Midwinter Sacrifice

48

From the field Malin can see the forests where Maria Murvall was attacked and raped; the end of the trees is like a black band against the white sky. She can’t see the water, but knows that the Motala River runs over there, bubbling like an overgrown stream under its thick covering of ice.

On a map the forest doesn’t look anything much, a strip maybe thirty or forty kilometres across, stretching from Lake Roxen up towards Tjällmo and Finspång, and towards Motala in the other direction. But inside the forest it’s possible to disappear, get lost, run across things that are incomprehensible to human beings. It is possible to be wiped out among the mud and decaying leaves, the unpicked mushrooms on their way to becoming part of the undercurrent of the forest. Long ago people in these areas believed in trolls, fairies, goblins and cloven-footed monsters, all wandering among the trees and trying to lure people to their doom.

What do people believe in today? Malin wonders, looking over at the church tower instead of the forest. Ice hockey and the Eurovision Song Contest?

Then she glances at the animal bodies in the snow.

Börje Svärd with his earpiece in. He’s scribbling a number on a scrap of paper, then makes a call on his mobile.

Zeke on another phone.

Dennis Hamberg, a farmer outside Klockrike, has reported a break-in at his farm, very upset: ‘Two organically reared animals stolen, a young pig and a year-old lamb. I moved here from Stockholm to get involved with sustainable farming, and now this happens.’

The forest.

Black and full of secrets, a girl from a John Bauer painting staring into a lake at her own reflection. Is there someone creeping up behind her?

Then they are all sitting in the police van, the muffled sound of an engine idling in the background, a treacherous heat that makes them undo their padded jackets, thaw out, open up again. A quickly convened meeting out in the field: Malin, Zeke, Börje and Karim; Sven Sjöman at the station, busy with paperwork.

‘Well?’ Karim says. ‘Where do we go from here?’

‘I’ll take care of tracing the dog,’ Börje says. ‘It shouldn’t take long.’

‘The uniforms can go door-to-door,’ Zeke says. ‘And Malin and I will go and see the organic farmer and check out what Kalmvik and Svensson were up to last night. We can’t let go of anything yet.’

‘The connection looks pretty obvious, though,’ Karim says from the driver’s seat. ‘The ritual, increased clarity of purpose and carelessness.’

‘In cases like this the level of violence usually escalates,’ Malin says. ‘Experience suggests that. And to go from a human being to animals is hardly an escalation.’

‘Maybe,’ Börje says. ‘Who knows what goes on inside some people’s heads?’

‘Check out Rickard Skoglöf and Valkyria Karlsson as well,’ Karim says. ‘The Æsir stamp on this is quite clear.’

When the meeting is over Malin looks over at the forest again. She closes her eyes, sees a naked, unprotected human body on scratchy moss.

She opens her eyes, trying to force the image away.

Karin Johannison walks past, carrying a large, yellow sports bag.

Malin stops her.

‘Karin. The chances of analysing the DNA in traces of blood have got a lot better in recent years, haven’t they?’

‘You know they have, Malin. You don’t have to flatter me by pretending you don’t know. In the main British lab in Birmingham they’ve made huge progress. It’s unbelievable what they can find out from practically nothing.’

‘What about us?’

‘We haven’t got those resources yet. But we do sometimes send material over there for analysis.’

‘If I had a sample, could you sort that out?’

‘Of course. I’ve got a contact there. An Inspector John Stuart I met at a conference in Cologne.’

‘I’ll get back to you,’ Malin says.

‘Do,’ Karin says, then heads off with her bag over the rough snow, and despite the weight she still manages to look as elegant as a model on a Paris catwalk.

Malin walks away from the others along the road, pulls out her mobile and calls the exchange in the station.

‘Can you put me through to a Sven Nordström at Motala Police?’

‘Of course,’ the female receptionist says.

Three rings, then Nordström’s voice: ‘Nordström.’

‘This is Fors from Linköping.’

‘Hello, Malin. It’s been a while.’

‘Yes, but now I need your help. You know your rape case, Maria Murvall? The woman whose brothers have cropped up in our current case? Was she wearing any fragments of clothing when you found her?’

