about him.’

  ‘He works in game design,’ Börje says, ‘and we’ve been contacted by someone who wants to play with us.’

  ‘That’s just a coincidence,’ Göran Möller says.

  ‘What about the political angle?’ Börje goes on. ‘Could this be a sick way of attracting attention? Getting rid of enemies? A confused young person in some political camp who’s gone berserk?’

  ‘This isn’t the result of an outburst of anger,’ Malin says. ‘This has been carefully planned.’

  Göran Möller adjusts the collar of his shirt.

  Looks first at Elin Sand, then at the other detectives.

  ‘We’ve interviewed a number of people in relation to that line of inquiry. And so far we haven’t found anything that indicates any political connection to Peder’s murder, or Nadja’s disappearance. Everyone we’ve spoken to has been surprised and afraid.’

  Except Suliman Hajif, Malin thinks.

  ‘But the crimes are connected,’ Göran Möller says. ‘That much is clear.’

  ‘Can we be one hundred per cent certain of that?’ Malin says. ‘Couldn’t the tongue and that note be a way of focusing our attention in the wrong direction? Maybe we’ve been contacted by Peder Åkerlund’s murderer, and Nadja is a completely separate case?’

  Malin hears her own voice, the underlying tone. She doesn’t actually believe her own doubts, just wants to toss them into the room, see where the uncertainty can take them.

  ‘Maybe,’ Göran Möller retorts. ‘But that’s not very likely.’ He pauses before going on: ‘The search of Max Friman’s flat hasn’t produced any results.’

  Perhaps he wasn’t hiding anything after all, Malin thinks.

  Waldemar coughs.

  Then he says: ‘Let’s just hope it’s a darkie next time.’

  And Malin feels like punching him in the head. The others are sitting there open-mouthed, even though they’re used to Waldemar’s idiotic remarks, and Göran Möller says: ‘For fuck’s sake, Waldemar!’

  Silence settles on the room. Because they’re all starting to realise that there will be a next time if they don’t succeed in their work.

  ‘Our conversations with people who know Nadja haven’t come up with anything either,’ Elin says. ‘Her teachers are just ordinary people, her friends, ordinary teenage girls.’

  ‘And the man in the hoodie? The one outside the school?’ Göran asks.

  Elin shakes her head.

  ‘He feels like a ghost,’ she says. ‘I found our report, but it didn’t say much. We haven’t had time to knock on doors near the school to find out if anyone noticed anyone matching that description.’

  ‘Anything new from Forensics?’ Malin asks.

  ‘They haven’t found anything special so far in any of the computers or mobiles,’ Johan says. ‘Andersson called me a little while ago. And we haven’t managed to identify any security cameras along Peder Åkerlund’s route home. I’m sorry, but everything’s been moving so fucking quickly, and the council are pretty bloody slow, to put it mildly.’

  Johan swearing.

  He never usually does that, Malin thinks, then says: ‘Words. He or she seems to be obsessed with words. What does that mean?’

  ‘There are people who say that everything begins with words,’ Göran Möller says, and Malin sees Börje and Waldemar glance suspiciously at their new boss. ‘Or with colour, nuances,’ Göran goes on, and now they’re looking at him as if he were mad.

  What the hell does he mean? they seem to be wondering. Hippy nonsense? Now?

  ‘What the hell does he mean?’ Waldemar hisses.

  ‘The tone,’ Zeke says.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I mean that for this individual, perhaps words are the most important thing. Taking care of them. That that’s more important than what anyone thinks. And that’s why he or she – or they, for that matter – attacks people who’ve expressed unambiguous views. The perpetrator may not care about the content of those opinions, but is somehow angry that they were expressed at all.’

  ‘That’s some serious anger,’ Elin Sand says.

  ‘There’s a madness in that way of thinking,’ Malin says. ‘A madness that somehow seems to fit perfectly here. It’s so odd that it could actually be true.’

  For the first time she’s been impressed with Göran Möller. The sensitive way he’s dared to approach their case.

  ‘Have we got anywhere tracing the email that led us to Stenkullamotet?’ Göran Möller asks.

  ‘Forensics are working on it,’ Johan says. ‘It’s very complicated. I’m not up to it, but they’ve got someone new who might be able to do it.’

  Malin notices how tired Johan sounds. The more digitised the world has become, the more work there is for him. But he’s never seemed tired before.

  Outside the windows, darkness is slowly falling.

