Summertime Death mf-2

by Mons Kallentoft

  They introduce themselves and Zeke takes off his sunglasses, to build up a rapport, or at least to try to.

  ‘Good summer job. Must have been hard to get?’

  ‘Easy. And hot. No one wants to spend all summer pulling out weeds in the bloody cemetery. But I need the money.’

  Nathalie Falck kicks her Doc Marten boots in the grass as she says the word money.

  Then they ask about Theresa Eckeved.

  ‘So you don’t have any idea where she might have gone?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Had an ice cream on Trädgårdstorget.’

  ‘Did she seem different? Did you notice anything odd, anything unusual?’

  ‘No, not that I can think of.’

  Nathalie Falck is making an effort to speak in a deep voice.

  Sweat on her forehead. Down Malin’s back.

  ‘Are you worried?’ Malin asks.

  ‘No. Why should I be?’

  ‘She’s missing.’

  ‘She can look after herself.’

  No anxiety in her voice, but her eyes? What are they saying?

  ‘I’m just going to have a fag,’ Nathalie says.

  ‘A bit of smoke doesn’t bother us,’ Zeke says. ‘And I’ve always thought the eighteen-year age-limit is silly.’

  The packet of cigarettes emerges from her camouflage shorts.

  A gesture in their direction: do you want one?

  Hand gestures turning down the offer. Instead Malin asks: ‘Are you good friends?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘So did you meet at the dance? Like Peter and Theresa?’

  ‘What dance?’

  ‘One of the joint ones organised by Ekholmen school and Sturefors.’

  ‘There’ve never been any dances like that. Wherever did you get that idea?’

  Malin and Zeke look at each other.

  ‘So how did you meet?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘In town. I don’t remember exactly where or when.’

  In town.

  Of course. Hundreds of youngsters drifting about in packs on Friday and Saturday evenings. Drifting, flirting, fighting, drinking.

  On the third stroke it will be 10.00 p.m. precisely. Do you know where your child is?

  No.

  No idea.

  ‘So you don’t remember?’ Zeke says. ‘Was it long ago?’

  ‘Maybe a year or so ago. But I like her. We can talk about stuff.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Most things.’

  ‘And you and Peter are in parallel classes at Ekholmen school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re friends?’

  ‘Sort of. We talk at breaks. Have coffee sometimes.’

  ‘Do you know if Theresa had any other friends? Someone she might have gone to visit?’

  Nathalie Falck takes a drag on her cigarette. Says: ‘Nope. But what do I know? Everyone has secrets, don’t they?’

  ‘She’s hiding something,’ Zeke says as he starts the car. ‘It’s obvious.’

  The car hot as a blast furnace again.

  ‘So far everyone seems to be hiding something.’

  ‘A tough girl, that Nathalie. More like a bloke.’

  ‘Not particularly feminine, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘And Peter Sköld is lying through his teeth.’

  ‘Let’s get Theresa’s computer to Forensics before we do anything else,’ Zeke says. ‘There could be any amount of information on there. Emails. Websites she’s visited.’

  ‘And Josefin Davidsson?’

  ‘They should have finished the door-to-door now,’ Zeke says, putting his foot on the accelerator.

  10

  ‘The door-to-door in the area around the park hasn’t turned up anything,’ Sven Sjöman says. ‘No one saw anything, no one heard anything. The few people who were home, that is. As we know only too well, the city’s empty in July. And I’m afraid no witnesses have come forward, and our caller hasn’t been in touch again, so we can’t do much more except wait for Karin Johannison’s report and the results of the more detailed tests, and see if the bicycle turns up somewhere.’

  The clock on the wall of the staffroom in the police station, just inside the detectives’ open-plan office, says five past five, the red second-hand moving in rheumatic slow motion up towards the top, and the whole day seems flat and tired of itself.

  Seeing as there are only the three of them, they’re having their meeting in the staffroom.

