Summertime Death mf-2

by Mons Kallentoft

  Time clusters together. The ground, memories, give way, the truth fleeing to protect its bearer.

  How? Malin thinks.

  How can I get you to want to remember, Josefin?

  The stench of cremated forest.

  Of cremated insects, animals, moss.

  The forest now a penal colony for the wretched.

  The stench of glowing worms teeming out of fire-ravaged ground. It’s strong in Malin’s nostrils, and if she could fly, glide over the plain and Lake Roxen and the forests around Tjällmo she would see the fire twinkling far below her. She would see the burning points of light and wonder if they were magma, or the truth, or brutality that has decided to seep out, as if some breaking point has been reached.

  She would see the girls drifting and crackling like fireflies in the darkness.

  15

  Saturday, 17 July

  Saturday working.

  No question now, when their summer has taken a turn into unimagined, dark Dante-esque circles.

  They have to work. None of their colleagues will be called in from their holiday unless it’s strictly necessary.

  The smell of charred wood and extinguished lives is even more apparent in the morning.

  But not intrusive, just different, almost pleasant, like a fire lit by the characters in one of Tove’s old picture books, a fire for children to warm their frozen hands around.

  No wind today, and for the time being at least the light is merciful, Malin thinks as she sees the flags hanging limply against their poles in front of the entrance to the police station, the large car park behind her almost empty, just a couple of cars with police markings ready for the hunt.

  Malin drags herself through the heat.

  Tired today.

  Even at five to eight the heat is debilitating and she is sweating under her white jacket and T-shirt. She’s wearing a skirt again, couldn’t stand the thought of trousers, even if she hardly ever wears a skirt for work, it feels too feminine, too weak, too much like a statement. Her world is a masculine world. Whatever any feminists on the National Police Board might like to think.

  So she usually wears trousers.

  But not in this sort of heat. Not today.

  She read about the forest fires on the Correspondent’s website over breakfast. A photograph of the blazing forest covered the first page, and other pages detailed the efforts of the fire brigade to put the fires out. Several hectares were alight. The fire had taken hold in the drought and wanted more, had become dependent on territory, on life. Fire crews from Linköping, Norrköping, Motala and Finspång were all battling in the dusty forests.

  Janne wishes he were there.

  Fire would be better than Bali. He wants to plough all of his longing into work, into firefighting, saving others instead of trying to understand himself, me, Tove. Us.

  And then her investigation.

  A page to itself.

  A picture of a dildo with the text: Police suspect attacker used blue dildo. Prejudices. Karami. Shakbari. Speculation about Lovelygirl.

  How the hell did word of the dildo leak out?

  Karin Johannison? Sven Sjöman? Maybe Sven, under pressure from some journalist.

  Oh well, it was out now.

  The door of the police station glides open automatically. Ebba is sitting behind the reception desk, in early.

  Says: ‘Good morning, Malin.’

  Malin nods in response.

  Zeke and Sjöman are at their desks, even though the morning meeting isn’t due to start for another hour.

  Always this meeting, whenever they’re working. No matter whether it’s overtime or not.

  They’re both studying various documents, but they still notice her arrival, looking up at her almost simultaneously, and Sven says: ‘Malin, so you thought you’d show up!’

  Zeke happy to be in ahead of her for once.

  ‘Malin, welcome!’

  Sven, wearing a creased pair of white linen trousers, is evidently also pleased to see her.

  When she sees the look on Sven’s face, Malin decides not to mention her visit to the Horticultural Society Park last night, although she had been planning to, she knows that Sven likes it when you try to get the feel of a crime scene afterwards.

  ‘Did you go for that beer, Malin?’

  No, Malin thinks, but I had a stiff tequila when I got home.

  ‘You’re looking a bit tired.’

  Zeke crowing, grinning, friendly, almost paternal.

  They start their morning meeting before nine.

  They don’t bother with the meeting room again, one of the round tables in the staffroom will do, there are hardly any uniforms or civilian staff to disturb them today.