  As yet invisible stars have occupied the sky, making it their own, and silent voices whisper down across the Earth from their points.

  But whatever those voices are whispering, the detectives in their meeting room don’t hear it.

  They just hear their own silence.

  And a recently-appointed boss saying: ‘Go home and get some sleep now. And we’ll try to take another look at this with fresh eyes tomorrow.’

  And Malin knows that they’re nowhere close to the end yet. This is only the beginning.

  37

&n
bsp; I’d like to talk about my mum.

  She had boiling water thrown over her, trying to protect me.

  She went to the police in the end. Told them about the abuse, the water, the cruelty, about how the town’s angel was a monster.

  The police didn’t believe her. Asked her to leave.

  What evidence did she have?

  Wasn’t she simply being jealous? Everyone had heard the rumours about his mistress in Stockholm.

  She left. Thought she could hear them laughing at her behind her back.

  Thought they were toying with her.

  Then he came home one day after the party conference. He hadn’t managed to get the position on one of the committees that he’d wanted.

  So he drank and turned violent, and Mum shouted at him to stop.

  I was nine years old at the time.

  I saw him hit her head against the radiator. Fill her mouth with plant soil.

  Old women and kids should shut up, he yelled at me before walking out.

  I sat there for days and nights.

  Staring at Mum.

  I never saw Dad again.

  He hanged himself in his prison cell.

  And I didn’t say a word for the next four years.

  38

  Karin is bent over a microscope when Malin enters the laboratory. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling make her face look pale, make her look older than she is, and the heavy metallic smell in the air makes Malin feel sick.

  She didn’t want to come here. Would rather have gone to the gym with Elin, or gone out for a run, or home to Daniel, but she came anyway.

  Karin looks up from the microscope. Her white coat lends her an air of authority, and Malin suddenly feels uncertain.

  ‘Hi, Malin.’

  Her voice is soft, and Malin’s uncertainty vanishes.

  ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Not great. I’ve examined the coffin. Nothing on it but soil. No fingerprints on the note either. I’m trying to get something from the tongue, but that’s probably pointless. And I’ve just had the results of the DNA comparison from the hair found out in Svartmåla. No match in the database.’

  ‘Zeke went home,’ Malin says.

  Karin nods.

  ‘He just called. He’s sent Tess’s babysitter home.’

  Karin seems pleased that she’s there, and Malin looks at her colleague, thinks about the secrets they share, the closeness that brings.

  ‘Of all the crazy things,’ Malin says.

  ‘Seems to be a methodical individual, at any rate,’ Karin says. ‘Bearing in mind the acid in the brain. The note hidden inside the tongue.’

  ‘What do you think about Nadja? Is she alive?’

  Karin lowers her eyes towards the microscope and stares at it for a moment before looking up at Malin again.

  ‘I hope she’s alive, Malin. I hope so.’

  In the basement of the police station, Elin Sand is doing push-ups.

  Three times fifty, and she feels the weight of her breasts against the floor, how her stomach muscles have to work to keep her body straight, the way her arms tremble as she approaches her target.

  Am I going to make it?

  She pushes and pushes and pushes, and then she’s there, and lets herself sink down onto the sweaty mat.

  Should we all be frightened? she thinks. Anyone in Linköping who has ever expressed an opinion?

  She rests her cheek on the mat. Enjoys its relative cool. And the sensation of living in a present where the past doesn’t matter too much.

  I can live here, she thinks. Right now, I’m OK here.

  Waldemar Ekenberg and Börje Svärd are sitting in silence in Börje’s kitchen, at either end of the table.

  In front of them on the table is a bottle of whisky and two glasses filled to the brim with liquor and ice. A pan full of beef stroganoff is bubbling away on the stove.

  They’ve got into the habit of doing this sometimes after work.

  Preparing a simple meal together.

  Getting drunk.

  Then Waldemar stays over in what used to be Anna’s room.

  They never talk much. Don’t need words, and what would they say to each other anyway? Talk about their feelings?

  Work?

  Gossip about their colleagues?

  Neither of them is interested in any of that.

  ‘How are the dogs?’ Waldemar asks.

  ‘Fine,’ Börje says, ‘but I’ve been thinking about getting rid of them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m ready for something new,’ Börje says. ‘So the dogs will have to go.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Big changes have to happen suddenly. Like an explosion.’

  He finds himself thinking of the head teacher at Folkunga School, Kristina Nederdahl, and the game they were playing with each other. He hopes she’s going to call, believes she will.

