Autumn Killing (50 page)

Six weeks here.

Sven Sjöman was immovable.

‘I’m taking you out of active service. You’re on sick leave, and you’re going to go to this treatment centre.’

He put the brochure on his desk, the nasty little pamphlet turned to face her.

Like an advert for an activity holiday.

Yellow-painted residential blocks around a white-plastered turn-of-the-century house. Birch trees in bloom.

Snow outside at the moment, the rain of late autumn transformed into beautiful crystals.

‘I’ll go.’

‘You’ve got no choice if you want to remain a detective.’

She called Janne. Explained the situation, like Sven wanted her to, and he didn’t sound surprised, maybe he and Sven had spoken to each other.

‘You know you’ve got a problem, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That you’re an alcoholic?’

‘I know I can’t handle drink, yes. And that I’ve got to—’

‘You’ve got to stop drinking, Malin. You can’t have so much as a drop.’

Janne had let her see Tove. They met for coffee out in Tornby, then they went to H&M to get new clothes for both of them. In the café Malin apologised, said she’s been acting completely crazy recently, told her she was going to get help, as if that was news to Tove.

‘Do you have to be gone so long?’

‘It could have been even worse.’

And Malin had felt like crying, and she could see Tove holding herself together. If that was what she was doing?

It was as if a grown-up were sitting opposite Malin, a familiar stranger, someone who had changed, and they were sitting in the midst of retail mayhem trying not to be sad together. Of all the things a mother and daughter could do together, they were doing this.

Tove had said: ‘It’ll do you good, Mum, you need help.’

Do fifteen-year-olds say things like that?

‘I’ll be OK, you’ve got to try to get better.’

Sick, in Tove’s eyes. But there is something sick about a parent who abandons their child.

‘I’ll be home before Christmas.’

But this place.

Sitting in groups and talking about how much they want a drink.

Having individual sessions with someone who can’t get her to open up.

Admit that she’s an ‘alcoholic’.

Missing Tove so much it’s driving her mad. Feeling so ashamed she wants to turn her skin inside out. Trying to find ways to bear the shame.

Hugs outside the house in Malmslätt when she dropped Tove off. Janne behind the illuminated kitchen window.

‘Be careful. Don’t let anything happen to you. It would kill me.’

‘Don’t talk like that, Mum, don’t say that. I’ll be fine.’

Malin doesn’t miss Janne. Not missing missing him is the best thing about being here.

Who wants to sit around talking about their destructive behaviour? Their patterns, the things that trigger the thirst. Their memories.

Leave my memories the fuck alone.

Don’t want to, don’t want to, don’t want to know.

Dreams about a faceless boy. About secrets.

Lies. Told to your face by well-meaning people. Sleepless nights, dreams about snakes being chased by lawnmower blades through sewers full of blue-stomached rat corpses.

This all ends for the dead, but not for me. Unless perhaps it does?

The images in the dreams are black-and-white, as if filmed on an old Super 8 camera, and sometimes there’s a boy in the pictures, a boy running over different grass to the lawn in the film on Anders Dalström’s bedroom wall.

Yesterday I sat with the others. I said the words straight out: ‘I’m an alcoholic.’

Dad phoned me here.

He had heard from Janne where I was, why I wasn’t answering my phone at home or my mobile. He didn’t sound worried, just relieved, him too.

‘You weren’t doing too well when we met.’

What are you hiding from me? The two of you. What is it I don’t know? Are you and Mum going to carry your secret to the grave?

Are you hiding the reason I’m sitting here in a room in a treatment centre in the middle of the forest staring at a washed-out rag-rug?

Malin curls up on the bed against the wall. Pulls her legs up and thinks about Maria Murvall, how she’s sitting on another bed in another room.

What does this world want with us, Maria?

I’m going to be home by Christmas. I’m going to handle not drinking. We’ll have a nice, peaceful Christmas. I’ve got to stay calm.

The sofa in the television room is covered with green fabric.

Malin is alone there, none of the other women with the same problem as her seem to be interested in what’s going on in the world.

Anders Dalström’s trial starts today. The interviews with him, him saying it was like he had snakes inside him, and that they had somehow disappeared from him when he killed Jerry Petersson. He talked about calm. The sort of calm he wanted to experience again, and that made it easy to kill Fredrik Fågelsjö, but that the snakes refused to listen to any violence against Axel Fågelsjö.

Börje Svärd’s wife, Anna, died earlier in the week, finally allowed to stop breathing, and Malin called Börje but got no answer, and she hasn’t tried again. But she knew he was going to keep Jerry Petersson’s dog, whatever its name was.

She takes a sip of the tea she’s just got from the kitchen.

Looks out of the window, the same darkness as before.

Then the start of the evening news, a female voice and pictures.

‘The man who admitted murdering two people in Linköping this autumn, as well as the kidnap of a third person, was killed today during an attack in Linköping District Court. A man who has been identified as the victim of the kidnapping and the father of one of the murder victims had somehow managed to smuggle a sawn-off shotgun into the courtroom and . . .’

Malin feels faint.

She spills tea in her lap, but doesn’t feel the heat as she concentrates on the screen.

Pictures from the courtroom.

A commotion.

She hears the shots. The screams.

Then Axel Fågelsjö’s face, pale scars on his cheek.

His head held down against the floor of the courtroom by two police officers.

His face expressing conviction, determination, isolation and grief.

A face, not a mask.

You did it, Malin thinks. And I understand you.

The monster above Tove. Ready to strangle her.

If a parent doesn’t protect his or her child, who else will?

My task is to protect Tove.

There’s a place in this world for me as well, Malin thinks. She feels that everything’s going to be all right.

Mons Kallentoft grew up in the provincial town of Linköping, Sweden, where the Malin Fors series is set. The series is a massive European bestseller and has been translated into over twenty languages. Before becoming a novelist, Mons worked in journalism; he is also a renowned food critic. His debut novel,
Pesetas
, was awarded the Swedish equivalent of the COSTA First Novel Award.

Mons has been married to Karolina for over twenty years, and they live in Stockholm with their daughter and son.

Midwinter Sacrifice

Summertime Death

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