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

by Mons Kallentoft

  ‘Marital status? Didn’t Viveca Crafoord tell you he probably lives alone?’ Zeke suggests.

  ‘We’ll try that,’ Göran Möller says.

  It takes them half an hour to identify the single men on the list.

  Around one hundred and fifty names left.

  ‘We can get passport photographs of them,’ Göran Möller says. ‘Show them to Mehmet Khoni, Julianna Raad, and anyone else who might have seen the man in the hoodie, anyone who might remember something if they’re shown a picture. Check them against the register of car owners too. We might get something that way, find one of these men who has a van.’

  Johan gets up and leaves the room. Malin and the others stay where they are.

  ‘At last, something to work with,’ Malin says.

  ‘If we don’t get anywhere with the passport photos and vehicle register, we’ll have to start checking them out one at a time. Looking at their online activities, or anything that could be connected to our case,’ Elin says.

  ‘We can see if they’ve got a criminal record too,’ Göran says. ‘And if they’ve ever been linked to any old cases of child abuse.’

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Ebba, the receptionist, comes in without waiting for an answer. She’s holding a video cassette in her hand.

  ‘This just arrived from Forensics. They got it from the council yesterday. They wanted you to look at it at once. They’ve made a note of the section they want you to see.’

  Thirty-five minutes and forty seconds into the recording, a black van stops on a dark street.

  A clock at the bottom left of the screen says 01.53. The date is 15 May.

  The vehicle’s number plate is impossible to see.

  The front windscreen is tinted, and the figure behind the wheel only just visible.

  The van’s engine stops, the lights go out, and the figure seems to disappear from behind the wheel. Then nothing happens.

  Followed by more nothing.

  At 02.02, one of the side doors opens, and a few seconds later a young, clearly intoxicated man stumbles into shot and walks over to the open door of the van. He looks inside, apparently curious, then climbs in, and the door quickly closes, and Malin sees the van shake slightly. Thirty seconds later the engine starts and the van drives off.

  ‘That’s a Volkswagen Transporter,’ Zeke says matter-of-factly.

  Malin feels her heart pounding inside her chest.

  Was that where and when Peder Åkerlund was killed, at 02.02, or did he die later, somewhere else? Or was the hydrochloric acid injected into his brain inside the van?

  Because that was, is, Peder Åkerlund on the video.

  They watch the clip again.

  And again.

  ‘It’s not often you see something like this,’ Göran Möller says eventually.

  ‘Thank God,’ Elin says.

  The door to the meeting room opens again.

  ‘I’ve run a check on the database of registered vehicles,’ Johan says. ‘Eleven people on our list own a van.’

  ‘How many have a Volkswagen Transporter?’ Malin asks.

  ‘Why?’

  They show Johan the recording, and in the meantime Malin looks through the eleven names on the list.

  ‘Five of them,’ she says, and stands up.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Johan says.

  First everything happens, then nothing. And now everything again. Malin goes over to the whiteboard and writes the men’s names on it.

  Johan Skogdahl

  Jonas Ahl

  Wilmer Gregory

  Gustav Friberg

  Stefan Ingvarsson

  There’s another knock on the door.

  A young woman in uniform holds out a bundle of printouts of passport photographs.

  ‘None of them has a criminal record,’ she says.

  ‘These are the eleven men who own a van,’ Johan says, thanking the uniform before she disappears.

  He pulls out the pictures of the five Volkswagen owners and lays them down on the table.

  ‘I’ve never seen any of them before,’ Malin says, even if there’s something vaguely familiar about a bearded man named Jonas Ahl.

  ‘Nor me,’ Elin Sand says, and both Göran Möller and Zeke shake their heads.

  ‘But one of them could be our man,’ Göran Möller says, and Malin can’t help feeling pleased that he’s taking charge, even though this is probably just another dead end. It helps fend off her own doubts.

  ‘What do we know about them?’ Malin asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ Johan says. ‘Apart from the fact that they don’t have criminal records.’

  Malin gathers the photographs together, picks them up and says: ‘Zeke and I will go and show these to Julianna. And Mehmet Khoni. Is he still here?’

  The others look at her in surprise.

  ‘He’s down in the custody unit. Long story.’

  ‘You’ll have to check,’ Göran Möller says.

  ‘See if you can get a bit of background on them,’ Malin says, turning to Johan. ‘Elin, you help him,’ then she sees Göran Möller smile before saying: ‘Then that’s what we’ll do, Malin.’

  As she leaves the room her phone rings. The aid agency that sent Tove to hell.

  Damn them.

  She answers and talks to Lisa Jansson while she and Zeke head down to the custody unit.

  The wretched woman says that they now believe that Tove and the other two girls may be in another, more remote mountain village, where some businessmen may have taken them after their vehicle broke down.

  ‘That’s what we’re hoping,’ Lisa Jansson says. ‘We’re trying to get hold of a helicopter to get out there as soon as possible.’

  ‘OK.’

  Malin ends the call. Good news. That has to be counted as good news, surely?

  They reach the custody unit, and the guard lets them inside. The door to Mehmet Khoni’s cell is open.

