Summertime Death (16 page)

Big pots.

Dry soil, dampened by the watering can.

She can feel her parents’ love in the flat, not their love for her, but for each other. Love as a deal, a sensible arrangement, a way to shut out the world.

Why? Malin thinks. Why do I feel such loss among these things?

She didn’t call Janne and Tove yesterday, and they didn’t call her.

She’s sitting on one of the worn wooden benches on the hill leading down from her parents’ building, fingering her mobile.

The fire brigade. Lesbians. The alien world of teenagers. Thousands of years between each generation.

Janne.

She fingers the keys as an unbearable ray of sunlight breaks through the foliage of the trees and she edges closer to the building.

Smoke in the air, just a hint, the fire is evidently spreading towards Lake Roxen. Is Lake Hultsjön going to burn? Really? Can a lake evaporate?

‘Janne here.’

He sounds lively. Restaurant noises in the background.

‘Is that you, Malin?’

‘It’s me. How are you both?’

‘Good, we’re having lunch. There’s a bloke who grills fish for you. Tove loves it.’

Fish.

She doesn’t usually love fish.

‘And you, how are you getting on?’

‘We’re struggling with that rape case I mentioned. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling.’

Silence on the line.

‘So how can I help?’

Malin gives a brief outline of the case, about the dildo and the lesbian line of inquiry.

‘So you want to know if I know anyone in the fire brigade who might be able to talk to you and tell you a bit about the lesbian community in Östergötland?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘No prejudices there, then. What about your own ranks?’

‘Sensitive, Janne. But what the hell are we supposed to do, there’s a fucking rapist on the loose, a really vicious one at that. And another girl’s gone missing. God knows where she is.’

She explains briefly about Theresa Eckeved, and how they really haven’t managed to come up with anything at all.

Another silence.

‘Janne, it could have been Tove.’

He says nothing at first, then: ‘Talk to Solhage down at the station. I’ll talk to her, she’s OK, and she’s working the whole of July.’

‘Thanks, Jan. Can I talk to Tove?’

‘She’s just gone up to the room, can you call back a bit later?’

When Malin has ended the call she turns her face to the sun, hoping to get some colour in her tired features, let the rays wipe out those horrible wrinkles, but after just a few seconds the heat is too much for her and she gets up from the bench, thinking: No one can control the passage of time, not me, and not you out there somewhere, whoever or whatever you are.

Malin walks up to the police station, careful to stay on the shady side of the street. Her legs are dragging behind her body, her sandals heavy on the tarmac, which feels almost sticky under their soles.

Thinking, as her feet move forward in turn: Exclusion leads to hate, and hate leads to violence.

Sexual exclusion, not chosen voluntarily.

It’s mostly young people who choose to stand aside, or believe that they’re choosing exclusion. No truly adult person chooses to stand on the sidelines, or at least very few. The passage of time brings with it the realisation that belonging is everything. You, me, we.

What do I belong to?

The divorce was the biggest mistake of my life, Malin thinks. How could we, Janne? In spite of everything, everything, everything.

Five hundred metres away Daniel Högfeldt is sitting at his desk, and has just printed out thirty, maybe forty, articles from the past twenty years about rapes in the city and the surrounding area, the results of a search in the paper’s digital archive.

He’s laid the articles out on his desk, they cover the whole surface, and side by side they make a frightening sight, the city seems to contain an active volcano of sexual violence against women, most of it within the family, but also cases that for some reason seem worse; of insane, starving men attacking women in the city’s parks, and occasionally men too, come to that, there’s one case of male rape down in the park by the railway station. Most of the cases seem to have been solved, but some must still rankle with the police: Maria Murvall, the case Malin is so hung up on, and the well-documented case of the woman who was raped and murdered outside the Blue Heaven nightclub. And more besides.

Shall I write an exposé about the unsolved cases? Daniel thinks. Shall I poke about a bit, read up on them all and write a gruesome series about Linköping’s recent history of rape, some diverting summer reading?

Something will come out of it.

But what?

