Summertime Death (38 page)

‘We assumed that everyone bought that sort of toy on the internet,’ Malin says. ‘None of our heat-addled brains even considered that tragic little shop.’

‘Mistakes happen in every case,’ Sven Sjöman says. ‘We could have saved Forensics some work. But there’s no way we can get anywhere with Blue Rose’s customers. Of course we can ask them to contact us, but that won’t get us anywhere. No one’s going to come forward and say they bought a dildo. I think we can all agree on that, can’t we? Hajif. Are we making any progress there?’

‘He has no alibi, but otherwise we haven’t got anything.’

Malin can hear the exhaustion in Waldemar Ekenberg’s voice. He probably wishes he was back in his villa in Mjölby, with just his usual hooligans to bully.

Another of their constables, Aronsson, had poked about in Sture Folkman’s personal history after Malin asked her to. According to the archive, one of the two daughters from his marriage to Gudrun Strömholm, Elisabeth, had committed suicide when she was seventeen. The officers investigating the case never had any doubt about the cause of death, and Forensics had given an unambiguous verdict. Elisabeth Folkman had hanged herself. Reason: unknown.

No longer so unknown.

Aronsson.

The best constable in her year.

She had also checked with the police in Nässjö about the fishing accident in which Louise Svensson’s father drowned.

His body had been found floating beside a rowing boat out in the middle of a lake, Ryssbysjön, with a wound in his forehead. Gunnar Svensson was assumed to have tripped in the boat, hit his head on the railing and fallen overboard, unconscious. Traces of blood had been found on the railing.

Sven tells them that they have finally and rather unexpectedly received a response from Yahoo! about the password to Theresa Eckeved’s email account, and that the only correspondence was ten emails to Lovelygirl, who, to judge by the content of the emails, was Louise Svensson. Her farm was mentioned by name. According to what they had got from the emails, no meeting had been arranged that could have coincided with the date of the murder. But there was still no answer from Facebook.

You want to keep your grubby little secrets, Louise, Malin thinks. Presumably you hoped that we wouldn’t find out what you’ve been up to? And once we did find out, you went on trying to protect yourself, your memories, everything that you are.

A lonely person living in the middle of the forest. But still a sex offender.

Then Sven tells them that the Specialist Unit in Stockholm was working on a psychological profile of the perpetrator, but that it would take time because the whole department was on holiday at the same time, and the relief psychologist had a bad cold.

‘Psychologists, pah! Wimps,’ Waldemar says.

Malin thinks about what Viveka Crafoord said about the killer’s profile, but keeps it to herself, it’s just idle speculation by Viveka based on non-existent evidence.

‘You’ll have to carry on with all lines of inquiry,’ Sven says. ‘Try to find new ones. Use every bit of intelligence you’ve got. Ekenberg, Sundsten, interview all the sex offenders you can get hold of.’

Karim Akbar beside Sven, worried, knows that he’s the one who’s going to have to face the media again, trying to duck their questions without having anything substantial to give them. The press conference has been arranged for seven o’clock that evening.

As they are all leaving the room Karim asks Malin to stay behind.

He asks her to sit down again.

‘Malin,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to tell you how much I want to get back to the house down in Västervik and go swimming again.’

He wants to talk to me about swimming?

‘Did you want anything in particular?’

‘Yes, I want you to take part in the press conference.’

‘The press conference? You know how much I hate things like that.’

‘That’s an order, Malin. If I haven’t got any new information for them, then at least I can give them a few minutes with the prettiest face in the Linköping Police.’

Anger wells up inside Malin.

At the same time she feels reluctantly flattered by Karim’s compliment.

‘Malin, joking aside, I don’t want to stand there on my own again with nothing to say. It would be nice if you could come along and say nothing as well. And helpful. It might calm them down a bit.’

‘So you don’t mean that stuff about being prettiest, then?’

Karim grins.

‘Look in the mirror, Malin.’

‘Can we let them have the dildo?’