  62

  Mehmet Khoni frowns and says: ‘I’ve never seen any of these men before.’

  He smells of sweat, and his breath seems to come from deep down in his guts.

  Couldn’t someone have given you a toothbrush? Malin thinks. Then she realises that until a few minutes ago, she and the guards were the only people who knew that Mehmet was here.

  ‘OK,’ Zeke says.

  ‘How long are you planning to stay here?’

  ‘Until you’ve caught the lunatic, or until you throw me out. I’m not in any hurry. It’s better to be here than dead, I reckon.’

  ‘Only the dead can know that,’ Malin says.

  Mehmet smiles, and she hears Zeke chuckle behind her. The two men evidently share the same sense of humour.

  They leave Mehmet and move on to Julianna’s cell.

  The guard turns the lock, and Julianna flies up, she must have been asleep and now they’ve woken her from a dream.

  Harsh.

  But not brutal.

  Malin lays the pictures out on the floor of the cell.

  Julianna sits back down on the bunk and looks at them carefully.

  Shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t recognise any of them.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Malin asks.

  Julianna leans forward, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘I’m still a bit groggy.’

  ‘So you’ve never seen any of them before?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘If I had, what would I stand to gain? Can you get me out of here?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that in Sweden, and you know it,’ Malin says. ‘What’s done is done, but I daresay I could ask the prosecutor to request a more lenient sentence if I say you helped us.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise to do what I can,’ Malin says, feeling a tingle in her stomach that quickly turns to anger.

  Two brutal murders, and she’s sitting here trying to cut deals with us. And after taking potshots at me as well.

  She ought to be glad I don’t give her a beating.

&nbs
p; ‘Have you found Nadja?’ Julianna asks.

  Malin shakes her head.

  ‘Do what you like with the prosecutor,’ Julianna says, ‘but I recognise that one.’

  Julianna Raad points at the man in the middle photograph. Commonplace appearance, straight nose, full beard, and dark brown hair. One of hundreds of thousands of men in Sweden who could be described with exactly the same words.

  ‘Who is he?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘I don’t know his name,’ Julianna says.

  But we do, Malin thinks.

  ‘It could have been him staring at me. In the library café. I remember now. It was him.’

  Malin looks at the photograph.

  Jonas Ahl.

  Could you be our man?

  Nadja spent a lot of time at the library. Could you have seen her there?

  And then Malin realises who he is. The man she bumped into by chance, pushing a book trolley on the lower floor at the library. They exchanged a few words. He worked there. His hair was cut differently and the beard was gone. But it was the same man.

  And she remembers the message hidden inside the calf’s tongue: I shall burn these words to secure them.

  Could that have been a reference to his work?

  ‘Thanks,’ Malin says. ‘We’ll see where that gets us.’

  They hurry back upstairs to the office and over to Johan’s desk. Elin joins them when she sees them rush past.

  A quick report.

  ‘Jonas Ahl. I haven’t got to him yet,’ Johan says.

  ‘Me neither,’ Elin adds, then Johan taps rapidly at his keyboard with the others standing behind him.

  ‘Who is he?’ Malin asks. ‘And get an alert issued on that van of his.’

  ‘Will do,’ Elin says.

  ‘He lives at Piongatan 16,’ Johan says. ‘In the middle of the city. He works as a book restorer at the library.’

  Johan goes on typing.

  ‘He went to university in Gothenburg, and has lived in Malmö, Karlstad, and Örebro.’

  A pause.

  ‘And Umeå.’

  Then another pause.

  ‘Looks like he moved here just over six months ago.’

  ‘Which is when he’s first supposed to have been seen,’ Malin says.

  ‘His time in Karlstad matches the case with the animals. The same with Umeå.’

  Malin looks at his picture again.

  How do they proceed from here?

  Bring him in and try to force him to say where Nadja is? Or shadow him, see what he reveals?

  Play with him for a little while?

  But there’s no time for games. Malin can feel it.

  If anything has ever been urgent, this is it.

  At the same time she gets a feeling that she, they, are still being directed by someone else’s will. Jonas Ahl, if he’s the man they’re looking for, must have worked out that sooner or later they would start to get closer to him. Perhaps he knows more about what we’re doing than we realise?

  But there’s no way he can know about this.

  And something else is bound to happen if we don’t stop him now.

  ‘Like I said before, no criminal record. He was born in Växjö. I can see if Social Services there have anything on him, but that could take a while.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Zeke says, just as Malin’s phone starts to ring.

  Unknown number.

  Something new about Tove?

  Malin clicks to take the call before she has time for any more thoughts about her daughter.

  A woman introduces herself.

  Petra Stålek.

  ‘We met at the library yesterday. You asked me if I’d ever seen a man in a black hoodie here, and I couldn’t think of anyone. But it’s just occurred to me that our restorer, Jonas Ahl, actually wears a black hooded jacket. Even when it’s really cold he sometimes just wears that.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Malin says. ‘If Jonas is there, try to keep him there until we arrive.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘We need to talk to him. Don’t mention the police. It makes people nervous. Just try to keep him there.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s even here at the moment.’

  ‘We’re on our way,’ Malin says.