  It’s been a long day, Malin thinks as she watches Sven drink his coffee in deep black gulps. His mobile is switched off beside him, the message to reception abundantly clear: no more calls from the media. That was the first thing he said to Malin and Zeke when they got back to the station.

  ‘They’re completely mad. Since Högfeldt wrote that first piece they’ve been calling like crazy. I’ve spoken to Aftonbladet, DN, Expressen, Svenska Dagbladet and I don’t know how many others. Both local television news teams have been here, wanting an interview.’

  ‘Summer drought,’ Zeke says. ‘They can get a lot of mileage from a violent rape and a disappearance at the same time. Throw in the forest fires and their summer is saved.’

  ‘Did you mention the bicycle?’

  ‘Yes, I told the Correspondent that we’re looking for a red, three-gear Crescent. They’re publishing the details.’

  ‘When did Karin say the tests would be finished?’ Malin asks.

  ‘Tomorrow at the earliest. At least that’s what she said when I called a little while ago. No fingerprints on the wood in the summerhouse.’

  ‘Christ, she’s taking her time,’ Zeke says.

  ‘She’s usually always so quick,’ Malin says.

  ‘Karin knows how to do her job. We know that,’ Sven says. ‘So, what have you two managed to come up with about Theresa Eckeved?’

  ‘No one seems to have any ideas about where she could be,’ Malin says. ‘We’ve spoken to her supposed boyfriend and the only friend we’ve managed to get hold of, and they don’t know anything either.’

  ‘Supposed boyfriend?’ Sven says.

  ‘Yes, we can’t be too sure of that,’ Malin says. ‘These youngsters are hiding something from us. And the boyfriend’s lying.’

  ‘So how do you plan to find out what they’re hiding? And why he’s lying?’

  Sven is suddenly authoritative, as if he wants to know the answers now, and not hear a plan for the investigation.

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Zeke says. ‘This heat isn’t helping.’

  ‘The heat’s the same for everyone.’

  Then Sven softens slightly.

  ‘Well, so far it’s nothing but an ordinary missing person report.’

  ‘But she could have been missing for a week now. We really have to find more people who know Theresa and talk to them. And bring in the boyfriend, Peter Sköld, for questioning,’ Malin says. ‘He’s at his parents’ place in the country, near Valdemarsvik. We’ll have to get his father to bring him in.

  ‘And we’ve asked for a list of calls made from Theresa’s mobile. She hasn’t taken any money out of her bank account since the day her parents set off for Paris; they’ve already checked.’

  ‘Did she have a computer?’

  ‘Forensics have got it.’

  ‘Good. Kids spend half their lives online these days.’

  Not Tove, Malin thinks. Not so far as I know.

  ‘And the attack and rape of Josefin Davidsson?’ Sven says. ‘What do you make of that? That has to be our main priority at the moment.’

  ‘We’re going to check if any known sexual offenders in the area have been released from prison or any care facility recently, they could have become active again,’ Zeke says. ‘We’ll have to look at old cases as well, see if there are any similarities.’

  ‘Good. What about gang rape,
is that a possibility? Even if nothing at the crime scene suggests that?’

  ‘We don’t even know if she was attacked in the Horticultural Society Park at all,’ Zeke says. ‘As far as we know, she could have been attacked somewhere else entirely and just dumped there, couldn’t she?’

  ‘True,’ Sven says. ‘I forgot to say that the lab prioritised their detailed analysis of Josefin Davidsson’s blood test. Completely normal. No sign that she’d been drugged. But there are a number of substances that disappear from the blood in a matter of hours. And the skin samples didn’t give any clear results, apart from standard bleach and washing powder. The washing powder is probably from her clothes, and the bleach was used to clean her, so presumably the perpetrator was trying to erase any possible evidence. Karin’s examining the microscopic blue fragments that Doctor Sjögripe found inside Josefin Davidsson.

  ‘So, gang rape, any thoughts?’

  Malin knows what Sven is aiming at with all his inferences and questions.

