Midwinter Sacrifice

33

‘Yes, she can stay over.’

Janne’s text arrives at 20.15. Malin is tired, on her way home in the car from the gym at work, obliged to clear her head after a day full of too much human crap.

They went back to the station after talking to Ljungsbro’s bullies, and in the passenger seat beside Zeke she summarised the situation to herself.

Bengt Andersson is teased and bullied and possibly more than that by testosterone-charged little bastards. We’ll have to talk to their parents tomorrow. See where it comes from. Nothing to get them on so far. The offences against Bengt Andersson that they admitted to stopped being chargeable with his death, and may have been youthful mischief as much as anything else.

The shots through the living-room window.

Æsir nutters out on the plain. The murder apparently carried out as a heathen ritual.

And then the Murvall family casting its large shadow across the whole investigation. Weapons in a gun cabinet.

Maria Murvall silent and mute, raped. By whom? Bengt?

Malin wanted to answer no to that question. But knew that she couldn’t yet close any doors in any direction, to any room. Instead she had to try to get an overview of something impossible to get an overview of. Listen to the voices of the investigation.

What else was still to emerge from the darkness of the plain, the forests?

‘Yes . . .’

She sees the first word of the text.

Her concentration leaves the road for a few moments.

Yes.

We made that promise to each other once, Janne, but we didn’t manage to find a way through what lay before us. How over-confident can you get?

Malin parks and hurries up to the flat. She fries a couple of eggs, sinks into the sofa and turns on the television. She gets stuck on a programme about some excitable Americans competing to build the most perfect motorbike.

The programme cheers her up in an uncomplicated way, and after a couple of advertising breaks she realises why.

Janne could easily be one of those Americans, happy beyond belief to let go of routine, of his memories, and just devote himself to his real passion.

She sees the bottle of tequila on the table.

How did that get there?

You put it there, Malin, when you cleared the plate and the remains of your eggs.

Amber liquid.

Shall I have a bit?

No.

The motorbike programme is over.

Then the doorbell rings and Malin thinks it must be Daniel Högfeldt, transgressing the final boundary and turning up unannounced, like they were officially in a relationship.

Hardly, Daniel. But maybe.

Malin goes out into the hall and pulls open the door without checking through the peephole. ‘Daniel, you bastard . . .’

No.

Not Daniel.

Instead a man with blue-black eyes, a smell of engine oil, grease and sweat and aftershave. Burning eyes. They are screaming, almost in a fury, at her.

He stands outside the door. Malin looks into him: anger, despair, violence? He’s so much bigger than he was in the kitchen. What the hell is he doing here? Zeke, you should be here now. Does he want to come in?

Her stomach clenches, she feels scared, in a fraction of a second she starts to tremble, invisibly. His eyes. The door, have to shut the door, nothing puppyish about this man’s determination.

She slams the door, but no, a heavy black boot in the gap, a fucking boot. Hit it, kick it, stamp on it, but the steel toe-cap makes her stockinged feet useless, and the naked pain is hers instead.

He’s strong. He puts his hands in the gap and starts to push the door open.

No idea to try and stop him.

Maria Murvall. Is the same thing happening to me?

Scared.

A thought more than a feeling now.

Adam Murvall.

Did you hurt your sister? Is that where the look in your eyes comes from? Is that why you got so angry today?

Nothing but fear. Force it aside.

Where’s my jacket, with my pistol? But he’s just staring at me, smiling, leering, and then he stares again, confused, pulls his foot back, doesn’t force his way in, pulls his hands back, turns and leaves as quickly as he must have come.

Shit.

Her hands are shaking, her body twitchy with adrenalin, her heart racing.

Malin looks out into the stairwell. There’s a note on the stone steps, shaky handwriting: Let Murvall rest. You should leave us the fuck alone.

As if all this were a steak, or dough, or a tired old man. Then a vague threat. You should . . .

Now Malin feels it again, the fear, it bubbles up as the adrenalin runs out of her body and fear becomes terror, and fast, shallow breathing takes over. What if Tove had been at home? Then the anger of terror.

How the hell could he be so fucking stupid?

The man outside the door.

He could have taken me, just like that. Broken me.

I was alone.

She goes back to the sofa. Sinks down. Resists the temptation to drink tequila. Five minutes pass, ten, maybe half an hour before she pulls herself together and calls Zeke.

‘He’s just been here.’

‘Who?’

Suddenly Malin can’t say his name.

‘The one with blue-black eyes.’

‘Adam Murvall? Do you want a patrol?’

‘No, for heaven’s sake. He’s gone.’

‘Fuck, Malin. Fuck. What did he do?’

‘I think you could say that he threatened me.’

‘We’ll pick him up at once. Come in as soon as you’re ready to. Or do you want me to come and pick you up?’

‘I’ll be fine on my own, thanks.’

Three cars with blue lights, two more than just a few hours ago. Adam Murvall sees them through the window, they stop outside his house; he makes himself ready, knows why they have come, why he did what he did.

‘You have to say no.’

And a thousand other things. Little sister, big brother, events in the forest; if you persuade yourself of one truth, perhaps a different truth doesn’t exist?

‘Go and pay a visit to that female pig, Adam. Give her the note, then leave.’

‘Mother, I . . .’

‘Go.’

The doorbell rings. Upstairs Anna and the children are asleep, his brothers sleeping in their own houses. Four uniformed officers outside the door.

‘Can I put my jacket on?’

‘Are you arguing with us, you bastard?’

And the police are on him, he’s fighting for breath on the floor, they force him down and Anna and the children are standing on the stairs, screaming and shouting, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.

In the yard other policemen are holding his brothers back as they lead him like a chained wild dog to the waiting van.

Further off, in the illuminated window, stands Mother. He sees her, in spite of his bowed, stiff back.