Summertime Death (31 page)

Home, shower, drink coffee, change clothes, miss Tove, Janne, enough regret to make her sick, and before she knows what’s happened Karim is standing by a whiteboard summarising the state of the investigation into the attack of Josefin Davidsson and the murders of Theresa Eckeved and Sofia Fredén.

Tove’s coming home tonight.

I want to focus on that, Malin thinks. But it will have to wait.

The morning meeting, nine o’clock as usual.

The detectives in the room tired, their faces somehow furrowed by the summer heat and the violence, the human actions that it’s their job to get to grips with. If not to understand, then to make reasonably manageable, and contextualise them for both the public and themselves.

‘The press are going crazy,’ Karim says. ‘They’re crying out for information about the case, but we can’t let ourselves be influenced by that. So, where shall we start? How are things going with the various lines of inquiry?’

‘We questioned Behzad Karami and his parents yesterday,’ Waldemar Ekenberg says. ‘The anonymous tip-off was right. They were lying about the family party. Behzad claims he was standing guard over his blackberry canes in an allotment down by the river, and I think he’s telling the truth, even if there are no witnesses who can state categorically that he was there. But they’ve seen lights on in the small cottage on the allotment on the nights in question.’

‘What about you, Sundsten?’

Sven Sjöman pants as he says the words, his face deep red.

‘It seems to make sense.’

‘Seems?’

‘We can’t be absolutely certain. But the likelihood is that it’s the truth. We’re waiting to hear who made the call claiming that Behzad was involved. We really need to talk to them.’

‘So how are we going to get hold of them?’

‘With difficulty. But Telia are trying to give us the location the call was made from. It was on their network, and we might be able to draw some conclusions based on people we know who are acquainted with Behzad. They’re pretty familiar faces to you here in Linköping, after all.’

‘Good. What about the list of known sex offenders?’

‘We got hold of three more of them yesterday. All in the clear.’

‘And nothing new about the person who called in about Josefin Davidsson?’

‘No,’ Malin says. ‘That feels like a thousand years ago now.’

‘In all likelihood it was just a passer-by who didn’t want anything to do with us,’ Sven says, before going on. ‘OK. Well, the news from Mjölby is that the interviews with Sofia Fredén’s parents and close friends haven’t turned up anything. Sofia seems to have been an ambitious young woman, good at school, never involved in anything stupid. And Forensics haven’t come up with anything from the crime scene. But we’d guessed as much, hadn’t we? Whoever is doing this is obsessively clean and careful. There were traces of bleach on Sofia Fredén’s body. And the traces of paint found in her vagina are identical to those found in the earlier victims. And the cause of death was strangulation. Forensics are looking at her computer, and the lists of calls to and from her mobile are on their way.’

Sven lets his words sink in.

Nothing is easy in this case, they’re not getting anything for free.

‘And still nothing from Facebook or Yahoo!. They seem to be mainly concerned with protecting the confidentiality of their clients.’

‘There’s nothing we can do to pressurise them? What about the courts?’ Zeke wonders.

‘We could certainly make a legal request. But they could always appeal. And it’s hard to know where the information would be. Who do you hold responsible for a server on the Cayman Islands?’

Sven changes the subject.

‘As far as the dildo is concerned, Forensics have ruled out three hundred and fifty models. That’s if it is even a dildo.’

‘What about Sofia Fredén’s wounds?’ Zeke asks. ‘Has Karin been able to say exactly what caused them?’

‘Animal claws. But apparently it’s impossible to say which animal.’

‘Louise Svensson keeps rabbits on her farm,’ Malin says. ‘And rabbits have claws.’

‘Loads of people in this city have rabbits and other animals with claws,’ Sven says. ‘And you can buy those necklaces of animal claws at any market.’

Malin nods.

‘I know, it was a long shot.’

‘Anything else?’

Sven turns to face Malin and Zeke.

‘We spoke to Slavenca Visnic,’ Malin says. ‘And there’s a connection between her and two of the girls. She has no alibi, but we haven’t got anything concrete.’

Malin explains the connections, that Theresa was found near one of the kiosks and that Josefin had worked at another one, which could mean something to the case, or could just as easily be coincidence, even if that would be unusual.

‘It makes me uneasy,’ Malin says.

‘Synchronicity has driven loads of officers mad,’ Per Sundsten says. ‘Connections that exist but that turn out to be completely meaningless. So where do we go with that?’