‘That it was the same model?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, that could lead to everyone assuming that Suliman Hajif is guilty. He doesn’t deserve that yet. You saw the papers yesterday. That was bad enough.’

The papers had been full of pictures of Suliman Hajif with his face blacked out. Headlines like:
Summertime Killer Caught? Terror in Linköping
.

The prettiest face?

So that’s where this crazy summer has got me?

A role as a shop-window dummy.

Twenty minutes later Malin and Karim are standing before a group of journalists in the foyer of the police station. Of the television stations only SVT is there, but there are several radio stations and maybe ten press reporters, a couple of photographers, presumably from the
Correspondent
and the TT news agency. Twice as many journalists just a couple of days ago, her summer angels are quickly becoming less interesting, selling fewer papers now that the investigation’s got bogged down.

‘We have spent the day pursuing a number of lines of inquiry,’ Karim says.

There’s a crackle of flash photography before he goes on: ‘We’re expecting a breakthrough in the case shortly, but for the time being I don’t have any further information for you.’

‘What about you, Malin, can you tell us anything?’

More flashes, and Malin squints.

Daniel.

She didn’t see him before, he must have been late arriving.

‘No.’

‘Nothing?’

And Malin sees the gang of reporters, the hunger in their eyes, the curiosity and exhaustion, just like their own, and before she knows it the words are pouring from her mouth: ‘Well, we’ve been in touch with a psychoanalyst who has put together a simple profile of the perpetrator. We’re probably dealing with someone who has themselves been the victim of abuse, who has a fragile ego, and a distorted self-image. A person who is part of society, yet still somehow separate. I can’t say any more than that.’

‘And the name of the psychoanalyst?’

‘I’m afraid we can’t reveal that.’

Karim fills in this last remark, making the best of the fact that Malin is revealing information that no one else knows about, having evidently decided that there’s no harm in it.

‘The profile isn’t official, and was produced in haste, and they’re currently working on a more detailed profile at National Crime.’

‘What about Suliman Hajif? You’re still holding him? Any new evidence against him?’

‘We’re still holding him in custody.’

‘But you expect to be able to rule him out of the investigation?’

‘No comment,’ Karim says. ‘That’s all.’

Several of the reporters want to interview Malin on her own, but she fends them off, saying: ‘My daughter’s waiting for me at home. I’m heading home to my daughter, sorry.’

With a start she realised the cameras weres still rolling.

‘That’s off the record,’ she said.

How stupid, Malin thought to herself. The last thing I need is to share personal details with the viewing public.

Tove and Malin are finishing off the pizzas she picked up on the way home, no longer hot, but almost nicer in this heat now that they’re cold.

Tove still tired after the flight home.

She’s slept most of the day away, never got out for that swim, hasn’t even met Markus, but she’s spoken to him.

‘When are you going to see Markus?’ Malin asks as she stuffs the last of the pizza in her mouth.

‘Tomorrow,’ Tove says curtly, and Malin can sense the end of the love-story in the dull tone of the word.

A shame, Malin thinks, because I really do like Biggan and Hasse, Markus’s parents, I appreciate their dinners and their relaxed, cheerful company.

‘Did you miss him while you were in Bali?’

‘I don’t know, Mum. Can we talk about something else? Do you have to go on about Markus?’

From inside the living room they can hear the start of the nine o’clock news on television.

‘I might be on it,’ Malin says, and Tove lights up.

‘This I have to see!’

It’s the third item and they make a big deal of the profile in the absence of anything else. A close-up of Malin as she answers questions, and she thinks how old she looks, tired and washed out, wishes she’d put some make-up on or at least brushed her hair, but she did none of that in spite of Karim’s encouragement.

‘You look lovely, Mum,’ Tove says with a wry grin.

‘Thanks Tove, that warms the cockles of my heart.’

‘Are you cold?’

‘I wish!’

Then another clip of Malin as they ask for an interview, as she brushes the camera aside with the words: ‘I’m heading home to my daughter.’