  ‘You’ll miss those dogs,’ Waldemar says. ‘Just like I’d miss the old woman if I threw her out.’

  ‘You’ll never throw her out.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time before those kennels are empty,’ Waldemar says. ‘Once you’ve said it, that’s what happens, isn’t it?’

  Börje Svärd grins towards his friend, takes a deep gulp of the whisky, and says: ‘Words. Everything starts with words.’

  ‘What a load of fucking shite,’ Waldemar says.

  Karim Akbar strokes his seven-month-old son Abel on his cheek. He’s sleeping softly and soundly in his cot in the little room in their villa in Lambohov. They haven’t had any problems with him. Vivianne has turned out to be the perfect, reassuring mother, and his own paternal efforts have been better this time around.

  Mummy, daddy, baby.

  The game, the seriousness of that.

  So serious that it’s incomprehensible, and so he’s playing instead. As hard as he can now that he’s on paternity leave. Making a fool of himself with Abel. Playing peekaboo.

  If we can’t deal with being grown up, Karim thinks, we play. And if we were never allowed to be children, we play.

  He looks down at his son. Hears Vivianne preparing dinner out in the kitchen.

  He remembers his own father, hanging from the noose in the bathroom. Remembers the way words were taken from him.

  The way his own childhood was snatched away from him at that moment.

  And he feels like waking Abel.

  And playing and playing and playing with him. Play with him until the end of the Earth and back.

  Johan Jakobsson has gone home. He’s made dinner for his family, and now he’s sitting in his study in the basement, searching on his computer for a crazed individual who might fit the contradictions of their case.

  But he can’t find anyone.

  For people today, opinions themselves are the important thing, he thinks. Being able to self-identify, starting with ‘I BELIEVE’.

  Not ‘I THINK’.

  Sometimes he feels tired of police work. With his skills, he would easily be able to find another job that paid a good deal better. He could even move to Malta and earn three hundred thousand kronor a month, tax-free, as a hacker. The heat would doubtless be good for Stella, and their health insurance would work out there.

  Occasionally he feels tempted. But usually not.

  He hasn’t mentioned anything to his wife about the opportunities that are actually out there. A freer, richer life. When they sat down to plan their holiday that summer, he realised they couldn’t even afford a package deal.

  Shit.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  Stella is asleep now, and he wishes he could comfort her in her dreams. Tell her the pain is gone now.

  He’s found his way onto a website belonging to an anonymous right-wing extremist.

  Exterminate Sweden’s Niggers.

  Death to Judaism.

  Dear God, Johan thinks. What am I doing?

  We need to try to improve things.

  A few
of the folders on Peder Åkerlund’s computer still haven’t been cracked. From his bag he pulls out the copy of the hard drive that Forensics gave him, and delves into it.

  He spends hours sitting there in the darkness, trying to find his way past the passwords.

  And in the end the folders open up.

  And there they are.

  The text and images from the websites they were told about by Julianna Raad. All dated after Peder Åkerlund’s supposed conversion. Johan clicks from file to file, and there’s no doubt at all. Peder Åkerlund was behind those websites, no one else.

  He remained a racist until his dying day.

  Anything other than that was merely playing to the gallery.

  Göran Möller is sitting alone in front of the television in his two-room flat beside the Stångå River. He bought the flat as soon as he moved to Linköping, thought it best to settle down quickly, prove to himself that he was here to stay.

  The case they are working on now troubles him. Not so much because of the violence, but the ideological aspect. The calculation, the madness of it.

  People can say things they don’t really mean out of fear and anger.

  But, on the other hand, those words reveal the structure of thought processes that are usually invisible to the speaker.

  He channel hops from a film to a repeat of a talk show.

  What are they on about?

  Some non-issue.

  He makes his way to the Knowledge Channel, which is showing a documentary about the artist Gerhard Richter. Göran has seen it before, but is happy to watch it again. He loses himself in the concentrated, constantly shifting brilliance of the German artist. Canvasses covered in running paint. The investigation feels very similar. As if it were constantly running away from them, stopping a clear image from appearing.

  He switches the television off.

  Sits quietly in his lonely darkness, and thinks about Malin Fors. He had heard about her long before he moved to Linköping. An edgy, broken, but brilliantly talented detective. Sven Sjöman gave her a lot of freedom, but simultaneously held onto her reins tightly: she was worth the risk and the worry, because of the results she achieved.

  She seems much calmer than her reputation now.

  Presumably because she’s not drinking.