Summertime Death (26 page)

People, places.

Except they form nothing but a grey, shapeless mass, and a shiver of anxiety runs through her body, a shimmering whiteness that takes root deep in her diaphragm.

It’s a good sign for Linköping that deer dare to venture so close to the centre.

But something more than just deer is in motion, they’re not alone tonight.

There are two of us now, Malin.

But Sofia Fredén doesn’t yet know about her predicament.

I’ll try to help her as best I can.

But I’m afraid my fear means that I can scarcely look after myself.

Please, Malin, kill off my anxieties. That’s one of the things that we human beings are supposed to do for each other.

I know that now, as I drift up here.

The clock on the Tekniska Verken building says 05.42.

Already bloody light.

The black bicycle is weaving back and forth over the tarmac, the quickest route from the villa out in Stångebro is past the Cloetta Centre, through the tunnel under the railway and up through the Railway Park.

Hungover.

But I’m Superman, thinks Patrik Karlsson, as he pedals on towards the tunnel.

The party last night. They had a barbecue in his garden, his mum and dad away in the country, and now he’s on his way to his summer job at Frimis as a breakfast waiter.

Boiling eggs.

Laying tables.

Don’t put out any little Mazarin tarts if there are German tourists staying in the hotel. They take about a hundred each.

It’s hotter in the tunnel, but it only takes a few seconds.

Up past the station building.

The Railway Park.

Buildings from the turn of the last century all around, showy apartments, ten large rooms, doctors’ homes, he knows because he had a girlfriend there once, a nice doctor’s daughter called Cornelina.

What a fucking name!

Wonder if Sofia’s working the dishwasher today.

Past the bushes. And those trees that his mum always thinks are so beautiful.

But.

In the small clearing between the trees, in the dim light, there’s something there. There shouldn’t be anything there.

Patrik Karlsson stops.

Lays the bike down on the grass.

He feels sick from the wine box last night. But sicker still from what he sees.

His body lurches as he approaches.

There’s a body in there, in the clearing.

Turn around.

Can’t.

The body is naked, white, looks almost scrubbed, despite the blood from the wounds.

The face.

The eyes, wide-open. Grey blue white, far from alive.

Sofia.

From the dishwasher.

She won’t be working the dishwasher today, Patrik Karlsson thinks, before he lets out a stifled, involuntary scream.

‘It’s happened again.’

Zeke’s voice more tired than Malin has ever heard it before. Tired in a new way, not despairing but almost indifferent, and that scares Malin even more.

She’s seen that indifference in some older officers, and prays that neither she nor Zeke ends up like that, but not Zeke, never Zeke; that somehow innate sense of engagement in his hard, green eyes could never fade. Could it?

And he says it again.

And Malin, sitting up naked in bed on a sheet wet with sweat doesn’t want to absorb the words, and hopes they’ve found a living girl disorientated in a park, or anywhere, but she can hear from Zeke’s voice that this isn’t the case.

She was practically dragged from her dreamless sleep by the ringing of the phone.

It’s happened again.

They found Josefin on Thursday, Theresa on Sunday, and now, two days later, it’s time for another girl. Dead?

‘How bad?’

‘As bad as it could be.’

Malin clenches the fist that isn’t holding the phone.

‘This is fucking well not going to happen again.’

‘You’re right there,’ Zeke says. ‘It’s time we got this bastard now.’

It’s only two hundred metres from Malin’s flat to the latest crime scene.

She makes her way there along the shady side of St Larsgatan. Dragging her feet, doesn’t want to see what she knows she’s going to see.

No smell of smoke, the wind must be coming from a different direction again today. But Malin can still sense it somehow, the smoke, she can detect its resonance, a new tone settling over the city.

The heat.

The implacability of this summer.

Fear.

The awareness that something malevolent is on the loose.

Stay indoors, girls. Don’t go out. Go in groups, only in the light, be on your guard, cheat death, it could be anywhere, anywhere at all.

Violence like a suffocating arm around Linköping, this city of knowledge, a snake twisting around its proud industries, IT companies, university and hospitals, around its inhabitants, each one more remarkable yet also more scared than the last.

