Autumn Killing (32 page)

The small terraced house furnished with pine furniture.

Crocheted cloths on polished wooden surfaces, and on the cloths Swarovski crystal figurines, an impressive collection, Malin thinks, as Andreas Ekström’s mother puts a pot of fresh coffee on the living-room table.

There are seven framed photographs on a bureau.

A toddler grinning from under his fringe in a nursery-school picture. A picture taken on a football pitch. End of school. A well-built teenager on a beach somewhere. Short hair ruffled by the wind, and a metre or so out in the water stands a man who could be Andreas Ekström’s dad.

‘Now you know what he looked like,’ Stina Ekström says, sitting down opposite Malin on a matching wine-red velvet-clad armchair.

Similar pictures of Tove at home on the chest of drawers in the bedroom.

‘He looks like a real charmer,’ Malin says.

Stina Ekström smiles in agreement.

How old are you? Malin thinks.

Sixty?

The woman in front of her has short fair hair, grey at the temples, and the wrinkles around her thin lips reveal years of smoking. There’s a smell of smoke, but Malin can’t see any ashtrays or cigarettes. Maybe Stina Ekström has succeeded in giving up? Somehow managing to hold the cravings at bay?

Black jeans.

A grey knitted sweater.

Eyes that have got used to days coming and going, that there really aren’t any surprises. It’s not tiredness I can see in her eyes, Malin thinks, it’s something else, a sort of calm? No bitterness. A sense of being at peace, can that be it?

Stina Ekström pours the coffee with her left hand, then gestures towards the plate of homemade buns.

‘Now, what on earth can the police want with me?’

‘Jerry Petersson.’

‘I thought as much. Well, of course I read the papers.’

‘He was there when your son died.’

The look in Stina Ekström’s eyes doesn’t change. Is this what grief looks like when you’ve come to terms with it?

‘He was in the passenger seat. He was wearing a seat belt and got out OK.’

Malin nods.

‘Do you think about the accident much?’

‘Not about the accident. About Andreas. Every day.’

Malin takes a sip of coffee, hears the rain pattering on the window a few metres to her left.

‘Did you live here then?’

‘Yes, we moved here when Andreas was twelve. Before that we lived over in Vreta Kloster.’

Malin waits for Stina Ekström to go on.

‘I was angry at first,’ Stina Ekström says. ‘But then, as the years passed? It was as if all the anger and grief finally gave way, that nineteen years with Andreas was still a wonderful gift, and I think it’s pointless grieving for things that never happened.’

Malin can feel her heart contract, as though squeezed by a huge fist, and how her eyes start to tear up against her will.

Stina Ekström looks at her.

‘Are you all right?’

Malin coughs, says: ‘I think it must be an allergic reaction.’

‘I’ve got two other children,’ Stina Ekström says, and Malin smiles as she wipes the tears from her eyes.

‘Did you feel any hatred towards the lad who was driving?’

‘It was an accident.’

Malin sits in silence for a few moments, then leans forward.

‘We’ve received information that suggests that Jerry Petersson was behind the wheel that night, and that he was drunk.’

Stina Ekström says nothing, nor does the look in her eyes change.

‘He’s supposed to have persuaded Jonas Karlsson to say . . .’

‘I understand,’ Stina Ekström says. ‘I’m not stupid. And now you’re wondering if I knew, or found out about it, and decided to go and murder . . .’

‘We don’t think anything of the sort.’

‘But you’re here.’

Malin looks into Stina Ekström’s eyes.

‘I lost a lot that night. My husband and I got divorced a few years later. We couldn’t talk about Andreas, and in the end it was like there was nothing left except silence. But regardless of who was driving, there’s no anger left, no hatred. The grief is still here, but it’s just one of the many background notes that make up a life.’

‘Was there anyone else who was particularly upset?’

‘Everyone was upset. But it’s a long time ago now.’

‘Andreas’s dad?’

‘He can answer that himself.’

Zeke is with him now, out in Malmslätt.

‘What about the Fågelsjö family? Did they pass on their sympathies?’

‘No. I got the impression they were trying to pretend it never happened. Not on their land, and not after a party organised by their son.’

