‘Take care when you go swimming.’
‘Of course I take care. What do you think?’
‘I’m just worried, Tove.’
A deep sigh from the other side of the world.
‘There’s no need, Mum. We won’t have time to go swimming again. Do you want to talk to Dad?’
‘If he wants to.’
Crackling on the line, calls in the background from someone who must be Janne, then breathing, long breaths that she knows all too well, which for a second send a warmth through her body, a resigned, sad, but still excited warmth.
Janne.
You bastard.
Why, why couldn’t we make it?
‘Hi, Malin.’
His voice, what does she want from it? Solace? Context. Even though the voice can’t give her that.
‘How are you both?’
‘Paradise exists, Malin. Here.’
‘I believe you. So you’re not looking forward to coming home?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You went for a ride on elephants?’
‘Yes, you should have seen her. Beaming with joy as she bounced along.’
Enough, Malin thinks. No more now.
‘How are the fires?’
‘We were out there today,’ Malin says. ‘It looks pretty bad, not under control yet. But there are a lot of volunteers helping out.’
‘Our flight leaves bloody early tomorrow morning,’ Janne says.
‘I know,’ Malin says. ‘And you’re still up so late,’ wanting to say: I miss you so much my heart feels like it’s withering away. My loss is turning into grief, Janne, a strange grief for the living, and every human being can only cope with a fixed amount of grief before they die, and mine is close to overflowing. But instead she says: ‘Make sure you check in on time.’
‘OK. We’d better get to bed now.’
‘Bye.’
A click on the line.
Silence. Warmth.
Solace and context. What can give me that?
Malin had planned to wait until tomorrow, but rings Viveka Crafoord now.
‘Come on over. You’ve got half an hour. We can put off lighting the barbecue for a bit.’
Viveka Crafoord.
Psychoanalyst.
She wants to treat Malin, free of charge, but the very thought of Viveka’s paisley-patterned chaise longue frightens Malin. She can’t bear the thought of touching even the edges of her sadness, let alone its innermost core. So instead there’s a bit of vague talk about her parents in Tenerife whenever she and Viveka bump into each other in the city and go for coffee. The fact that she doesn’t miss them. Their apartment. Her mother’s cheap rugs and ability to dress up her own life, making herself look more important than she is. Viveka polite, listening with interest, but convinced that Malin is just skimming the surface, and is stubbornly and suspiciously holding shut all the doors that lead inside her.
‘And what do you think Janne thinks?’ Viveka had asked.
‘About what?’
‘Well, about the way you talk to him, for instance?’
‘I’ve never given it much thought.’
Viveka’s country cottage is in Svartmåla, a sought-after, middle-class village some ten kilometres south of the city.
Malin had trouble finding the house, meandering around the idyllic cottages in the Volvo, unwilling to stop and ask the way.
Then she came to a little turning down towards the lake, its shimmering water ice-white and fiery pink beyond pines and firs.
A simple green mailbox bearing the name ‘Crafoord’ in the shade of some tall maples.
Malin turned off, and couldn’t help smiling as she pulled up in front of the obviously bespoke, architect-designed house with its two irregular floors, lots of glass, grey-stained wood. The house looked like a prototype for the sort of tasteful, costly but restrained architecture that people who are used to having money love. Viveka’s house must be the most exclusive in the area. And with the best location, right on the water, presumably with its own jetty and beach.
‘A microclimate,’ Viveka says, leaning back in the teak bench. ‘Don’t ask me how it happens.’
They’re sitting at the back of the house, on an airy terrace with a view of the lake, Stora Rängen. Perennials and rhododendrons are crowding in on Viveka’s husband, Hjalmar, as he stands at the barbecue with his broad back to them some ten metres away, on green-stained decking laid over grey Öland stone. It’s undeniably cooler on the terrace, maybe five degrees lower than anywhere else, as if the greenery and water in the vicinity somehow magically lowered the temperature.
Just like the summerhouse in the Horticultural Society Park, Malin thinks.
But in there it was hotter.
Malin was right, below a granite outcrop is a motorboat tied up at a jetty, and two aluminium designer sun-loungers on a man-made beach. Malin breathes in the smell of marinated pork sizzling on the hot grill. Bean salad on the table in front of them. She runs her arm over the teak armrest of her chair, its oiled, polished finish making her feel calm.
What does your husband do? Malin wonders. But she doesn’t ask Viveka.
She just thinks how nice this huge man with the gentle face is. Then she looks into Viveka’s face, hardly any wrinkles even though she must be fifty-five or so, no traces of grief, the signs of a good life. And Malin is struck by how little she actually knows about her. Do they have children? Then there is the fact that she has been welcomed out here in spite of the reason for her visit.
‘So what do you think about what I said on the phone?’
She had explained about the case she was working on, and of course Viveka had read the paper, seen the news on television. ‘I’d like to hear your thoughts about the perpetrator.’
‘Let’s eat first.’
And shortly after that a dish of plump sausages and pork chops appears on the table, and they talk about the heat and drink a robust, sweet red wine that suits the meat perfectly. Just one glass for Malin, and Hjalmar becomes nicer with every word, and he explains that he works as a management consultant, freelance after many years with McKinsey in Stockholm.