‘Damn it! Why didn’t they edit that comment out?’

Tove gives her a curious look.

‘Why did you say that, Mum?’

‘I was careless.’

Then the weather.

The heatwave is going to continue. No end in sight.

The policewoman.

Malin Fors.

In front of me on the television screen in my secret room. The storeroom shelves are stuffed and the stench doesn’t exist for me, just the heat, a hell that I have sought out and must find my way through.

I’ve seen her swim.

At Tinnis.

Cooling herself down in this inferno.

Does she think she knows who I am? That she can call some psychoanalyst and find out who I am?

And on television? Where anyone can see?

If anything in life was that fucking easy I’d have completed my one single task long ago.

We’d be together again.

None of us would need to be alone or scared any more.

I shall be like fire. Destroying, creating the possibility of new life.

This violation stops here, you’ve violated me, like everyone has always violated me.

You’re moving inside me.

And what I just saw must be a sign, mustn’t it, the scratching of white spiders’ legs with rabbits’ claws in the dust of the bed. Shall I rattle the rabbits’ claws above her neck? Is that what you want?

I’ll try with the claws. They’ll tear you again. I’ll scrub with the milky white, that’s what I’ll do. Your skin will be a white dress. Impossible to trace, of course. Like the dildo. I bought it with cash down in the city last year. He said he’d sold a lot of them. I knew it would come in handy.

I’ll show you. She will become you, you will become her.

You’re leading me in the right direction, Malin Fors. Pain breeds pain which breeds love again. You mentioned your daughter on television. Why? She must be your whole world. Isn’t she?

I just hope she’s the right age.

My summer angel.

The pure love of summertime angels.

I can see it in you.

You’re longing for resurrected love, just like me.

I’m going to escape my longing, and yours will begin.

Balance.

Maybe that’s what’s missing?

What I’ve been missing?

What we’ve been missing.

See how Tove rides her bike down there, taking care not to get into trouble with other traffic, better to get there slowly than not get there at all.

The roof of the Hotel Ekoxen, the Horticultural Society Park like a green mirage, the water of the pool at Tinnis like a shimmering blue promise.

She’s going to meet someone, isn’t she?

Yes, I think so.

Us?

No.

I don’t want that, it would make me miserable.

Now she’s cycling across the bridge over Tinnerbäcken, then struggling up the slope towards Ramshäll.

That’s where the rich people live.

She isn’t rich.

No.

Now I can’t see her any more.

She’s beneath the canopy of the trees.

But you can sense that as well, can’t you, Sofia?

Yes, I can sense it.

She must be careful.

Careful.

Markus.

It’s odd. First she couldn’t be without him, then everything became sort of normal; not boring or anything, just normal. He didn’t exactly turn into a friend, but it wasn’t like it was at the start either.

Tove knew that she wouldn’t miss him in Bali, she just knew, and she knew what that meant.

It’s hotter at home that it was there.

And the light is ten times sharper.

It’s a good thing I’ve got good sunglasses.

Mum doesn’t like wearing sunglasses, she thinks they distort reality. I like it when the world gets a bit more yellow.

Her heart is pounding in her chest as she stands up to pedal up the hill into Ramshäll, past the brick villas and the big wooden houses occupied by the most prominent of the city’s inhabitants.

Markus’s mum and dad are people like that. Doctors, both of them. She’d liked that as well to start with; their big house, not at all like at home, it was a bit like one of the books she’d read: the girl of the people, the man better off, like a prince or duke.

But the house became normal as well, it wasn’t like in any of the books. Bali. That wasn’t normal.

On her way to the house and Markus now. He wanted to come up with something to do, and he must have been able to tell from her voice over the phone last night that she wasn’t sure. She thought about it last night as she was falling asleep. How she somehow can’t imagine seeing Markus the way she used to. Of course they can meet up, but not like that.

How to say that to him?

It’s like she means more to him.