Fear is a parasite, expressing itself in violence, which will slowly, slowly consume the city’s joy in life. Unless, Malin thinks, we put a stop to this now.

She walks past the
Correspondent
’s offices on St Larsgatan.

Daniel almost certainly down in the Railway Park already.

Frimis.

Zeke said that both the victim and the lad who found her had summer jobs there.

The hotel’s façade like a faded medieval castle. And in there was where those ridiculous freemasons held their meetings. Karim is a member. And Zeke’s son, Martin, has given a talk to the old men about what it’s like being a top sports star.

Malin wants to think about anything at all apart from the sight that greets her when she turns the corner down towards the park: two patrol cars, uniformed police officers, cordons, journalists and photographers.

Low-growing bushes in tight clusters around the gravel paths.

An attractive grove of what, rhododendrons?

No, rowan bushes, maples, an oak.

Karin Johannison inside the grove.

Malin can just make out the red and orange flowers of a lovely dress that she’s seen Karin wear before.

Karin is crouched over the body.

‘Her name’s Sofia Fredén.’

Malin can hear the tiredness even in Karin’s voice. Not indifferent or despairing, more like sympathetic and involved, in a way that she’s never heard Karin before.

‘Another one,’ Karin says as she stands up and looks at Malin, her eyes full of sympathy as well, but also anger.

‘Another one,’ she repeats.

And Malin nods, looks down at the body, its eyes closed, and the scrubbed skin is glassy, almost transparent white, with deep gashes across the chest, neat in spite of the blood, but not the same as the injuries to Theresa or Josefin. The blood that’s poured from the wounds makes the body look oddly peaceful; the contrast between the white skin and the red has that effect.

A smell of bleach is in the air.

‘It almost looks like she’s glowing,’ Malin says. ‘Have you got any thoughts about the wounds? They’re different from before. And there’s more blood.’

‘The wounds?’ Karin says. ‘They’re different. They look like they were made by some sort of claws. A small bird, a guinea pig, maybe a rabbit or a cat. As to why there’s more blood? Maybe the killer didn’t have time to wash her or wait for the wounds to stop bleeding. We are in the middle of the city, after all.’

In Karin’s voice there’s none of the superiority that’s usually there, and it makes her more pleasant, humble.

Rabbit claws.

Are you still finding your way? If you can just get it right, then all this will sort itself out, all your wishes will be fulfilled?

The cages at Lollo Svensson’s farm.

‘It’s like he or she is still trying things out,’ Malin says to Karin. ‘Seeing as the wounds look different each time.’

‘Maybe, Malin. But what do I know?’

In the distance she can hear Daniel Högfeldt’s voice: ‘Malin, is it the same perpetrator?’

And Karin answers his question, albeit quietly, to Malin.

‘Particles of blue paint in the vagina, the body scrubbed clean, strangled. I can guarantee you that we’re dealing with one and the same perpetrator.’

Malin looks Karin in the eyes. She blinks slowly in response.

‘It could have been one of us, Malin, if we were younger.’

‘What about the lad who found her?’

‘He’s sitting in the Volvo with Zeke over in the car park.’

Patrik Karlsson is sitting terrified in the back seat of the car.

Seems to believe that they’re going to think it was him.

‘We don’t think you had anything to do with this, Patrik. Not for a second.’

The air conditioning in the car is roaring, one of the commonest and most welcome sounds of the summer.

‘We’ve already checked your alibi,’ Zeke says. ‘And we know that you worked together. Right now we’re just wondering if you can tell us anything about her that we ought to know?’

‘I only spoke to her a couple of times.’

His soft teenage cheeks move up and down.

‘She was always busy with the dishes. Used to say she wished she’d taken the job in the café at Tinnis instead, where she worked last summer.’

Tinnis.

What wouldn’t I give to go swimming right now?

‘I didn’t really know her. Sure, I thought she was pretty. But like I said, I was on my way to work and just happened to go past on my bike.’

Sofia, Malin thinks.

Just on her way home from work.

Did she just happen to walk past the perpetrator?