And then the meal is over as quickly as it began and Hjalmar withdraws: ‘There’s a match on.’ And Viveka throws out her arms, saying: ‘He’s mad about football.’
And Malin realises that darkness has fallen over the terrace and that the only light over the lake is the glow of the moon, and the hopeful lights of a few houses on the far shore.
The approach of night seems to whisper to them, and Malin lets Viveka talk.
‘I’m sorry, Malin. From what little I know, it’s impossible for me to say anything specific. I did a course on profiling when we lived in Seattle, and I’d guess you’re dealing with something of a loner who has a complicated relationship with his mother. But that’s almost always the case. He lives in Linköping, probably grew up here, seeing as he seems to feel safe in the places where he commits these acts and leaves his victims. And he’s obsessed with cleanliness and making his victims appear pure. But you’ve already worked that out for yourself. But why this obsession with cleanliness? Something to do with virginity? Who knows? Maybe this individual feels sullied somehow. Violated. Sexually. Or some other way. Maybe he’s trying to recreate a form of innocence.’
‘Anything else? You say he, but could it be a woman?’
‘Possibly. But it’s probably a man, or a masculine woman. Maybe themselves the victim of abuse. There’s always that possibility.’
‘And the wounds?’
‘The fact that they’re different might suggest that the perpetrator is finding his way by trial and error. As if he or she wants to come up with some sort of formula.’
‘That thought had occurred to me as well.’
‘If I were you, I’d start looking into the histories of people who’ve cropped up since things started to heat up. The key to this is in the past. As to why this is happening now, only they can know that. That’s if
they even know.’
Malin’s mobile rings.
She looks at the display. Wants to take the call, but leaves it, brushes it aside. Viveka doesn’t comment on her behaviour, and merely says: ‘He probably has a job, but few friends.’
‘Thanks, Viveka,’ Malin says.
Then she brings up the real reason she’s there.
‘If I wanted to question a witness under hypnosis, would you be prepared to be responsible for it?’
‘Of course I would, Malin.’
For the first time Malin sees Viveka look excited, expectant.
‘As long as the witness agrees, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.’
They sit in silence.
Some broken laughter across the water, and the sound of splashing.
‘Take a swim,’ Viveka says. ‘You can borrow a costume from me. You can stay the night. In the guest cottage. Hjalmar makes really good scrambled eggs for breakfast.’
Malin thinks for a moment.
The number on her phone.
‘I’d love a swim. But then I have to get home.’
And the memory of the warm water of Stora Rängen courses through her as one hour later she is lying in Daniel Högfeldt’s bed and feeling his hard, heavy, rhythmic body above hers, how he thrusts, groans, thrusts, thrusts hard and deep inside her, how she becomes water, no feelings, memories or future, directionless drops, a body that is a still night of dreams worth dreaming, an explosion that is sometimes the only thing a human being’s trillions of cells needs.
If only to be able to put up with themselves.
41
Wednesday, 21 July
His skin.
It’s glowing as if it’s been oiled in the thin dawn light forcing its way in through the gap at the bottom of the roller-blind. When she came to him last night she didn’t say a word, silently pushing him towards the bedroom, and now she is leaving just as soundlessly, getting dressed in his hallway, silently so as not to wake him.
Because what would she say to him?
That was nice?
Do you want to go to the cinema?
A romantic dinner, just the two of us?
He’s lying there, just a few metres away, but he’s still present within her as a feeling, a closeness, yet also distance.
A dildo.
A double distance. It must be like being filled with something that has nothing to do with human life, it must be the perfect tool for someone who wants movement, yet who also wants to stay where they are.
Malin leaves Daniel Högfeldt’s flat, creeping through the hall, convinced he’s awake somewhere behind her.
I hear you leave, Malin. Let you leave.
The bedroom is hot and the damp of our bodies is still in the sheets, the sweat under me both yours and mine.
Trying to get you to stay would be impossible. What could I say? Would I even be able to sound like I meant what I said? You’re too complicated for me, Malin. Too many contradictions, far too smart.
Obvious and straightforward.
Like a pane of glass on a summer’s day.
And a bit stupid, but with a good heart. That’s the kind of woman I want. Unless the truth is the exact opposite. That I want you. But I don’t know how to say it. Either to you, or to myself.
Home, shower, drink coffee, change clothes, miss Tove, Janne, enough regret to make her sick, and before she knows what’s happened Karim is standing by a whiteboard summarising the state of the investigation into the attack of Josefin Davidsson and the murders of Theresa Eckeved and Sofia Fredén.
Tove’s coming home tonight.
I want to focus on that, Malin thinks. But it will have to wait.
The morning meeting, nine o’clock as usual.
The detectives in the room tired, their faces somehow furrowed by the summer heat and the violence, the human actions that it’s their job to get to grips with. If not to understand, then to make reasonably manageable, and contextualise them for both the public and themselves.
‘The press are going crazy,’ Karim says. ‘They’re crying out for information about the case, but we can’t let ourselves be influenced by that. So, where shall we start? How are things going with the various lines of inquiry?’