  63

  As a book restorer, Jonas Ahl would have access to chemicals, Malin thinks as she and Zeke stride through the entrance to the library.

  The large space is hot. The sun is shining on the windows that stretch ten metres from the stone floor to the ceiling.

  Presumably he can get hold of whatever chemicals he wants much more easily than other people.

  Hydrochloric acid.

  Chemicals that can be used to knock people out.

  They go straight to the information desk. A short, skinny woman with her mousy hair cut in a bob stares up at them.

  ‘We’re looking for Jonas Ahl,’ Malin says. ‘I spoke to Petra Stålek a little while ago.’

  ‘Jonas is off today. Was it important? I recognise you. You’re from the police.’

  ‘We should have said so,’ Zeke says. ‘Sorry.’

  Petra Stålek approaches from deeper inside the main hall of the library. She’s wearing a green corduroy dress that complements her red hair.

  They shake hands.

  ‘He isn’t here,’ she says. ‘Apparently he’s taken some time off this week.’

  Malin nods.

  ‘Is your boss here? I mean, the head of the library?’

  ‘I can give her a call.’

  Five minutes later Malin and Zeke are standing outside a bright red door in the administrative part of the library. They knock, and from inside the room a brusque female voice calls: ‘Come in!’

  They go in.

  Behind a clinically clean desk sits a woman in her mid-forties in a grey dress. Her face is dominated by a pointed nose, and her brown hair is pulled up into a tight bun.

  She looks like a bank manager, Malin thinks as the woman introduces herself as Sigrid Trulsson and invites them to sit down.

  ‘You wanted to talk about Jonas?’ she says, switching her phone off. ‘Has he got himself mixed up in something?’

  We don’t know, Malin thinks.

  ‘We’re not at liberty to say,’ Zeke replies.

  ‘What do you want to know about him?’

  ‘When did he start working here?’ Malin asks.

  ‘Six months ago. Before that he was at the regional museum in Örebro, and before that at Västerbotten Museum. He had good references from both places. What’s he done? I find it very hard to imagine he’s done anything silly. He’s not the type.’

  ‘He might not have done anything,’ Malin replies. ‘What type would you say he is?’

  ‘The strong, silent type,’ Sigrid Trulsson says, and laughs. ‘But, joking aside, I don’t really know him that well. He’s a very good restorer, though. We have some priceless old books in our collections, and he looks after them like they were his children. And he’s not afraid to muck in elsewhere if necessary. Some of the books are so heavy, and he helps carry them. He’s strong. And that can actually be very useful in a library.’

  ‘Have there ever been any problems with him?’ Malin asks.

  Sigrid Trulsson looks surprised.

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  ‘Anything,’ Zeke says. ‘Anything at all.’

  ‘Nothing, I’d have to say.’

  ‘He’s never threatened anyone? Been violent?’

  ‘Violent? No, thank God.’

  ‘Or expressed any strong political views?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘No, not that either. Now that I think about it, he’s probably a bit of a lone wolf. Seems happiest on his own.’

  Malin can’t help thinking that the conversation isn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Does he have his own room?’ she asks.

  Sigrid Trulsson nods.

  ‘Can we see it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The laboratory-like room is located in the bas
ement, and has no windows. A number of old, handwritten books lie open on easels. There’s a collection of small brushes on a side table. A white medicine cabinet contains glass bottles of chemicals. The chemical symbols don’t mean much to Malin, but she does recognise one of them.

  Hydrochloric acid.

  ‘Can he get hold of whatever chemicals he needs as part of his job?’

  ‘He has my permission to do that, yes,’ Sigrid Trulsson says. ‘He mixes them himself to get what he needs. He’s very knowledgeable.’

  ‘Can we see the lists of his purchases?’

  ‘Yes, but it might take a little while.’

  ‘The sooner the better.’

  ‘Does he have a computer?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘He does, but he takes it home with him when he’s not here.’

  ‘Yes, the woman at the desk said he was off today. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Malin walks up and down the room. Looks through the papers on the desk, the folders in the bookcase, looking for any sign that Jonas Ahl is the person they’re after, but she doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary. On another side table there’s an open book, Forgotten Swedish Places.

  ‘Well, thanks for taking the time to see us,’ Malin says. They head back upstairs and out into the May sunshine.

  ‘Time to pay him a visit,’ she says, and sees that she’s missed a call from Göran Möller.

  Elin Sand is waiting while Börje Svärd inserts the lock-pick into the door to the flat on Piongatan where Jonas Ahl is supposed to live.

  Göran Möller has sent them here. Told them to be careful, and now they’re standing in the neat stairwell with their guns drawn.

  They’ve already rung the bell, but there was no answer.

  No sounds from inside the flat.

  Börje is working the pick with one hand as he holds his pistol in the other. He mutters a curse, and Elin can see that he’s sweating.

  He seemed happy, really cheerful in the car on the way here just now. The head teacher of Folkunga School had called him, and they’d met up. And Börje let on that she spent the night with him. He was as proud as any teenager over his latest conquest, which amused Elin. There was nothing stupidly macho about his joy, more bemusement that his own curiosity about women never seems to run out.

  And perhaps he genuinely feels something for this teacher?