Malin closes her eyes. Feels bloated and nauseous.

‘Can I ask what you do for a living?’ she goes on. ‘Or are you retired?’

‘Not for another four years. I work part-time at a day centre for people with learning difficulties. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason, really,’ Malin says, getting up and holding out her hand over the table. ‘Thanks for seeing me. And for the coffee.’

‘Take a bun with you.’

Malin reaches for the plate, takes a bun and soon the soft dough is filling her mouth.

Cinnamon. Cardamom.

‘Aren’t you going to ask what I was doing on the night between Thursday and Friday last week?’

Malin swallows and smiles.

‘What were you doing?’

‘I was here at home. I spent half the night chatting on the Internet. You can check my log if you need to.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Malin says.

Stina Ekström gets up and leaves the room. She comes back with a pack of chewing-gum.

‘Take a couple,’ she says amiably. ‘Before you meet your colleagues.’

Malin parks the car outside Folkunga School.

She switches off the engine, hears the rain almost trying to force its way through the bodywork, puts her hands on the wheel and breathes in and out, in and out, pretending that Tove is sitting next to her, that she can throw her arms around her and hug her hard, so hard.

Malin stares at the entrance, the broad steps leading up to the castle-like building with doors that are three times the height of the pupils themselves. The mature oak trees around the school are trying desperately to cling onto the last of their sunset-coloured leaves, and seem to think that the world will end if their leaves go.

You’re in there somewhere, Tove. Malin doesn’t know her timetable. What lesson would she have now? Swedish, maths? All she has to do is go in and ask at reception, then find the classroom and take Tove out for coffee and a hug. But I reek of drink, don’t I? Unless the chewing-gum has helped?

I hope Tove comes out during her break. Then I can see her, run up to her, maybe say sorry, or just look at her from here in the car. Maybe she’ll come over if I manage to see her. But she probably won’t come out in the rain.

I’m going in.

Malin opens the car door and puts one foot on the ground, sees a few students cross the school yard, their shadowless motion framed by the windswept oaks, as old as the school itself.

She pulls her foot back. Closes the door. Puts her shaking hands on the wheel, willing them to stop, but they won’t obey. She takes deep breaths. Needs a drink. But she manages to hold the thought at bay, with all her strength.

There. Now the shaking has stopped.

She pulls out her mobile, dials Tove’s number. The message-service clicks in.

‘Tove, it’s Mum. I just wanted to let you know I’m home again. I thought maybe we could have dinner together this evening. Can you call me back?’

Malin turns the key in the ignition, and the car’s engine drowns out the rain.

She closes her eyes.

Inside her she sees a huge stone castle towering up through thick autumn fog.

Not Skogså.

Another castle. A building she doesn’t recognise.

She lets her gaze settle over the moat.

Full of swollen, naked, white corpses, and small silvery fish gasping in the air. And a pulsating sense of fear.

Zeke runs across the car park towards the entrance to the police station. The damp is running down the old ochre-coloured barracks, which has been given a new lease of life as the home of the city’s police, courts and the National Forensic Laboratory.

He swears to himself about this fucking bastard weather, but knows there’s no point in cursing the forces of nature, it’s utterly pointless and gets you nowhere.

In the rain his thoughts go to Martin.

In the NHL. The lad already has enough money to be able to relax in the sun until his dying day.

And the grandchild I’ve hardly seen.

What am I up to?

Andreas Ekström’s father, Hans.

Only fifteen minutes since I left.

An angry old man in an old, run-down house. All hell broke loose when Zeke said that Jerry Petersson had probably been driving the car when his son died.

Hans Ekström got up from the chair where he was sitting in the kitchen and shouted at Zeke that that was all crap, and he wasn’t about to let some bastard show up and stir that all up again now that he’d finally managed to put it behind him.

Hans Ekström had refused to answer any questions after that, but to judge from his reaction, what Zeke told him came as a complete shock.

Which meant he had no reason to murder Jerry Petersson. Unless Hans Ekström was a really good actor. A right-handed one at that.

Hans Ekström had concluded by cursing the Fågelsjö family: ‘They couldn’t even be bothered to send flowers to the funeral.’