‘Do you know where Sofia lived?’

‘In Mjölby. She must have been on her way to catch the train.’

‘Mjölby?’

Malin closes her eyes.

We’re way behind, she thinks.

It’s the sort of day when she feels like drinking one, two, three, four beers for lunch, then carrying on drinking all afternoon with the help of a large bottle of tequila. But it never happens, because she never gives in to that sort of impulse. Instead: delayed morning meeting at the station.

An intent Karim Akbar at the head of the table, the whiteboard behind him giving off a dull glow, lit up by the daylight seeping in through the gaps in the lowered, tilted Venetian blinds.

Sven Sjöman is sitting to the left of Karim, bags under his eyes, his bulging stomach tight under a washed-out yellow cotton shirt and Malin knows he’s suffering in the heat, knows it’s much harder for him than other people to get through days like this. She noticed him getting more and more tired during the spring, but didn’t want to ask why, didn’t want to vocalise what was obvious, not wanting to think the thought of what would happen if he went off on sick-leave or if his heart somehow packed up.

Mentor.

You’ve been my mentor, Sven.

His mantra:
Listen to the voices of an investigation, Malin. Hear what they’re trying to tell you.
Which she has gradually, over the days, weeks, months and years, translated into:
See the images, feel the clues, notice the patterns
.

Zeke opposite Sven.

Ready to pounce again, his back straight, ready to deal with whatever shit gets thrown at him. Nothing can break me! A hungry look in his eyes, nothing to hide, an unveiled human being.

Their colleagues from Motala and Mjölby are taking part in the group meeting for the first time.

Sundsten. Per.

A younger, child-free version of Johan Jakobsson, slim and sinewy, sitting there with an open face beneath flaxen hair, wearing a crumpled white linen suit. A guileless but watchful look in his eyes, a sharp nose curving slightly towards his thin lips. He looks intelligent, Malin thinks.

Waldemar Ekenberg.

Long and faithful service.

A time-twisted police officer with an infamous weakness for excessive force. Cigarettes have left deep lines in his face and he’s thin, looks older than his fifty years. His hair is a lifeless grey, but the look in his grey-green eyes is still strangely vibrant: We’re going to get this bastard.

Karim begins: ‘Karin Johannison has confirmed that the traces of paint match the other victims. We’ll be getting a more detailed forensic report later today, tomorrow at the latest. So, we’re dealing with the same perpetrator. Or perpetrators.’

‘Well,’ Waldemar Ekenberg says, and his voice is thin and rattling. ‘We can hardly expect to find the perpetrator among her close acquaintances. There don’t seem to be any natural connections between the girls, do there?’

‘Hardly,’ Zeke interjects.

‘I’ve had time to get a good look at the case now,’ Per Sundsten says. ‘It’s like we’re dealing with some sort of shadow. Someone who exists, yet somehow doesn’t.’

Sven nods.

‘What do you think, Malin?’

The expectation that she’s going to say something wise, something that takes them a bit further.

‘There’s a pattern here. I just can’t see it yet. Have Sofia Fredén’s parents been told?’

Theresa Eckeved’s mother sinking to the hall floor, screaming.

Her father, some of his wits still about him, his whole being radiating the realisation: I’m only at the start of this nightmare.

‘Persson and Björk in Mjölby have taken care of that,’ Waldemar Ekenberg says. ‘They’re good, they’ll do it as well as anyone could. It’s an impossible task. And they’ll be questioning Sofia’s parents about her as well. Just the essentials.’

Task.

Malin tastes the word, twists and turns it, the way it creates a professional distance in an attempt to make this most human encounter bearable.

Then a quick overview of the situation from Per Sundsten.

The latest door-to-door inquiries around the villas of Sturefors had turned up nothing, and the convicted sex offenders that he and Ekenberg had had time to check out all had watertight alibis. Ten people on the list, five checked. ‘We’ll carry on with the others today. But I don’t really expect it to give us anything.’

‘We haven’t got hold of the owner of the kiosk yet,’ Malin says. ‘Seems to be away. All three kiosks are shut, in the middle of high season.’