  Sven looks more tired than usual, and Malin wonders where his new tiredness comes from, thinking that it must be the heat. She notices the fine sawdust on his hairy lower arms. The dust clings to his skin in little lumps and Malin thinks, Sven, you must have been up early this morning, working away in your basement, and maybe that’s just as well, what with these forest fires and sluggish investigations.

  As if he could hear her thoughts, Zeke says: ‘That’s one hell of a blaze in the forests. It’s just getting worse and worse.’

  ‘Eighty firemen,’ Sven says.

  ‘And the fire’s heading for Lake Hultsjön,’ Malin adds, and silence falls in the staffroom as the three of them sip coffee from their caffeine-stained porcelain mugs.

  ‘OK, let’s get going,’ Sven says. ‘We’ve got a recently released rapist in the area whom we ought to check out. A Fredrik Jonasson living in Mjölby, thirty-two years old. Evidently he lives with his mother. Attacked a woman outside her flat. Attempted rape and violent assault.’

  ‘Mjölby can deal with that,’ Zeke says. ‘Are we going to check other sex offenders as well, or just the ones that have been released recently?’

  ‘We’ll start with this,’ Sven says. ‘We haven’t got the resources to do more right now, but I’ll make sure we have a list.’

  ‘What else?’ Malin says. ‘How are we going to deal with Behzad Karami and Ali Shakbari? We need to check Behzad’s alibi. Can we get some uniforms to talk to the people who are supposed to have been at the party? Have we got enough people for that? Or are we going to have to pull in someone from their holiday?’

  ‘Slow down, Fors,’ Sven says. ‘We’ve got no evidence at all against Shakbari and Karami.’

  Karim must have spoken to him, but Sven would never hold back a line of inquiry just because Karim put pressure on him. Or the press.

  ‘Have we got enough people?’ Malin asks again. ‘Can we bring in anyone from Motala? Mjölby?’

  The holidays were sacred, otherwise none of them would ever get any time off.

  ‘We can spare a couple of uniforms,’ Sven says. ‘They can check his alibi.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Jonfeldt and Bulow.’

  Good blokes, Malin thinks. Young, single, but not gym-bunnies, not the riot-squad type. More like future detectives.

  ‘Do you really think they’re involved in this?’

  Zeke sounds dubious.

  ‘Who knows?’ Malin says.

  Thinks: I’ve heard their voices in this case, remembering Sven’s words: Listen, Malin. Listen to the voices of the investigation. Recently he’s elaborated on this: You have to listen if you’re going to learn anything, and if you learn something, you can get close to the truth. So close that you can touch it.

  ‘No news about Theresa either,’ Malin says. ‘Assuming nothing new came in last night? Unless Peter Sköld or Nathalie Falck has volunteered any new information?’

  ‘Complete silence. On all fronts,’ Sven says. ‘She could have been missing a week now.’

  Then Sven changes tack.

  ‘What about the lesbian angle?’

  Zeke no longer hesitant. Malin dubious now, though.

  ‘Just because we suspect that a dildo might have been used doesn’t mean that we have
to track the movements of every lesbian in the city, does it? Because there’s some hint of a lesbian relationship on Facebook?’

  ‘No one’s suggesting that,’ Zeke says. ‘But it’s a line of inquiry that’s worth following up.’

  ‘In that case I’d like to talk to Nathalie Falck again,’ Malin says. ‘Alone.’

  Zeke nods.

  ‘Makes sense,’ he says. ‘She didn’t seem to like blokes like me much.’

  Sven mutters ‘yes’ before adjusting the belt of his linen trousers and saying: ‘Nothing new from Andersson in Forensics. Presumably he hasn’t found anything else, and he can’t have heard back from Facebook or Yahoo yet.’

  Then Sven takes a deep breath before going on.

  ‘I checked where local lesbians hang out these days. There’s evidently some sort of club in Norrköping, Déjà Vu Delight. According to my sources, they haven’t got a club in Linköping.’

