Savage Spring

by KALLENTOFT MONS

  The detectives stand in silence around Sven’s computer.

  Malin thinks that something like this was bound to come sooner or later, however this all fits together.

  She looks out of the window.

  Towards the hospital. Where nurses and carers slave for long hours for a fraction of what the fat-cats in Stockholm earn, and have always earned, for pressing buttons, for lunatic business deals that have driven the country into the financial abyss. The hospital where patients are given substandard food. Where the unemployed and lonely and anyone surplus to requirements nowadays fill the psychiatric wards with their despair and angst.

  Greedy vampires.

  Obviously someone was bound to react in the end.

  A cloud drifts in front of the sun and darkens both the day and the room.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Waldemar says. ‘I’d happily take him out with a shot to the back of the neck. Looks like he’s a Swede.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Sven says. ‘None of that talk. Pull yourself together, Ekenberg. But you’re right, he seems to be Swedish. We need to keep our heads clear and take this one step at a time, and work through the investigation methodically. OK, this might be the right line, but as far as we know it could also be a red herring, a few idiots playing a prank and trying to exploit the situation.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Waldemar says. ‘Does he look like he’s joking? I say, let’s burn the nutters out of their holes.’

  ‘We need to get someone from the technical division to analyse the video. See what we can get from that,’ Sven says, then there’s a knock at the door, and a moment later a freckled female constable pops her head in.

  ‘A courier’s just delivered the surveillance recordings

  from the camera outside the entrance to the bank. The others will be here as soon as they’ve identified them,’ she says, holding out what looks like an ancient videocassette in her hand. ‘The bank’s head of security has written some notes. He says we ought to look at the video as soon as possible.’

  13

  Are we about to see the face of the murderer?

  Malin feels adrenalin clutch at her heart, making it race.

  The entire investigative team has moved into their usual meeting room, where someone has wheeled in a television and video player.

  The nursery playground is empty and the beautiful spring weather makes the swings and climbing frames look as if they’re crying out for children.

  Still no results from Forensics, even though Malin knows that Karin Johannison and her team have worked through the night. What was it that exploded? What sort of substances was the bomb made of? How was it detonated? Remote control? A timer? And exactly how powerful was it?

  None of us has had time to reflect properly, Malin suddenly realises.

  The bomb exploded yesterday.

  Then we ran off in every direction we could think of, and now the Economic Liberation Front, and this video that we’re about to watch.

  Things have been happening, one after the other, and she gets the feeling that they’re all in a kind of vacuum. It’s as if none of the officers in the investigating team has yet realised that a bomb actually went off in the largest square in the city.

  We’re rushing in all directions, never stopping for breath, Malin thinks. We’re haring after ideas the moment they pop into our overcrowded heads. No time to stop, no time to think. A growing but unspoken sense of panic, wrapped up inside the question that we can probably all hear being whispered within us: is this more than we can cope with?

  Can Linköping deal with this? Fifteen thousand people visited the city’s churches yesterday. Trying to find comfort where they imagined it might be found. And there are more candles in the main square, more flowers the whole time, people have evidently started ordering flowers to be delivered to the square from Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, and God knows how many other towns.

  This can’t be happening. Hasn’t happened.

  But it has happened. And then what do you do? When you can no longer deny it, and are left alone with your fear? Then you send a flower, seek comfort in our collective fate. And maybe it’s even some sort of a relief that there’s actually a real, tangible crisis, not just the slow, abstract assault of the financial mess?

  What about me? Malin thinks.

  I buried Mum yesterday.

  Where do I want to go? What do I want?

  If I slow down, I might be forced to answer that question.

  Better to watch the video.

  Then Karim Akbar presses play, and the police officers lean back in their uncomfortable chairs and watch the recording, shot with an extremely wide angle. At the edge of the screen a man in a black hooded jacket leaves a bicycle beside the cashpoint and then walks away slowly, heading off towards Hospitalstorget.