In terms of statistics, Linköping is no worse than anywhere else, but it’s no better either, which is a fact that would give its inhabitants’ very well-developed sense of self-worth a serious kick.

One thing is certain.

There is violence and sexual hunger to write about. Violence and hunger to match this infernal heat.

Then Daniel closes his eyes for a few short seconds, the word heat makes him think of Malin, and he wonders what she’s doing at that moment. But no clear image resolves itself and he opens his eyes and thinks: I’ll drop these unsolved cases, but one day I’ll go even further back and see what hellish stories this dump is trying to hide.

But for the time being I have to concentrate on what’s happening here and now.

Malin’s white blouse is stained grey with sweat, she thinks that she must have another one in her locker in the changing room, otherwise she’s stuffed.

The police station up on the hill, the solid stone buildings around it, ochre-coloured cubes tormented by the sun, tired of the dust rising from the parched, bitter ground. Behind her the University Hospital, one of the few places in the city that’s still a hive of activity.

Solhage.

She was one of the stars of Linköping FC’s women’s team until they got serious and started buying players from all around the country. After that she couldn’t even get a place in the squad.

Must have been a bitter blow.

Best to give Janne a bit of time to call her before I get in touch.

But if you can handle being a woman in the pathetically macho world of the fire service, you can probably deal with being left out of a football team.

Not long till the morning meeting.

Once we’ve been through the state of the investigation I’ll give Solhage a ring.

‘It was actually quite a relief to give up football.’

‘So you weren’t bitter?’

‘Not in the slightest, I was tired of all that kicking, and it was all starting to get pretentious. I mean, commentators on television analysing the game and drawing little lines to show how someone runs. I mean, analysis is supposed to be saved for world affairs, isn’t it?’

Malin laughs.

The masts of the yachts in the lock are sticking up above the stone edge like poles, swaying back and forth and giving the illusion of a dying wind, only there is no wind. In the background Malin can see the yellow wooden façade of the lock-keeper’s cottage, and opposite her, in the shade of the parasol outside the canalside café bar in Vreta Kloster, sits Viktoria Solhage, smiling, a warm smile that softens her thin face framed by her long blonde hair.

The morning meeting hadn’t taken long.

She told them about her meeting with Nathalie Falck.

Otherwise there was nothing to report, nothing new from Karin and Forensics. Their colleagues in Mjölby had checked up on their sex offender, Fredrik Jonasson. His mother could give him an alibi.

They agreed that Malin should talk to Viktoria Solhage alone. Woman to woman.

The phone call to Viktoria Solhage. She hadn’t sounded at all put out.

‘Let’s meet at the canal café bar by the lock at a quarter past ten. I get Sundays off. I live out in Ljungsbro, and it’s a nice bike ride along the towpath. But I haven’t got long. I have to head up to the forest fire later, we’ve all been called in.’

Now the former football star is sitting in front of Malin and talking about the end of one part of her career and the start of the next. Viktoria Solhage was the first female firefighter in the city. Her appointment was controversial, and Malin remembers what Janne said at the time: ‘OK. She passed the tests. But how do I know if she’ll be able to carry me if I pass out in a sudden burst of smoke?’

She’s probably stronger than ninety per cent of the men in the service, Malin thinks as she looks at Viktoria Solhage’s bulging muscles.

‘Pull, for God’s sake, can’t you see that we’re going to hit the edge?’

‘I am fucking pulling!’

Voices from one of the boats in the lock.

Coffee and ice cream in the shade of a parasol, it would have been lovely if the temperature wasn’t already thirty-five degrees in the shade.

‘Janne called, like I said. I was annoyed at first, but what the hell, the important thing here is that no more young girls get raped, isn’t it?’

Viktoria Solhage screws up her nose, then her face becomes expressionless as she waits for Malin’s questions.

‘What do you think,’ Malin says. ‘Is there anyone in the city’s lesbian community who seems particularly aggressive?’

‘I daresay we can all be a bit aggressive, but that much . . .’ Viktoria Solhage shakes her head. ‘Dyke is synonymous with aggression to you lot, isn’t it?’

Malin feels herself blushing. Wants to put her sunglasses on and look away.