‘We questioned Behzad Karami and his parents yesterday,’ Waldemar Ekenberg says. ‘The anonymous tip-off was right. They were lying about the family party. Behzad claims he was standing guard over his blackberry canes in an allotment down by the river, and I think he’s telling the truth, even if there are no witnesses who can state categorically that he was there. But they’ve seen lights on in the small cottage on the allotment on the nights in question.’
‘What about you, Sundsten?’
Sven Sjöman pants as he says the words, his face deep red.
‘It seems to make sense.’
‘Seems?’
‘We can’t be absolutely certain. But the likelihood is that it’s the truth. We’re waiting to hear who made the call claiming that Behzad was involved. We really need to talk to them.’
‘So how are we going to get hold of them?’
‘With difficulty. But Telia are trying to give us the location the call was made from. It was on their network, and we might be able to draw some conclusions based on people we know who are acquainted with Behzad. They’re pretty familiar faces to you here in Linköping, after all.’
‘Good. What about the list of known sex offenders?’
‘We got hold of three more of them yesterday. All in the clear.’
‘And nothing new about the person who called in about Josefin Davidsson?’
‘No,’ Malin says. ‘That feels like a thousand years ago now.’
‘In all likelihood it was just a passer-by who didn’t want anything to do with us,’ Sven says, before going on. ‘OK. Well, the news from Mjölby is that the interviews with Sofia Fredén’s parents and close friends haven’t turned up anything. Sofia seems to have been an ambitious young woman, good at school, never involved in anything stupid. And Forensics haven’t come up with anything from the crime scene. But we’d guessed as much, hadn’t we? Whoever is doing this is obsessively clean and careful. There were traces of bleach on Sofia Fredén’s body. And the traces of paint found in her vagina are identical to those found in the earlier victims. And the cause of death was strangulation. Forensics are looking at her computer, and the lists of calls to and from her mobile are on their way.’
Sven lets his words sink in.
Nothing is easy in this case, they’re not getting anything for free.
‘And still nothing from Facebook or Yahoo!. They seem to be mainly concerned with protecting the confidentiality of their clients.’
‘There’s nothing we can do to pressurise them? What about the courts?’ Zeke wonders.
‘We could certainly make a legal request. But they could always appeal. And it’s hard to know where the information would be. Who do you hold responsible for a server on the Cayman Islands?’
Sven changes the subject.
‘As far as the dildo is concerned, Forensics have ruled out three hundred and fifty models. That’s if it is even a dildo.’
‘What about Sofia Fredén’s wounds?’ Zeke asks. ‘Has Karin been able to say exactly what caused them?’
‘Animal claws. But apparently it’s impossible to say which animal.’
‘Louise Svensson keeps rabbits on her farm,’ Malin says. ‘And rabbits have claws.’
‘Loads of people in this city have rabbits and other animals with claws,’ Sven says. ‘And you can buy those necklaces of animal claws at any market.’
Malin nods.
‘I know, it was a long shot.’
‘Anything else?’
Sven turns to face Malin and Zeke.
‘We spoke to Slavenca Visnic,’ Malin says. ‘And there’s a connection between her and two of the girls. She has no alibi, but we haven’t got anything concrete.’
Malin explains the connections, that Theresa was fo
und near one of the kiosks and that Josefin had worked at another one, which could mean something to the case, or could just as easily be coincidence, even if that would be unusual.
‘It makes me uneasy,’ Malin says.
‘Synchronicity has driven loads of officers mad,’ Per Sundsten says. ‘Connections that exist but that turn out to be completely meaningless. So where do we go with that?’
‘We’ll bear it in mind, but we carry on working without any preconceptions.’
‘Hardcore police work,’ Zeke says. ‘That’s what counts now.’
‘I’d like to talk to Theresa Eckeved’s friend, Nathalie Falck, again,’ Malin says. ‘It feels as if she’s not telling us everything we ought to know. Maybe she’ll talk now, seeing as things have got worse. I don’t think we’d get anything more from Peter Sköld, her supposed boyfriend.’
‘Talk to her,’ Karim says. ‘From where we are now, we’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘And we’ve just received the file about Louise “Lollo” Svensson from the archive,’ Zeke says, and Malin gives him an angry glance, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Calm down, Malin,’ Zeke says. ‘No need to get excited,’ and the others laugh, and the laughter relieves the tension in the room, making the sense of hopelessness less pervasive, as they seem to clamber one circle higher away from the investigative hell they are all in.
‘I only got them five minutes before the meeting. Otherwise I would have shown you first.’
Zeke usually gets annoyed when Malin goes off on her own track, and on the rare occasions when he has done so she gets unreasonably cross, cursing him and behaving like a unfairly treated child.
‘I wouldn’t dare do anything else.’ And now they’re all laughing again, at my expense, Malin thinks, but there’s warmth in their laughter, a pleasant warmth, not like this tormenting summer heat. And Malin thinks they could do with this laughter, she needs it, needs to hear that someone isn’t taking this so incredibly seriously.
‘Shut up, Zeke,’ and by now even Sven is laughing, until Zeke clears his throat and seriousness settles across the room once more.
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