  But he doesn’t want to say anything, wants them to come up with it, because however you put it, it’s going to sound racist.

  In the end Zeke says it: ‘We’ll have to talk to Ali Shakbari and Behzad Karami.’

  Shakbari and Karami.

  Guilty of having sex all night long with a hopelessly drunk girl. But they weren’t convicted of anything, and were released after their trial back in June.

  ‘She agreed to it.’

  ‘She wanted to, for fuck’s sake.’

  On the kitchen table of a flat in Berga?

  ‘For fuck’s sake, she was up for it. She’s a slut.’

  Impossible to prove the opposite. And when Sven takes another mouthful of his coffee Malin considers official truths, and unofficial ones. How the entire police force and media know that practically all gang rapes are committed by two or more young men from immigrant backgrounds, but no one writes or says anything stating that truth outright.

  Non-truths.

  Politically uncomfortable.

  And then the problem isn’t there any more.

  And if it isn’t there, it can’t be discussed.

  Which leaves a problem that doesn’t exist and which therefore can never be solved.

  And then there are girls like Josefin and Lovisa Hjelmstedt. That was her name, Shakbari and Karami’s victim.

  Girls like Theresa Eckeved.

  Theresa’s probably just gone off by herself somewhere.

  Gone away.

  Just like that.

  When Malin sits down at her desk after the meeting her mobile rings.

  Where is it?

  There, in her bag.

  ‘Hi, Mum!’

  ‘Tove!’

  Tove.

  Malin can see her in front of her, the excitement in her blue eyes, her brown hair lifted by the breeze from the sea.

  Are you both OK? she thinks.

  I miss you even more now I hear your voice.

  But at the same time, it’s good that you’re not in the city.

  It must be past midnight. What are you doing up so late? You ought to be in bed.

  But Malin holds back. Wants to show her trust.

  ‘How’s everything there, then?’

  ‘We went on a boat-trip today. To a little beach.’

  ‘Was it good?’

  ‘Yes, although the trip back was a bit boring, but I had a book with me. We’ve just been out to get some food.’

  ‘Is the food good?’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Loads of things cooked on skewers?’

  It’s as if the distance is making our conversation more superficial than our conversations usually are, Malin thinks. How the words can be just as trivial across the kitchen table in the morning, but they gain tone, context and meaning from the fact that she and Tove are both there. As if all the intuitive contact disappears somewhere on the way between all the transmitters, cables and satellites.

  ‘Which book are you reading?’

  ‘Several. But I didn’t like Madame Bovary. It’s really old-fashioned.’

  The sound of a xylophone in the background, a band playing in the hotel dining room?

  ‘Is that some sort of orchestra I can hear?’

  ‘They’re playing in the dining room. Is it hot at home?’

  ‘Boiling, Tove.’

  ‘It’s not too bad here. Do you want to talk to Dad?’

  ‘Why not.’

  ‘Malin?’

  Janne’s voice.

  ‘Yes. So how are you both?’

  ‘Fine. But it’s hot. How are things at home?’

  ‘Hot, unbelievably hot. I’ve never known anything like it.’

  ‘You should be here with us. It’s nice here.’

  Bali.

  Be there, Malin thinks, just disappear from the heat here and those unfortunate girls?

  The way he disappeared to Bosnia, to Rwanda, to Somalia, anywhere that didn’t involve the impossibility of their love. She has heard his voice a thousand times over crackling phone lines and felt her stomach clench and fill with a hot, black, anxious lump.

  Sarajevo. Kigali. Mogadishu.

  Janne’s voice on those crackling lines, a message of what could have been, a greeting from a life that never was.

  The same thing now.

  ‘I read about the forest fires on the Correspondent’s website,’ Janne says. ‘They could do with me at home right now.’

