Midwinter Sacrifice (11 page)

Spartan, but not terrible. No mess of pizza boxes, no cigarette ends, no piles of rubbish. Loneliness kept neat and tidy.

In one of the living-room windows there were three small holes, taped over, with tape carefully placed across the cracks radiating from the holes.

‘Looks like someone’s been throwing stones at the windows,’ Zeke says.

‘Yes, looks like it.’

‘Do you think it means anything?’

‘There are lots of kids in places like this, and they’re always out playing. Maybe they just threw some gravel a bit too hard?’

‘Unless he had a secret admirer?’

‘Yeah, right, Zeke. We’ll have to get forensics to take a good look at that window, if they haven’t already done so,’ Malin says. ‘See if they can work out what made the holes.’

‘I’m surprised they didn’t take the pane with them,’ Zeke says. ‘But I dare say Johannison was here, and maybe she just didn’t feel like it.’

‘If Karin had been here, that glass would be in the lab by now,’ Malin says, heading towards a wardrobe in the alcove containing the bed.

Enormous gabardine trousers in various muted colours in a row, neatly hung up on hangers, washed, ironed.

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Zeke says. ‘Everything’s neat, his clothes are washed, but he’s supposed to have smelled of dirt and urine.’

‘I know,’ Malin says. ‘But how do we know he actually did smell? Maybe he was just expected to? And then one person told another and so on, until it became accepted truth. Ball-Bengt, stinks of piss. Ball-Bengt, never washes.’

Zeke nods. ‘Unless someone’s been here since and cleaned.’

‘Forensics would have noticed.’

‘Are you sure?’

Malin rubs her forehead. ‘Well, I suppose it could be difficult to tell.’

‘And the neighbours? Didn’t any of them notice anything unusual?’

‘Not according to Edholm, who was in charge of the door-to-door.’

The last remnants of her headache are gone. Now there’s just the feeling of being a bit swollen and unwashed left, the feeling when the alcohol is on its way out of her body.

‘How long did Johannison say he’d been dead? Between sixteen and twenty hours? I suppose someone might have been here. Unless the dirt was just a myth.’

The hot chicken curry is on the stove, the smell of garlic, ginger and turmeric is spreading through the flat, and Malin is ravenously hungry.

Chopping, dicing, slicing. Frying and simmering.

The low-strength beer is poured. Nothing goes better with curry than beer.

Janne called a short while ago. Quarter past seven. They’re on their way. And now the sound of the key in the door and Malin goes out to meet them in the hall. Tove is oddly animated, as if she’s about to deliver a performance.

‘Mum, Mum! We watched five films this weekend. Five, and all but one of them were good.’

Janne is behind the lively Tove in the hall. Looking sheepish but still confident.
When she’s with me I decide, and you know that. We had that discussion a long time ago.

‘What were they?’

‘They were all by Ingmar Bergman.’

So that was the plot, today’s version of the little acts they usually put on for her.

Malin can’t help laughing. ‘I see.’

‘And they were really good.’

Janne: ‘Are you making curry? Perfect in this weather.’

‘Okay, Tove. You think I’m going to fall for that! What films did you really see?’

‘We watched
Wild Raspberries
.’

‘Tove, it’s called
Wild Strawberries
. And you didn’t watch it.’

‘Okay. We saw
Night of the Living Dead
.’

What? Janne? Are you mad? Then her brain goes into reverse. Thinks:
Living dead
.

‘But we were down at the station as well,’ Janne says. ‘We did some weight-training.’

‘Weight-training?’

‘Yes, I wanted to try,’ Tove says. ‘I wanted to see why you think it’s so good.’

‘That curry smells delicious.’

The hours on the treadmill in the gym at Police Headquarters. Bench-presses, Johan Jakobsson standing above her: ‘Come on, Malin. Come on, you can do better than that.’

Sweating. Straining. Everything becoming sharp and clear. There’s nothing like physical exercise to give her new energy.

‘What about you, Mum? How’s work been? Are you working tonight?’

‘Not as far as I know. Anyway, I’ve made dinner.’

‘What is it?’

‘Can’t you tell from the smell?’

‘Curry. Chicken?’

Tove can’t hide her enthusiasm.