‘We’ll bear it in mind, but we carry on working without any preconceptions.’

‘Hardcore police work,’ Zeke says. ‘That’s what counts now.’

‘I’d like to talk to Theresa Eckeved’s friend, Nathalie Falck, again,’ Malin says. ‘It feels as if she’s not telling us everything we ought to know. Maybe she’ll talk now, seeing as things have got worse. I don’t think we’d get anything more from Peter Sköld, her supposed boyfriend.’

‘Talk to her,’ Karim says. ‘From where we are now, we’ve got nothing to lose.’

‘And we’ve just received the file about Louise “Lollo” Svensson from the archive,’ Zeke says, and Malin gives him an angry glance, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it.

‘Calm down, Malin,’ Zeke says. ‘No need to get excited,’ and the others laugh, and the laughter relieves the tension in the room, making the sense of hopelessness less pervasive, as they seem to clamber one circle higher away from the investigative hell they are all in.

‘I only got them five minutes before the meeting. Otherwise I would have shown you first.’

Zeke usually gets annoyed when Malin goes off on her own track, and on the rare occasions when he has done so she gets unreasonably cross, cursing him and behaving like a unfairly treated child.

‘I wouldn’t dare do anything else.’ And now they’re all laughing again, at my expense, Malin thinks, but there’s warmth in their laughter, a pleasant warmth, not like this tormenting summer heat. And Malin thinks they could do with this laughter, she needs it, needs to hear that someone isn’t taking this so incredibly seriously.

‘Shut up, Zeke,’ and by now even Sven is laughing, until Zeke clears his throat and seriousness settles across the room once more.

‘Evidently her mother accused her step-father of abusing her, but the case never got anywhere. She must have been twelve at the time, if these dates are right.’

‘Not surprising,’ Malin says. ‘Just think, this sort of crap always comes up.’ Then Malin thinks about what Viveka Crafoord said: that the perpetrator could well have been the victim of abuse. Isn’t that always the case? One way or another. That one act of abuse leads to another. The trail goes as far back through history as human life itself.

‘OK, but we can’t question her again because of that,’ Sven says. ‘We’ve leaned on her enough as it is, and there are almost as many sordid backgrounds and family histories as there are people.’

Karim looks focused, and Malin can see the thoughts racing through his head. The image of his own father must be in there, committing suicide in his despair at his failure to find a place in Swedish society, the father who died bitter in a way that you, Karim, would never allow yourself to be, and Malin thinks of the cliché her mother always used to trot out at the slightest failure or disappointment: ‘It’s not what happens that matters, it’s how you deal with it.’

Then the words of the philosopher Emile Cioran come to mind: ‘Nothing reveals the vulgar man better than his refusal to be disappointed.’

Are you the most disappointed person in the world, Mum?

Tenerife.

But back to the present.

‘Hypnosis,’ Malin says. ‘I’d like to question Josefin Davidsson under hypnosis,’ and now it’s Zeke’s turn to look angry, questioning: What’s this? I knew you were thinking about it, but we could have discussed it first.

‘We all know that it’s possible to remember things under hypnosis that you don’t otherwise remember. I’m friends with Viveka Crafoord, the psychoanalyst, and she’s offered to conduct an interview with Josefin under hypnosis, free of charge.’

Waldemar Ekenberg laughs.

‘Well,’ he goes on to say, ‘sounds like a good idea.’

‘This mustn’t get out to the press. They’ll say that we’re desperate,’ Karim says. ‘And we don’t want that.’

‘Discretion is assured,’ Malin says. ‘Viveka works under an oath of confidentiality.’

Zeke has got over his sudden annoyance.

‘Will her parents agree?’

‘We don’t know until we ask.’

‘And Josefin?’

‘Ditto.’

‘If it happens, and if it works, it could help us move forward,’ Sven says.

‘It could be the breakthrough we need,’ Karim adds.

‘So what are we waiting for?’ Waldemar asks. ‘Get the girl to the fortune-teller!’

And Malin doesn’t know what to say, can’t decide if the hard-case from Mjölby is joking or means what he says. A joke to smooth things over: ‘Hocus-pocus,’ Malin says, getting up from her chair. ‘OK, I’m going to go and stick some pins in a voodoo doll, Waldemar, so watch out.’