  And she gets angry. Thinks: I could do with you now. But you, we, never realised it. You always gave in to your damn restlessness. Will you ever grow up enough to put your foot down and say that this is my place on the earth? It doesn’t automatically follow that it’s grown-up to build latrines in a refugee camp or drive a truckload of flour along mined roads. Being grown-up can mean staying put.

  The anger dissipates as rapidly as it blew up.

  ‘The others can cope, Janne.’

  ‘But it said that one fireman has been seriously injured.’

  ‘I miss you both,’ Malin says. ‘Give Tove a kiss from me. It’s time she was in bed.’

  The Correspondent’s website.

  The computer illuminates the bedroom, which would be completely dark without the flickering light from the screen.

  The blinds closed tight, their jaws clenching to keep out the evening light.

  Forest fires holding the area in their grip. One fireman injured when he tripped over on burning moss. Burns to his face and hands, that must be the one Janne had read about. The pictures in the paper are dramatic, with firemen like little clay figures in front of a huge wall of flame that is ready to set fire to them, burn them.

  Daniel Högfeldt hasn’t called her again, but he called Sven five times during the day.

  He links the cases in one article. And writes about them in separate pieces as well.

  Summer Linköping is shaken after a violent rape in the Horticultural Society Park and the disappearance of . . .

  Linköping shaken?

  Sleepy, more like. Drowsy with heatstroke.

  The articles are short on detail. They’re leaving things open for the time being.

  Daniel and the media make their own evaluations. For them the cases are one and the same, Theresa’s disappearance no ordinary disappearance, the connection is good for them, even if Sven doesn’t want anyone to link the cases together and thus help conjure up an evil monster for summer in Linköping.

  She’s just seen him on the local news. His eyes flicking to and fro, showing an uncertainty that Malin has never seen before, as if the camera were devouring him. ‘At this point we can’t say for certain . . . we are continuing to investigate . . . no connection . . .’

  Karim Akbar had called in from holiday. Wondered if he ought to come in, look after the hyenas, as he put it to Sven.

  Sven’s reply: ‘Take your son fishing, Karim. Write your book.’

  Then she reads an article about the heatwave. About a stream of deaths among elderly inhabita
nts in sheltered accommodation, how home helps have found several elderly clients dead from heart attacks; how they can’t cope with the heat or the dry atmosphere of the air conditioning. One district nurse quoted as saying: ‘It’s terribly hot in our patients’ flats. They’re having trouble drinking enough fluids and regulating their body temperature. And we don’t even have time for our regular rounds when so many people are on holiday.’

  Malin turns off the computer and goes into the living room, stands by the open window and listens to the buzz of conversation from the pub on the ground floor.

  Go down?

  No, not today.

  Even if her whole body is screaming for a tequila.

  Instead she goes into the bedroom, lies on the bed and closes her eyes.

  The harsh daylight lingers in the form of burning pricks of light on her retinas, but from the darkness around her a figure emerges.

  Malin sees Nathalie Falck in the cemetery, her mouth is moving but it’s not Nathalie’s voice, it’s Peter Sköld’s over the phone.

  Two youngsters united in a lie.

  But they’re old enough to know that they have the right to silence, that if they just stay quiet they can make the police’s job practically impossible.

  Someone who stays silent can get away with pretty much anything. Language is the greatest enemy of the guilty.

  Malin opens her eyes again.

  She hears the voices from the pub, livelier than any she has heard so far today, but she can’t make out any words in the chatter. She closes her eyes. Feels Daniel’s body against hers, his weight. Maybe I should . . .

  No.

  Sleep instead.

  Tired as hell.

  In a room in the University Hospital, Josefin Davidsson lies under a thin white sheet, willing her conscious mind to remember what her body remembers, what has happened to her. Her parents are still sitting in armchairs by the window, looking out over the flickering lights of Linköping, also wondering: what happened in the Horticultural Society Park? Or somewhere else? What secrets are concealed by the scorched grass and bark and leaves, the night and the darkness? At the same time they long to be far away, at home in their perfectly ordinary beds.