Midwinter Sacrifice (19 page)

And they made Malin laugh to herself.

Johan had brought copies of the national evening tabloids,
Aftonbladet
and
Expressen
, to the meeting. Nothing on the front. But whole pages devoted to the professor, big pictures, ‘authority on Old Norse rituals’, describing how a midwinter sacrifice would take place, and implying that he thought it could happen again.

Sven was silent for almost the whole meeting.

Malin stirs the stew on the stove, inhaling the smell of white pepper and bay leaves.

Their murder is disappearing from the public consciousness. New murders, new scandals involving people on television, political manoeuvres.

What’s a hanging body in a tree worth when it’s no longer ‘new’? Ball-Bengt, you’re not news any more.

The front door opening into the hall.

Tove.

‘Mum, are you home?’

‘I’m in the kitchen.’

‘You’ve made dinner? I’m starving.’

‘Beef stew.’

Tove’s cheeks rosy, beautiful, the most beautiful cheeks in the world.

‘I saw Markus. We had coffee round his.’

A big white doctors’ villa in Ramshäll. Dad a surgeon, one of the ones in white and green, his mum a doctor in the ENT clinic. Two doctors: a common combination in this city.

The phone rings.

‘Can you get that?’ Malin says.

‘No, you get it.’

Malin picks up the phone from the wall where it’s attached.

‘Malin, Dad here. How are things?’

‘Good. But cold. I’ve been watering the plants.’

‘That’s not why I’m calling. Is everything all right?’

‘I just said it was. Everything’s fine.’

‘So it’s cold up there, isn’t it? We saw on TVSverige that there are radiators bursting in Stockholm.’

‘That’s been happening here too.’

He’s got something on his mind, Malin thinks. I wonder if he’ll manage to get it out. ‘Did you want anything in particular?’

‘Well, just that I . . . No, we can talk about it another time.’

Can’t be bothered to wheedle it out of him, can’t be bothered.

‘Whatever you like, Dad.’

‘Is Tove there?’

‘She just went into the bathroom.’

‘Well, it wasn’t important. Talk to you soon, bye for now.’

Malin is left standing with the phone in her left hand. No one can end a conversation as abruptly as her father. He’s there, then he’s gone.

Tove comes back into the kitchen.

‘Who was that?’

‘Grandad. He sounded a bit odd.’

Tove sits down at the table, looks out of the window. ‘All the clothes people have to wear at this time of year make them look ugly,’ she says. ‘They all look fat.’

‘Do you know what,’ Malin says. ‘There’s enough here for Janne as well. Shall we call and ask if he wants to come over?’

A sudden desire to see him. To touch something. Feel him. Just a whim.

Tove brightens up.

‘You call him,’ Malin says, and Tove’s smile vanishes as quickly as it arrived.

‘You’ll have to do that for yourself, Mum.’

One, two, three, four, five rings. No answer.

Maybe he’s on duty at the fire station.

At the station the operator says, ‘He’s off today.’

His mobile.

Janne’s mobile, straight to the answering service: ‘Hi, you’ve reached Janne. Leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’

No message.

‘Couldn’t you get hold of him?’

‘No.’

‘Just the two of us, then, Mum.’

Tove is asleep in bed.

It is just after half past eleven. Malin is wide awake on the sofa.

She gets up, looks into Tove’s room, at the perfect girl’s body under the covers, the chest rising and falling.

Brothers aren’t men
.

An overflow of life.

Warm, warm blood circulating. Another body in another bed.

Janne, Janne, where are you? Come here. Come back. There’s meat stew on the stove.

Can’t. I’m driving sacks of flour over a mountain in Bosnia, the road’s been mined. They need my help, here.

We need you.

Malin goes into her bedroom. Is sitting quietly on the edge of the bed when her mobile rings.

She rushes out into the hall and finds her mobile in her jacket pocket.

‘Daniel Högfeldt here.’

First anger, then resignation, then hope.

‘Have you got anything for me?’

‘No, nothing new. What do you think?’

‘I think you’d be welcome to come round, if you’d like to.’

‘Are you home?’

‘Yes. Are you coming?’

Malin looks at herself in the hall mirror, sees how the contours of her face seem to get weaker the more she looks at it.