Ekenberg comes over to her desk after the meeting.

What does he want? Malin wonders.

‘Fors,’ he says, ‘you look happy.’

‘Happy?’

‘Yes, you know, like you’ve just been fucked. Where do you go if you want to get a fuck in this town?’

And once again Malin doesn’t know what to say, or do, hasn’t felt so surprised since she was three years old and took a drink from a cup of hot water, thinking it was juice.

Shall I punch him on the chin?

Then she pulls herself together.

‘You sack of shit. There isn’t a woman in this city who’d touch you even with gloves on. Get it?’

Ekenberg was already on his way out.

Grinning to himself, Malin thinks.

Don’t let yourself be provoked, we’ve got more important things to deal with.

But he was right.

She could still feel Daniel Högfeldt inside her.

Would like to suppress the smile spreading over her lips.

‘That’s absolutely out of the question.’

Josefin Davidsson’s father, Ulf, is sitting on the burgundy sofa in the living room of the row-house in Lambohov, moving his toes anxiously back and forth over the mainly pink rug. His suntanned face is round, his hair starting to thin and his wide nose is peeling.

‘Hypnosis,’ he goes on. ‘You read about people getting stuck like that. And Josefin needs to rest.’

His wife Birgitta, sitting beside him on the sofa, is more hesitant, Malin thinks. She’s evidently trying to read the situation, trying to follow her husband so as not to annoy him. Their roles are clearer now than the first time she met them at the hospital. They declined the offer of protection for Josefin, saying she needed peace and quiet more than anything else. Birgitta Davidsson is a neat little woman in a blue floral dress. So neat that she dissolves in your khaki-clad presence, Ulf. Doesn’t she?

Zeke from his seat beside Malin: ‘The psychoanalyst who would conduct the hypnosis, Viveka Crafoord, is very experienced.’

‘But do we really want Josefin to remember?’

Ulf Davidsson’s words less adamant now.

Malin pauses, answers no in her mind, it would be just as well for your daughter if she didn’t remember, she’ll be fine without any conscious memory of what happened. But she says: ‘It’s vitally important for the investigation. Two girls have been murdered, and we have no witnesses. We need all the help we can get.’

‘And you’re sure it’s the same man?’

‘Absolutely certain,’ Zeke replies.

‘It doesn’t feel right,’ Ulf Davidsson says. ‘Too risky.’

‘You’re right, darling,’ Birgitta Davidsson says. ‘Who knows how she might feel if she could remember?’

‘We have no idea when the murderer is going to strike again,’ Zeke says. ‘But sooner or later it will happen. So asking these questions under hypnosis is absolutely . . .’

Zeke is interrupted by a thin but clear voice from upstairs.

‘Isn’t anyone going to ask me? Ask me what I want?’

A look of irritation crosses Ulf Davidsson’s face.

‘We’re your parents. We’ll decide what’s best for you.’

‘So you’d like to be questioned under hypnosis?’

Josefin Davidsson comes downstairs and sits in an armchair, the white bandages covering her wounds a sharp contrast to her bright red summer dress.

‘I would.’

‘You . . .’

‘It’s not going to happen.’

‘But Dad, I . . .’

‘Be quiet.’

And the room falls still, the only sound the vibration of a bumblebee’s wings as it tries to get out through an open window, but keeps missing, again and again, flying into the glass instead with a short bumping sound each time.

‘We’re trying to find . . .’

‘I know what you’re trying to find. The devil himself could be out there for all I care, because you’ll have to find him without upsetting my daughter more than is absolutely necessary.’

‘You’re such a damn hypocrite, Dad,’ Josefin says. ‘When I told you that you could probably get compassionate leave to be here with me, you both took it. And went straight off to the golf course.’

‘Josefin!’ her mother cries. ‘That’s enough!’

‘I’m begging you,’ Malin says.

‘Me too, Dad. I’m going to do it, no matter what you want.’

In the space of a second Ulf Davidsson suddenly looks fifteen years older, as if he’s staked out any number of principles and opinions over the years, but has always had to back down in the end.

‘It’s the right thing to do, Dad. And if I remember something that helps them catch the killer, you’ll be a big hero.’

‘You don’t know what you’re asking for,’ Ulf Davidsson says to his daughter. The look in his eyes is clear, but sad. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking for. But OK. If hypnosis is what you want, hypnosis is what you’ll get.’