Black Lies, Red Blood

Forty-four

It was as if Friday’s collapse rinsed a lot of waste products out of Ann Lindell. Was it the chat with Sammy Nilsson that created this peculiar sense of inner purity, or was it as simple as the fact that she had not had a drink in four days?

“I don’t care about you,” she mumbled, but knew that this was partly just play-acting. Her thoughts this morning revolved around Anders Brant, and she could not decide what to think. One moment she felt a thrill of happiness at his arrival, and the next moment remembered the events of the past two weeks.

“Mom!”

Erik was tugging on her sleeve. She could hear from his tone of voice that he had asked her something, but she had not registered what it was about. She crouched down and put her arms around his shoulders and neck.

“Kiss,” she said.

Erik shook his head with an expression beyond his years, as if he wanted to say: Give it up now! But he gave her a quick peck on the check before he freed himself and set off.

Ann Lindell left the preschool behind her with a feeling of energy.

For the police, Tuesday was an in-between day, with few reports and alarms. Even the number of visitors in reception went down significantly on the second day of the workweek. It was as if even criminals were low on energy.

But for her it would be a different kind of day, Lindell realized. Sammy Nilsson would be meeting Brant at Arlanda and in the meantime she would break a murderer.

The day before she had summoned him for questioning at ten o’clock. He expressed no surprise, only a poorly concealed fury that “a whole day would be ruined.”

“There are just a few additional questions we need to have on tape,” she said to calm him, smiling to herself and thinking that she would be very pleased to help ruin ten or fifteen years of his life.

It was Allan Fredriksson who went to meet Håkan Malmberg at the reception counter.

“Where’s Lindell?”

Allan was making small talk with a colleague at the counter while he pointed with one finger vaguely upward.

“Excuse me,” he said at last. “Lindell is up there, she asked me to get you.”

“What do you want?”

Fredriksson observed him with surprise.

“Solve a murder,” he said. “That’s all.”

Fredriksson took the lead and led Håkan Malmberg to the interview room where Lindell was waiting. She got up and welcomed him.

“Would you please take off your bandanna and jacket,” she said. “It can get very warm in here.”

He shook his head, but obeyed and hung the leather jacket on the back of the chair.

“I’ll take care of the bandanna,” said Fredriksson, snapping it up.

“Why’s that?”

“Listen now, Malmberg!”

Lindell’s voice cut through the room.

“We think you’ve been doing a little too much talking. Yesterday when we spoke you stated that you had not talked with Fredrik Johansson since last fall. Is that still true?”

“Yes, damn it! Why would I talk with him?”

“What do I know? Have you spoken with Klara Lovisa’s parents since she was found?”

“No, I don’t know them.”

“You haven’t spoken with anyone at all about Klara Lovisa since she was found, is that correct?”

“Yes! Like I told you, I’ve been on vacation.”

Ann Lindell observed Malmberg.

“Think now, you have a chance to change your mind. We’re recording our conversation, do you realize that?”

“What is this?”

“You haven’t spoken with anyone, okay,” said Lindell. “When we discussed Fredrik Johansson, you said something to the effect that you thought he was a bastard but that you didn’t think him capable of killing Klara Lovisa and burying her. Do you still think that?”

“Sure,” said Malmberg. “Do you have to do everything twice at this place? And why aren’t you arresting him, instead of taking up my time?”

“Tell me how you knew that Klara Lovisa’s body was buried in the forest,” Lindell challenged.

“Huh?”

“You heard me,” said Lindell calmly.

“Everyone knew… What do you mean? Huh? How…?”

Håkan Malmberg’s confusion was immediate and total.

Ann Lindell observed Håkan Malmberg’s sweaty forehead and listened patiently to his flat denial. When he realized he was in a bad way, Malmberg demanded that a lawyer be present. One joined them after an hour-long break in the questioning, looking almost indifferent. Ann Lindell got the feeling he didn’t like his client, but concealed his antipathy behind a bored expression.

The third man, thought Lindell. Is this going to work? Håkan Malmberg stood firmly by his story that perhaps he had heard something about Klara Lovisa being buried, but that he could not remember when or from whom. That would hold in a courtroom, she realized, even if Malmberg first stubbornly maintained that he had not talked with anyone about the murder after the body was found. That could be explained by his feeling pressured.

“You have a Kawasaki?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“I don’t know that much about motorcycles, but it looks unusual.”

“There are only a few in Sweden.”

“Easy to recognize,” Lindell continued.

Håkan Malmberg stared at her without commenting.

“I think we’ll take a break here,” said Lindell.

“Then I’m going home!”

Lindell shook her head.

“You’ll be staying here awhile,” she said.

“What was that with the motorcycle?”

Lindell grinned.

“Just trying to make him a little nervous.”

“It hasn’t been seen in Skärfälten?”

Lindell shook her head.

Allan Fredriksson had been generally passive during the questioning. He had seldom felt so strongly that this was Lindell’s case and that it was her business to break down Malmberg’s resistance.

Malmberg was taken to the jail, and his bandanna to Forensics. Everything was hanging on a red thread. If it could be established that the thread they found in the forest hut came from Malmberg’s bandanna, they had an indictment, otherwise not.

“Were we too quick?” Lindell asked self-critically.

Fredriksson did not think so.

“There was no alternative, everything else has been threshed over,” he said.

“The harvest of chance,” said Lindell.

Fredriksson nodded. He felt out of sorts and tired and mostly wanted to put his feet up on Lindell’s desk, lean back, and close his eyes.

“Today Sammy is meeting the journalist coming back from Brazil,” he said, mostly to have something to say, perhaps to break Lindell’s tense expression, but the comment had the opposite effect. She looked like she’d been slapped.

“I know,” she hissed.

“Relax,” said Fredriksson. “You can’t do anything before Forensics has had their say. If the thread holds, that would be marvelous, otherwise we’ll have to try something else.”

“Something else,” Lindell muttered.