  ‘I suppose the market’s too small,’ Zeke says. ‘All the dykes probably run off to Stockholm as soon as they get the chance.’

  ‘Or even further than that,’ Malin adds.

  ‘What about the National Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights? Is it worth contacting them?’ Zeke says.

  ‘They don’t have an office in the area,’ Sven says. ‘You’ll have to check out that club, Malin. Take a look, see what you can find out.’

  ‘You mean, go and ask if there’s anyone who uses dildos and has ever exhibited any violent tendencies?’

  Sven doesn’t answer.

  ‘Surely this is taking it too far, considering what we’ve actually got?’ Malin says. ‘Can’t we leave them alone in their own club? I might have a contact I can chase up.’

  Sven stays silent.

  ‘You’re right, Malin. Check your contact,’ he says eventually, then clears his throat and says: ‘So what other theories have we got? Ah yes, whether or not anyone has lost his penis? That sort of thing is confidential, and a bit of a long shot.’

  He says this without sentimentality, Malin thinks. As if it were just a nuisance to anyone who’s had this happen to them.

  ‘I’ll check a few of my contacts anyway,’ Malin says, and she can see a frown develop on Sven’s forehead.

  ‘Don’t try taking any illegal shortcuts now, Malin.’

  She doesn’t answer.

  Thinks: would we ever get anywhere if we didn’t take the occasional dodgy shortcut?

  And Theresa? Where are you?

  Am I under water? Is that green brown black wet stuff around me algae, water lilies? Are those pike teeth nibbling at my legs?

  What does this dream want with me? Or am I really awake?

  But if I am, then surely everything shouldn’t be black?

  Am I blind?

  Have my eyes burned out, but they can’t have done, because they don’t hurt. They’re intact, yet somehow not, and I try to blink but nothing happens, and why, Dad, why haven’t you come to shut my eyelids for me? Or are they shut? Or is just one of them open?

  I want to close my eyes now. Get away from this place, all of this, and all the sounds, words I can’t understand, they’re like the devil’s language, the backwards speech on some worn-out heavy-metal record.

  Turn off the voices.

  Let go of my arms.

  Let me move my arms and legs and feet and eyelids.

  What do the voices want? The ones I can hear beneath me, no, above me, my hearing a space rising through the dream.

  I’m stuck.

  In this green, brown, black.

  In damp plastic.

  I don’t want to be blind.

  No burning ants are going to crawl inside my open eyelids.

  Why? Tell me why you haven’t come to take me home, Dad?

  I want to wake up now. I’ve never had this sort of dream before.

  I want to wake up, Mum. Dad.

  I want to.

  Not be blind.

  Wake up, wake up, wake up.

  But how?

  Tell me, how can I wake up?

  16

  Soporific paperwork and unresolved discussions about the case after the morning meeting. Malin didn’t have time to call her contacts.

  They’ve come into the city-centre and now the oxygen seems to be abandoning the air altogether under the parasols covering the tables outside the Gyllenfiket café, but at least the light is bearable in the shade.

  There are two customers apart from Malin and Zeke, an elderly couple drinking coffee and eating slices from a whole loaf of coffee-bread. It is almost half past four and the heat has culminated in needle-sharp sunlight, and the scented particles from the forest fires have found their way across the city once more.

  Iced coffee.

  Con hielo.

  They sip in silence, taking it in turns, and over by the windows of the Gränden shopping arcade a pigeon struts to and fro in front of a branch of Intersport. Inside the windows the beach balls and blow-up mattresses look more and more deflated by the second.

  ‘Can you smell it?’ Zeke wonders.

  ‘Yes,’ Malin says.

  ‘Do you think they can stop it?’

  ‘They’re bound to.’

  Zeke nods.

  ‘Take a look around, Malin. You could almost imagine we were on our own in the city. Just us and our prey.’

  ‘My head feels like it weighs a couple of thousand kilos in this heat,’ Malin says. ‘It just doesn’t seem to want to think.’