Janne with drooping shoulders.

‘Okay, I’d better be off,’ he says. ‘Speak to you during the week.’

‘Okay, speak to you then,’ Malin says.

Janne opens the door.

Just as he is about to go, Malin says, ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to stay and have some curry, Janne? There’s enough for you as well.’

14

Monday, 6 February

Malin rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Wants to kick-start the day.

Muesli, fruit, soured milk. Coffee, coffee, coffee.

‘Bye, Mum.’

Tove, all wrapped up in the hall, earlier than usual, Malin later. They stayed indoors all day yesterday, baking, reading. Malin had to suppress the impulse to go down to the station even though Tove said she could go to work if she wanted to.

‘Bye. Will you be at home when I get back tonight?’

‘Maybe.’

A door closing. The weather girl on TV4 last night: ‘. . . and it’s going to get even colder. Yes, that’s right, even colder air from the Barents Sea, settling over the whole country, right down to Skåne. Put on plenty of warm clothes if you absolutely have to go out.’

Have to go out?

Want to go out. Want to get on with this.

Ball-Bengt.

Who were you really?

Sjöman’s voice on her mobile, Malin holding on to the cold steering-wheel with one hand.

Monday people on their way to work, shivering in the bus shelters by Trädgårdstorget, breath rising from their mouths and winding into the air towards the haphazard collection of buildings round the square: the 1930s buildings with their sought-after apartments, the 1950s blocks with shops on the ground floor, and the ornate house from the 1910s on the corner where for decades there was a record shop, now closed down.

‘We had a call from an old people’s home in Ljungsbro, Vretaliden, and they’ve got a ninety-six-year-old man there who evidently told one of the carers a whole load of things about Ball-Bengt and his family. She was reading the paper to him, because his eyes aren’t good, and he suddenly started talking. The ward sister called, says she thinks we ought to talk to him ourselves. You may as well start off with that.’

‘Does the old man want to see us?’

‘Apparently.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Gottfrid Karlsson. The nurse’s name is Hermansson.’

‘First name?’

‘She just said Sister Hermansson. It’s probably best to go through her.’

‘Did you say Vretaliden? I’m on my way.’

‘Aren’t you going to take Zeke with you?’

‘No, I’ll go on my own.’

Malin brakes, does a U-turn, just completing it ahead of the 211 bus on its way to the University Hospital. The driver honks his horn and shakes his fist.

Sorry, Malin thinks.

‘Have they found anything in the archive?’

‘They’ve only just started, Malin. You know he isn’t on the computer. So now we’re looking elsewhere. We’ll see if anything turns up during the day. Call as soon as you can if you find out anything.’

Farewell pleasantries, then silence in the car, just the engine revving when Malin changes gear.

Vretaliden.

An old people’s home and sheltered housing in one, extended and modified over the years, strict 1950s architecture jammed together with 1980s postmodernism. The whole complex is in a hollow a hundred metres away from a school, just a few culs-de-sac and some red-roofed council houses between the two institutions. To the south is a field of strawberries belonging to Wester Horticulture, ending abruptly in a couple of glasshouses.

But everything is white now.

Winter has no smell, Malin thinks as she jogs across the home’s car park towards the main entrance, a glass box with a gently revolving door. Malin pauses. She worked at Åleryd nursing home one summer when she was sixteen, the year before she met Janne. She didn’t like it, and afterwards she explained it by thinking that she was too young to appreciate the old people’s weakness and helplessness, too inexperienced to look after them. And most of the practical work was off-putting. But she liked talking to the old folk. Playing at being a society lady when there was time, listening to them talk about their lives. A lot of them wanted to talk, to delve into their memories, those who could still speak. A question to get them started, and they were off, then just a few comments to keep the story going.

A white reception desk.

Some old men in wheelchairs that look like armchairs. Strokes? Late-stage Alzheimer’s? ‘You’ll water the plants, won’t you?’

‘Hello, I’m from Linköping Police, I’m looking for a Sister Hermansson.’

Old age smells strongly of chemicals and unperfumed cleaning products.

The young carer, with greasy skin and newly washed, rat-coloured hair, glances up at Malin with a look of sympathy.

‘Ward three. The lifts are over there. She should be at the nurses’ station.’