Why resist?

She whispers down the phone, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.’

She drinks a large glass of tequila before leaving the flat. Leaves a note on the hall floor.

Tove

They called from work. I’ve got my mobile

Mum

PART TWO

Brothers

In the darkness

Are you coming? Are you coming with love?

Sketches, notes, and my little black book with little black words, pictures of now, of the future, of the past, of blood.

I’m not mad. It’s only a part of me that’s given in, that’s come loose. What good did it do, talking to that psychologist?

It’s in the wardrobe at home, the notebook; here there are only crumbs, apples and everything that needs doing, that’s already done and needs doing again.

Let me in, do you hear? It’s cold out here. Let me in.

Why are you laughing? You laughter is tearing me apart.

It’s cold and damp. I want to go home. But this is probably my home now.

I want to join in and play.

Receive some love.

That’s all.

29

Wednesday, 8 February

Daniel Högfeldt’s bedroom.

What am I doing here?

Are those his hands on my body? He’s eager, firm, caresses, nips, slaps. Does he hit me? Oh, let him. Let him scratch a little, it might as well hurt a bit.

I give way. Let it happen. His body is hard and that’s enough, I don’t give a damn who he is.

Grey walls. My hands near the chrome headboard, he nibbles at my lips, his tongue in my mouth and he pumps and pumps.

Sweat. Minus thirty-four degrees.

Tove, Janne, Dad, Mum, Ball-Bengt, Maria Murvall.

Daniel Högfeldt on top of me, in charge. Do you think I’m yours, Daniel? We can pretend that if you like.

It hurts. And it’s nice.

She takes control, rolls away from him, forces him down on the mattress. Clambers on, in.

Now, Daniel. Now.

I disappear into the lovely pain. And it’s wonderful.

Can’t that be enough?

Malin is lying next to Daniel, twists herself up into a sitting position. Looks at the sleeping muscular body beside hers. Gets up, puts on her clothes, leaves the flat.

It’s five o’clock. Linköping deserted.

She walks towards Police Headquarters.

I heard you, Malin, I was awake, but you didn’t notice.

I wanted to keep you here, I wanted that. It’s so damn cold out there, I wanted to say that I wanted you to stay. Even the very toughest, people who seem hard, need warmth, everyone does.

There’s nothing original in warmth.

But it still means everything.

I dig and root about in people’s lives, try to uncover their secrets. There’s no warmth in that, but I still like doing it.

How did I get like this?

The Murvall brothers.

Adam, Jakob, Elias.

Malin has their files in front of her on the desk, leafing through them at random, reading, drinking coffee.

Three people. Poured into almost the same mould.

The brothers’ police records read like the report of a boxing match.

Round one: shoplifting, hash, souped-up mopeds, driving without a licence, obstruction of official duties, break-ins in kiosks, thefts from Cloetta trucks.

Round two: assault, fighting in bars.

Round three: poaching, extortion, stealing boats, possession of illegal weapons. Small-bore rifles, Husqvarna.

Then after that it’s like the match is over.

The last notes in the brothers’ files are some ten years old.

So what’s happened to the Murvall brothers? Have they calmed down? Got families? Gone straight? Got smarter? Never the last of these. It doesn’t happen. Once a gangster, always a gangster.

Which one is worst?

Notes, extracts from interviews.

The youngest brother, Adam. A hash-smoking petrol-head with violent tendencies, if the file is to be believed. He beat one of the drivers at Mantorp horse-trotting track until he was pouring with blood, after he failed to win a race that Adam had high hopes of.

Illegal betting? No question. Three months in Skänninge secure unit. Two elk poached in February. One month in Skänninge. Beating up his girlfriend. Suspicion of attempted rape. Six months.

The middle brother, Jakob. Illiterate, according to the files. Dyslexic. Prone to violent outbursts. And what does someone like that do? Hits a teacher in year seven, breaks the arm of a contemporary outside the kiosk in Ljungsbro. Juvenile institution. Dealing hash in the playground when he returned, broke a policeman’s jaw when they came to pick him up. Six months in Norrköping, extortion of businesses in Borensberg, drink-driving. One year in Norrköping. Then nothing. As if whatever was wrong suddenly stopped.