  ‘Does your head ever want to?’

  ‘Very funny, Zeke.’

  ‘I saw a documentary on television last night,’ Zeke says. ‘Some wildlife programme. About some bloody spider that mates with its own offspring.’

  ‘Sounds like a good way for a species to wipe itself out.’

  ‘Somehow it still led to a sort of evolution,’ Zeke says. ‘Spiders with close-set eyes.’

  A young woman walks past with a St Bernard dog on a lead, the dog’s huge body swaying back and forth, looking ready to pass out.

  ‘Zeke, I was thinking of having a word with Nathalie Falck this evening.’

  ‘Why not? Just be careful.’

  Malin breathes in the summer air, feeling the heat in her lungs.

  They go their separate ways at Trädgårdstorget, and when Zeke has disappeared from view Malin pulls out her mobile.

  Senior Consultant Hans Stenvinkel sinks onto the uncomfortable chair in his hot office in ward nine of the University Hospital.

  A five-hour operation just finished.

  He was trying to save the leg of a motorcyclist who had crashed into a tractor outside Nässjö and been flown to Linköping by air ambulance. Time would tell if the young man would be able to keep his leg – the damage had been extensive, the leg split open from the knee to the hip, but the vascular surgeon had done his best.

  Is that sweat dripping from my brow, or water from washing after the operation? Bloody hell, Hans thinks just as the phone rings.

  Malin’s number.

  What does she want?

  The mother of his son Markus’s girlfriend, Tove. The tense but pleasant and evidently brilliant detective inspector. The distant, troubled, but after a couple of glasses of wine relaxed woman. Hasse has often thought when in her company that it’s as if she doesn’t really like doctors.

  ‘Hans here.’

  Her voice at the other end of the line isn’t as alert as usual and he can hear the sound of traffic in the background.

  ‘This is Malin. Tove’s mum.’

  ‘Hi, Malin. How are you coping with the heat? Haven’t melted yet?’

  ‘Half of me has just dissolved onto the pavement.’

  Hasse chuckles. At least she’s got a sense of humour.

  ‘How’s Tove getting on in Bali?’

  ‘She’s having a great time.’

  ‘Markus is at our summer cottage outside Torshälla, but he’ll be home when Tove gets back.’

  ‘I was thinking that you might be able to help me with
something, Hasse.’

  ‘OK. Fire away, Malin.’

  ‘I could do with finding out if there’s anyone in the city who has lost his penis.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Lost his . . .’

  ‘Sorry, I heard you, Malin.’

  ‘It’s to do with the rape of that girl.’

  ‘The one who was found in the Horticultural Society Park?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The information you’re after is confidential, Malin.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sorry, Malin, I can’t help you. It’s illegal to reveal the details of anyone’s medical notes.’

  ‘I know that too, Hasse.’

  He sounded shattered, Malin thinks, tired, when I asked. Those long operations must be draining. Malin puts her mobile in the front pocket of her skirt, during the day its pale-blue fabric has gained some light brown stains and Malin wonders if you can get jeans that would be thin enough to put up with in this heat.

  The pub downstairs is as tempting as ever. Crazy to live in the same building as a pub.

  Sitting at the bar, alone, along with everyone else.

  Getting happily, hazily melancholic.

  Drink a chilled beer, its bitter, sharp coolness, the alcohol going to your head and filling its nooks and crannies with miraculous emptiness.

  But no.

  Not now.

  The key in the door of the flat.

  A stale smell, clothes and everything else just one big mess.

  Malin stops, looks at herself in the mirror.

  Heat wrinkles?

  Whatever, they’re certainly new, those little lines in the skin around her eyes.

  I’m thirty-four, Malin thinks. And I still don’t recognise my own reflection, I still don’t know who I’m looking at.

  They come to her again. Like summer ghosts.

  Janne.

  Tove.

  And Daniel Högfeldt.

  And she is consumed by a sudden painful sense that life is over, even while she’s slaving away at it.

  17