They could have done that, Zeke thinks as he opens the door to the police station, evidently the new automatic doors aren’t working, the rain and damp have probably got into their mechanism and stopped them functioning.

Malin.

Zeke sees her sitting at her desk, and she looks so tired, utterly exhausted. If the sun had been shining down in Tenerife, it sure as hell hadn’t been shining on her.

A shadow of a person.

Is that what you’re turning into, Malin?

He feels like going over and putting his arm around his colleague, telling her to pull herself together, but knows she would only get angry.

She looks up and catches sight of him, doesn’t say anything, just looks back down at the papers on her desk again.

Zeke turns and goes upstairs to Sven Sjöman’s room.

He’ll just have time before their meeting.

Sven is standing by the window, looking out at the main building of the University Hospital and its eastern entrance. The white and yellow panels covering the ten-storey building are shaking in the wind, seeming to want to let go and fly across the city, coming down to land in a more bearable site.

Zeke takes a few steps inside the room.

‘Don’t say anything to Malin,’ he says. ‘She’d never forgive me for going behind her back, but you can see the way she is. She’s drinking way too much.’

Sven shakes his head.

‘This conversation stays between the two of us. I’m glad you’ve mentioned it, because I’ve been giving it a lot of, well, a lot of thought.’

Sven turns around.

‘She’s not holding everything together,’ Zeke says. ‘I can’t bear to see it. I’ve tried . . .’

‘I’ll talk to her, Zeke. The trip to Tenerife was partly an attempt to give her a bit of breathing space.’

‘You should see her now. It doesn’t exactly look like she spent her time in a luxury spa.’

‘Maybe the trip was a stupid idea. We’ll have to see how it goes,’ Sven says. ‘You’re making sure you drive when you go out together?’

Zeke nods.

‘I drive pretty much all the time.’

He pauses.

‘I’m sure what happened in Finspång last year hit her hard,’ he goes on.

‘It did,’ Sven says. ‘But who wouldn’t be badly affected by something like that? I don’t think she can understand that. Or accept it.’

The clock on the wall of their usual meeting room says 15.37.

The investigating team is all there.

Windows here, unlike in paperwork Hell.

No children in the nursery playground, but Malin can see them through the windows, running about the rooms, playing as if this world was altogether good. A red and blue plastic slide. Yellow fabrics. Clear colours, no doubts. A comprehensible world for people who grab life with both hands and live in the present.

The people in here, Malin thinks, are the exact opposite.

Karim Akbar’s face is composed, his body seems to have been taken over by a new sort of middle-aged seriousness, on the verge of exhaustion.

Autumn is wearing us down, Malin thinks. We’re turning into characters in a black-and-white film.

Zeke, Sven Sjöman, Waldemar Ekenberg, Johan Jakobsson, even young Lovisa Segerberg from Stockholm, seem ready for a long break from anything involving police work and rain.

The investigation.

Right now it looks as if it’s in danger of rusting solid, like the entire city.

Lines of inquiry.

Snaking back and forth across our brains like the lights on a communal ski track.

Suspicions. Voices. All the people and events that emerge when they lift the stones that made up Jerry Petersson’s fairly short life.

Sven is standing at the whiteboard at one end of the room. On the board he has written a list of names in blue marker pen.

Jochen Goldman.

Axel, Fredrik and Katarina Fågelsjö.

Jonas Karlsson.

Andreas Ekström and Jasmin Sandsten’s parents.

Then a row of question marks. New names? New information? Anything that can help us move on?

Malin takes a deep breath. Looks across at the children in the nursery. Hears Sven’s voice, but can’t bring herself to say anything.

Fragments from a meeting.

Her own account of her trip to Tenerife.

That Jochen Goldman is ambiguity personified.

Her encounter with Andreas Ekström’s mother. The others listen attentively. Lovisa tells them that she is steadily working through the files and contents of Jerry Petersson’s hard-drives, but that it would take at least five specially trained police officers to do it at anything like an acceptable rate, and Karim saying: ‘We don’t have the resources for that.’ They still haven’t found a will, nor anything like a blackmail letter, nor even anything remotely suspicious. They’ve spoken to several more of Petersson’s business contacts, but the conversations haven’t produced anything.