  Soundless black-and-white pictures.

  Silent police officers.

  The posters in the bank’s windows are clearly visible in the video. Kurtzon Funds.

  Kurtzon.

  Malin recognises the name, but can’t put it into any real context. Some sort of new investment company? But that isn’t interesting, watch the video instead.

  A black rucksack is fastened to the bicycle’s parcel rack.

  The bastard, Malin thinks. But who is he? The same person in the video on YouTube?

  Then, as if in a circle in the middle of the screen, they see the two girls wearing pink jackets and jeans running towards the cashpoint, as a blurry man with bare arms leaves the bank.

  Impossible to see who the man is.

  An ordinary customer.

  But doesn’t she recognise him?

  No. I’m just imagining things, and none of the others reacts.

  But dear God. I recognise the girls.

  They walk close to the cashpoint, then disappear again.

  Then, maybe five minutes later and after two more customers, they’re back again, the children, and you can just make out their mother behind them.

  Their hair dark grey on the black-and-white video, and, in spite of the poor quality of the recording, it’s possible to see that their eyes are shining, that they’re enjoying their morning in the square, conquering the world with each moment.

  Malin closes her eyes.

  Zeke has seen the same thing as her. No doubt any more, it’s the Vigerö twins, the shattered, dead children.

  The force of the bomb in the rucksack must have been directed towards the cashpoint and out towards the square. Not impossible for an expert to arrange.

  The cycle was utterly destroyed. They didn’t find any twisted remnants outside the bank. Karin would have noted it if there had been any. It must have melted, and then been turned into atoms? In the dynamics of an explosion most things are possible.

  Then the girls look at the cycle, at the rucksack, as if it’s making a noise, then everything turns black and silent.

  Malin.

  We see ourselves in our last tremulous seconds, but we can’t feel any pain.

  It didn’t have time to hurt.

  We’re happy about that now.

  Malin, what are you going to do?

  Are you worrying? You saw the man who left the bike outside the bank. It was him. He was the one who blew us up, who made us dead, because that’s what we are, we’re dead.

  Everything went dark, Malin.

  Then light and clear and cold. As if we can’t be free from ourselves until everyone is free.

  You no longer understand what we mean, do you? All the lonely people, full of life, longing.

  Malin.

  What do you see when you see us get blown up? See us become dead?

  The other children are alive, the captives, and we’re jealous of them for that.

  But we don’t want to be where they are. It’s disgusting and horrid there, and the boy is crying and his big sister tries to comfort him, but it doesn’t work, Malin, it doesn’t work, because they’re so alone and scared of everything that’s beyond the da
rkness, scared of all the fury.

  See us, Malin, see us as we were.

  Soundless pictures, but Malin still thinks she can hear the murmuring of the two little girls. But she can’t work out what they’re saying.

  So she shuts out the murmuring and listens to Sven Sjöman.

  ‘Consider this an official investigative meeting,’ he says. ‘We need to structure our work. We’ve been too unfocused so far. To start with: what are we looking at here?’

  ‘That could be the same man as in the video on the Economic Liberation Front website,’ Johan Jakobsson says. ‘Or someone else. The style of clothes is the same, though. And the build is similar.’

  Then Johan falls silent, but the others realise that he wants to say something else.

  ‘That fucking bastard,’ he snarls. ‘I hope he burns in hell.’

  All the other police officers look at him, ashamed that they’re thinking the same thing, surprised at Johan’s outburst, which is anything but characteristic of him, and Waldemar Ekenberg says: ‘He’ll burn.’

  And then Malin sees Börje Svärd take a deep breath.

  ‘For God’s sake, guys, you need to tone this down a bit. We’re all upset at what’s happened, but this really isn’t helping.’

  Then Sven speaks again.

  ‘So now we know that the bomber arrived by bike from the north, and heads off to the east. That gives us the chance to try to pinpoint other security cameras very precisely.