‘No, but you know how it is,’ Malin says.

‘How is it? Tell me.’

Malin gives Viktoria Solhage a beseeching look before going on: ‘There’s no one with particularly problematic baggage? Any childhood traumas that you know about? Anyone who was raped?’

‘No, most people keep that sort of thing to themselves, don’t they?’

‘But?’

‘Well, sometimes things can get a bit rough in bed, like they can for anyone. If only you knew. And sure, some girls fight with each other when they’re drunk, competing to see who can be toughest.’

‘Does anything ever get reported?’

‘No, we mostly keep things to ourselves. Maybe if someone went way over the line, but even then most of us would keep quiet. But everyone’s like that, aren’t they? No one calls the pigs . . . sorry, the police, unless they have to.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

‘As far as we’re concerned, I know why. The police don’t give a damn about what a few dykes do to each other, Malin Fors. There’s a deep mistrust of the police, you ought to know that.’

‘But you can’t think of anyone who’s been in a bad way, anyone who’s been unusually violent?’

Viktoria Solhage looks down into her coffee cup.

Takes a deep breath.

You want to say something, Malin thinks. But Viktoria Solhage hesitates, turns to look at the canal and the lock, and the gates that are slowly closing again.

‘Can you imagine being stuck in a little ditch like that all summer?’

‘You were about to say something, weren’t you?’

‘Okay.’

Viktoria Solhage turns to face Malin.

‘There is one girl,’ she says. ‘She seems to be dragging a lot of shit around, and there’s gossip about her being particularly violent. There’s a hell of a lot of rumours about what she went through as a child. If I were you, I’d probably take a look at her.’

‘What’s her name?’

Viktoria Solhage looks down at her cup again. Then she pulls out a pen and paper from her handbag, writes down a name, address and phone number.

‘Look,’ she says, pointing at the canal. ‘There they go.’

Malin turns around.

Sees the yachts in the next section of the canal, heading for the lock that leads to the little lake halfway down towards Lake Roxen.

‘Once they’re out in the Roxen,’ Malin says as she turns around again, ‘they’ll be free of the ditch. Good for them, eh?’

Viktoria Solhage smiles.

‘The canal isn’t called the divorce ditch without reason.’

Malin puts the piece of paper in the front pocket of her trousers.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘One last thing. Does the name Nathalie Falck mean anything to you?’

Viktoria Solhage shakes her head and says: ‘Promise me one thing, Malin. Don’t let this business turn into something that reinforces the image of lesbians as macho idiots.’

‘I promise,’ Malin says.

‘In Stockholm, at any rate in the centre of the city, people are very tolerant about the way other people want to live, but out here in the country it’s different. Most people have never even met anyone that they know is homosexual. You can imagine how much fun it would be if the city got the idea you were hunting a lesbian killer.’

‘I’ve got something we should follow up.’

Zeke’s voice hoarse over the mobile.

Malin has just waved goodbye to Viktoria Solhage, who disappeared along the towpath up towards Ljungsbro, and is now cursing her stupidity. The place where she left the car is no longer in shadow, and the sun is now baking its dark-blue frame.

It must be at least a hundred degrees in there.

And the damn light is cutting right through her sunglasses and seems to have made giving her a headache its only goal.

‘What did you say?’

As she says the words a dust-cloud drifts past, making her cough.

‘I’ve got something we should look into.’

‘What?’

No answer, instead: ‘Did you get anything from Solhage?’

‘A name. We’ll have to check her out. And you?’

‘I got a text message from an anonymous sender.’

‘We get those every day.’

‘Don’t try to be funny, Malin.’

Then Zeke reads aloud from his mobile.

‘Check Paul Anderlöv. A very unfortunate man.’

Silence.

So Hasse did it: ignored the law on confidentiality.

She hadn’t thought that he would.

‘Who do you think sent it?’ Malin asks.

Zeke snorts.

‘That’s something neither you nor I want to know. But I’m not stupid, Malin.’

‘So you know what it’s about?’

‘Yes. Like I said, I’m not stupid.’