‘Thanks.’

While Malin is waiting for the lift she looks at the old men in the wheelchairs. One of them is drooling from the corner of his mouth. Are they supposed to be sitting there like that?

Malin goes across to the wheelchairs, takes out a tissue from the inside pocket of her jacket. She leans over towards the old man, wipes the saliva from his mouth and chin.

The nurse behind the desk stares, not in a hostile way, then smiles.

The lift pings.

‘There,’ Malin whispers in the old man’s ear. ‘That’s better.’

He gurgles quietly, as if in response.

She puts her arm round his shoulder. Then she dashes over to the lift. The door is closing; damn, now I’ll have to wait for it to come down again.

Sister Hermansson has short, permed hair which looks like crumpled wire-wool on her angular head. Her eyes are hard behind thick, black-rimmed glasses.

Maybe fifty-five, sixty years old?

She is standing in a white coat at the nurses’ station, a small space situated between two corridors of hospital rooms. She is standing legs apart, arms crossed: my territory.

‘Gottfrid Karlsson?’

‘I’m really not in favour of this. He’s old. In this sort of extreme cold, it doesn’t take much to stir up anxiety on the ward. And that’s not good for our old folk.’

‘We’re grateful for any help we receive. And he evidently has something to tell us?’

‘I doubt it. But the carer who was reading today’s
Correspondent
out loud to him insisted.’

Hermansson pushes past Malin and starts walking down the corridor. Malin follows, until Hermansson stops at a door, so abruptly that the soles of her Birkenstock sandals squeak.

‘Here we are.’

Then Hermansson knocks on the door.

A faint but crystal-clear: ‘Come in.’

Hermansson gestures towards the door. ‘Welcome to Karlsson’s territory.’

‘Aren’t you coming in?’

‘No, Karlsson and I don’t get on particularly well. And this is his business. Not mine.’

15

It’s nice lying here waiting, not longing for anything in particular, watching time pass, being as heavy as I am yet still able to drift about.

So here I go, flying out of the cramped mortuary box, out into the room, out through the basement window (I prefer going that way, even if walls are no obstacle).

And the others?

We only see each other if we both want to, so I’m mostly alone, but I know all the others, like molecules in a great big body.

I want to see Mum. But maybe she doesn’t know I’m here yet? I want to see Dad. I want to talk to them both, explain that I know that nothing is easy, talk to them about my trousers, about my flat, about how clean it was, about the lies, about the fact that I was someone, in spite of everything.

My sister?

She had enough problems of her own. I understood, understand that.

So I drift over the fields, over the Roxen, take the long way round to the beach and campsite in Sandvik, over Stjärnorp Castle, where the ruins seem somehow to glow white in the sunlight.

I drift like a song, like little German Nicole in the Eurovision Song Contest: ‘Ein bisschen Frieden, ein bisschen Sonne, das wünsch’ ich mir.
’

Then over the forest, dark and thick and full of the very worst secrets. So you’re still here?

I’ve warned you. There are snakes slithering along a woman’s leg, their poisonous fangs biting her genitals bloody.

A glasshouse, a nursery, a vast field of strawberries where I sat as a lad.

Then I drift downwards, past the place of nasty kids. I don’t want to linger there, and on instead to Gottfrid Karlsson’s corner room on the third floor of Vretaliden’s oldest building.

He’s sitting there in his wheelchair, Gottfrid. Old and happy with the life he’s lived, and which he will carry on living for a few years yet.

Malin Fors is sitting opposite him, on a rib-backed chair, on the other side of a table. She is rather subdued, unsure whether the old man opposite has good enough eyesight to meet her gaze.

Don’t believe everything Gottfrid says. But most of it will do as ‘truth’ in your dimension.

The man opposite Malin.

Doses of creatine have made his nose broad and full and red; his cheeks are grey and sunken, but still full of life. His legs are bony under the thin beige fabric of the hospital trousers, his shirt white and well-ironed.

The eyes.

How much can he see? Is he blind?

The instinct of old people. Only life can teach us. When Malin sees him, memories of the summer in the nursing home come back to her. How some of the old people had come to terms with the fact that most of their life was behind them, and had found peace, while others seemed absolutely furious that it would all soon be over.