  ‘The process of tracking down recordings is already underway,’ he goes on. ‘And I want the pictures from those cameras inside the bank. And we need to get hold of the other people in the video if we haven’t already done so. We’ll have to put out a request for information from the public as well. Did anyone see a man in a black hooded top in the area? Notice him, recognise his face, maybe the way he looked? And obviously the technical team will have to analyse the video as well.’

  Sven falls silent, suddenly seems tired of his own voice.

  ‘Any thoughts?’ he asks eventually.

  ‘It looks like he was alone,’ Zeke says. ‘But we don’t know if he had any accomplices nearby, or somewhere else. But presumably we can assume that the bomb was in the rucksack.’

  ‘We can,’ Sven says. ‘Karin’s going to confirm that. Let’s start with the Economic Liberation Front. There were pictures of banks in various towns on their website. I’ll make sure the police in those towns know, and can take the necessary precautions. I’m sure the Security Police will be doing the same, and I’ll get the computer guys in Forensics onto it. From now on they’re going to have to put all their resources into tracing the email to Daniel Högfeldt, the video, and the website.’

  ‘Are they going to contact YouTube to find out who uploaded the clip? And which IP address it came from?’ Johan asks.

  ‘I assume so. As you all understand, this new group is our primary line of inquiry. We need to dig them out, at all costs. In all likelihood the man outside the bank is a member of the group. Johan, have you got any ideas about known activists who could be behind something like this? Or the pattern at least, first the attack, then a website and threats?’

  The other officers in the group turn expectantly to Johan, and Malin can see he looks worried.

  ‘Well, this is definitely not the work of right-wing extremists. It goes against their whole ideology. But I did come across a Sofia Karlsson during my search yesterday, a left-wing radical,’ he says. ‘A diehard vegan, and she’s done time for burning down a mink farm in Kisa. Twenty-five years old now. Back then, she and her accomplices used a similar method. They called themselves the Animal Guardians. I remember her from her interviews. She seemed pretty furious about almost everything, but simultaneously capable and intelligent. And evidently she lives in Linköping. We could always have a word with her as a first step.’

  ‘Good, Johan,’ Sven says. ‘Malin, Zeke, get onto that as soon as we’re finished here.

  ‘Anything else, Johan?’ Sven goes on, and Malin thinks how good it is that he’s in command, bringing all his experience and authority to bear.

  ‘From what I was able to find yesterday, she was really the only interesting one. But I’m happy to carry on looking.’

  ‘OK, carry on with that,’ Sven says.

  ‘What about the Security Police?’ Zeke says. ‘They ought to know something, what can we expect from them?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Karim says. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘They called earlier,’ Sven says. ‘I gave them what we had, but they had nothing for us. Or so they said.’

  And before her Malin can see a dozen men dressed in suits. The nightmare image of the Security Police, sweeping in and ruining everything in their path with suspicions and wrong-headed, clumsy assumptions.

  ‘It’s nice not to have too much to do with them,’ Malin says, thinking: the bastards from the Security Police presumably think they’re better than a group of ordinary detectives in a provincial backwater.

  She realises how foolish her thoughts are. Stop feeling inferior, Fors. You aren’t.

  ‘National Crime?’ Börje asks.

  ‘No, for fuck’s sake!’ Waldemar exclaims.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Karim says. ‘Too many cooks.’

  ‘Let’s get on with analysing the video and the clip on YouTube.’

  Then he falls silent. Stares out into the room as if he’s waiting for someone else to suggest something, but the other detectives remain silent.

  ‘Any other ideas of how to crack the mystery of the Economic Liberation Front?’

  ‘We could check the experts on domestic security in Swedish universities?’ Zeke says. ‘See if they know anything about the Economic Liberation Front?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Karim says. ‘I’ll get onto that.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Sven says. ‘We’ll just have to hope we get something once the public have seen the recording and the clip.’