The eldest brother, Elias. A perfect example. Some sort of talent for football, in the reserve team as a thirteen-year-old, until he broke into the kiosk at Ljungsbro IF and was expelled from the club. Causing death by dangerous driving when he hit a tree, drunk. Six months in Skänninge. Grievous bodily harm in the Hamlet restaurant. He smashed a beer-glass into another customer’s head. The man lost the sight in one eye.

‘Slow-witted, easily led, insecure.’ The psychologist’s words. Slow-witted? Insecure? Did people really write things like that?

Little sister Maria.

So these are your brothers, Maria? The ones who put up the posters in your room? Adam? In their language, his language, I suppose that’s a sign of concern.

Bengt’s blue body in the tree.

The revenge of three brothers?

Round four: murder?

Malin rubs her eyes. Sips her third cup of coffee.

She hears the door of the office open, feels a cold draught.

Zeke’s voice, rasping and tired: ‘Early today, Fors? Or just a very long night?’

Zeke puts on the radio.

Low volume.

‘Interesting reading, isn’t it?’

‘They seem to have settled down,’ Malin says.

‘Or they just got a bit smarter.’

Zeke is about to say something else, but his voice is hidden by the sound of the radio. The song that is playing fades out, then an annoying jingle, then Malin’s friend’s voice: ‘That was . . .’

Helen.

She grew up out there, Malin thinks. Almost the same age as the brothers. Maybe she knows them? I could call her. I’ll call her.

‘Hello, Malin.’

The voice as soft and sexy over the phone as on the radio.

‘Can you talk?’

‘We’ve got three minutes and twenty-two seconds until this track is over. But I can give us twice as long if I don’t bother to talk before the next one.’

‘I’ll get straight to the point, then. Did you know three brothers by the name of Murvall, who grew up out in Vreta Kloster?’

‘The Murvall brothers. Sure. Everyone knew them.’

‘Infamous?’

‘You could say that. They were always known as “the crazy Murvall brothers”. They were pretty nasty. But all the same . . . there was something tragic about them. You know, they were the ones who everyone knew would never turn into anything, but who rage and rebel against the system. You know, the ones who are sort of on the periphery right from the start. Who are, I don’t know, maybe doomed always to be outside normal society, knocking to get in. They were branded, somehow. They lived in Blåsvädret. The worst, most windswept hellhole on the whole plain. That was Murvall family territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still live there.’

‘Do you remember Maria Murvall?’

‘Yes. She was the one who was going to make something of herself. She was in the parallel class to me.’

‘Did you hang out with her?’

‘No, she was sort of on the sidelines as well, somehow. As if she were branded the same way, like her good grades were almost, I don’t know, it sounds awful, but a meaningless attempt to break free. Her brothers protected her. There was one boy who tried to bully her about something, I forget what, and they sandpapered his cheeks. Two horrible wounds, but he didn’t dare tell anyone who did it.’

‘And the father?’

‘He did odd jobs. Blackie, that was his name. He was actually quite fair, but everyone called him Blackie. He had some sort of accident, broke his back and ended up in a wheelchair. Then he drank himself to death, although I think he’d already made a start on that. I’m pretty sure he broke his neck when he rolled down the stairs in their house.’

‘Mother?’

‘There were rumours that she was some sort of witch. But I dare say she was just an ordinary housewife.’

‘A witch?’

‘Gossip, Malin. A shitty little rural dump like Ljungsbro lives off rumour and gossip.’

The voice on the radio.

‘And this next track is for my good friend Malin Fors, the brightest star of Linköping Police.’

Zeke chortles.

‘Carry on the good work, Malin. Soon you’ll be world-famous. Right now she’s investigating the case of Bengt Andersson, which everyone in the city has such an interest in. If you know anything about the case, call Malin Fors at Linköping Police. Anything at all could help them.’

Zeke is chuckling louder now. ‘You’re going to get such a torrent of calls.’

The music starts.

‘Country Boy’ by Eldkvarn.

‘This is my love song. This is my time on earth . . .’

Plura Jonsson’s voice, tremulous with longing and sentimentality.

‘. . . I am what I am . . . a country boy, call me a country boy . . .’