  Malin holds her breath.

  Listens to the others breathing.

  Knows they’re up against it now, that their chances are best during the first seventy-two hours of an investigation.

  ‘OK,’ Sven says. ‘That’s what we’ll do with the Economic Liberation Front. It could be a group, a single individual, or something else entirely. Well, are we all in agreement? We’ll just have to see what turns up. OK, now on to the general state of the investigation.’

  Sven gives them a summary, as if he were telling them about a holiday or a conference in a luxurious country house.

  None of the interviews with people at the scene, or those with minor injuries came up with anything of interest. But the number of people questioned could be expanded to cover anyone who saw anything unusual anywhere in the city centre. Neither the staff in the bank nor the branch manager seemed to have noticed anything particular. Some of the staff were still in shock, but they had all been questioned now.

  And the Islamic line of inquiry.

  Nothing had cropped up there. And the interview with the imam hadn’t led to anything. Maybe it had been a clumsy and over-hasty response. From now on caution and respect were the order of the day there, absolute caution.

  ‘I don’t want to have any accusations of racism in the media,’ Karim says when Sven stops talking.

  ‘He seemed very reasonable,’ Malin says. ‘And the mosque was full last night. They’re just as worried as everyone else.’

  ‘Good,’ Karim says. ‘But I’d like to point out that I still think it was right to talk to Al Kabari. He, if anyone, ought to know what the mood is among Linköping’s Muslim community.’

  ‘We’ll keep that line of inquiry open anyway,’ Sven says. ‘We can’t afford to drop anything as things stand.’

  ‘I agree. We can’t drop the Islamic angle. But even so, we know who did it now,’ Waldemar protests. ‘It has to be that bastard Liberation Front. Why would any innocent group claim responsibility for something where two girls were murdered?’

  ‘Fo
r the fun of it,’ Malin says, crossing her legs under the table.

  ‘That’s horribly cynical,’ Johan exclaims. ‘For the fun of it?’

  ‘Or to take the opportunity to focus attention on issues they think are important.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Waldemar says. ‘We’ll have them soon enough.’

  ‘Any other lines of inquiry?’ Zeke wonders. ‘Biker gangs? Cashpoint raiders?’

  ‘We can drop the cashpoint idea,’ Sven says. ‘There’s nothing to suggest that was what it was. And the way things look at the moment, we’ve got no connection to any biker gangs.’

  ‘OK,’ Zeke says.

  ‘What about the explosives? Where could they have got hold of them? What sort was it, and what reagent did they use?’ Börje asks.

  ‘Karin is going to let us know. Soon. You and Waldemar can take a look into how they might have got hold of it,’ Sven says. ‘Have there been any thefts from munitions stores recently? Or construction companies that stock explosives? Can you buy anything online in Sweden? You seem to know a fair bit about that, Börje.’

  ‘I’m just an interested amateur,’ Börje says, putting his hands out. ‘The Anarchist Cookbook is bizarre, but it’s an entertaining read. It’ll be easier to track things down once Karin’s worked out what was involved.’

  Outside the windows the doors of the nursery have opened.

  Brightly coloured youngsters pour out.

  They throw themselves at the various apparatus, giddy at their bodies’ capacity for movement.

  Malin thinks of Tove, who must be in school at the moment, the way her movements are so completely different from these children’s, so languid, almost lethargic, yet still conscious and measured, unbelievably sexy to any boy of her own age. Then she thinks of her dad, probably clearing away the last remnants of the previous day’s gathering after the funeral.

  And she thinks of her mum, who in all likelihood is ash now, and it occurs to her that they haven’t discussed what to do with the ashes. Are they going to scatter them somewhere? They didn’t do it immediately after the funeral, so Dad probably has the urn at home. Are they going to be scattered on the golf course in Tenerife? Or is she going to end up in the memorial grove where Malin sometimes goes when the sense of loss for something she’s not quite sure of gets too much for her.