‘Yes, but the blood on them was so filthy that forensics said they couldn’t get anything out of it.’

‘According to Johannison here, they’ve come up with a lot of new techniques. And she’s got a contact in Birmingham who’s a bit of a wizard at this sort of thing.’

‘So you want to send the fragments of clothing to England?’

‘Yes. Can you see that they get to Karin Johannison at the National Laboratory of Forensic Science?’

‘It really ought to go through official channels.’

‘Tell that to Maria Murvall.’

‘We’ve got the samples in the archive. Karin will get them today.’

‘Thanks, Sven.’

Just as Malin hangs up Karin passes her in her car. Malin stops her.

Karin winds down the window.

‘You’ll be getting some material today, from Nordström in Motala. Get it to Birmingham as soon as you can. It’s urgent.’

‘What is it?’

‘Maria Murvall’s clothes. Or the remains of them.’

Margaretha Svensson is tired when she opens the door of her flat. There is a smell of coffee from the kitchen and she doesn’t seem surprised to see Malin and Zeke again, just gestures to them to come in and sit down at the kitchen table.

Is Niklas Nyrén here? Malin thinks, but if he was he would probably be sitting at the table or in the living room already. He would have been visible by now.

‘Would you like coffee?’

Malin and Zeke stop in the hall once they’ve shut the door behind them.

‘No thanks,’ Malin says. ‘We’ve just got a couple of quick questions.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Do you know what your son was doing yesterday evening and last night?’

‘Yes, he was at home. He and I had dinner with Niklas, then we all watched television together.’

‘And he didn’t go out at all?’

‘No, I know that for certain. He’s asleep upstairs at the moment. You can wake him and ask him.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Zeke says. ‘Is Niklas here now?’

‘He’s gone home. Went late last night.’

‘I’ve asked him to call me, I left messages.’

‘He told me. But he’s been so busy with work.’

A murder investigation, Malin thinks. A fucking murder investigation and people can’t even be bothered to call back. And they complain that the police are slow? Sometimes Malin wishes that people understood that the police are only the last link in a network covering the whole of society, where everyone, each and every one of us, has to do their bit to hold things together.

But everyone relies on everyone else doing their bit. And do nothing themselves.

SEP, as it’s called in Life, the Universe and Everything: Somebody Else’s Problem.

‘What do you think?’ Zeke asks as they head back to the car.

‘She’s telling the truth. He was at home last night. And Jimmy Kalmvik would hardly have done it on his own. Next stop the farmer.’

The group of buildings on a field a few kilometres outside Klockrike is covered in snow and cold, and the surrounding clusters of birches and a lovely dry-stone wall provide only slight protection for the garden in front of the newly built farmhouse.

The house is constructed of sandstone, with green shutters over the windows. In front of the porch, painted Mediterranean blue, stands a Range Rover.

It ought to smell of lavender, thyme and rosemary, but instead it smells of ice. At the end of the avenue leading to the house is a gate where someone has put up a sign saying: ‘Finca de Hambergo’.

The green-painted door of the house opens and a man in his forties with bleached hair puts his head out.

‘Thanks for coming so quickly. Come in.’

The ground floor of the house is a single open room, hall, kitchen and living room in one. When Malin sees the stone walls, the patterned tiles, the open kitchen cupboards, terracotta floor and earth colours, she feels transported to Tuscany or Majorca. Or Provence, maybe?

She’s only been to Majorca, and the buildings didn’t look like this. The flats where she and Tove were staying looked more like an overblown version of the council blocks in Skäggetorp. But nonetheless, she knows from interior design magazines that this is what the dream of the south looks like for a lot of people.

Dennis Hamberg notices them staring.

‘We wanted it to look like a mixture of an Andalusian finca and an Umbrian villa. We moved here from Stockholm to start an organic farm. We really wanted to move further away, but the kids needed a Swedish school, so they’re at secondary school in Ljungsbro. And my wife got a good job as head of PR for Nygårds Anna in Linköping. I went through a hell of a lot in the nineties and just wanted some peace and security.’

‘Where are your family now?’

‘In town, shopping.’

And you’ve got the urge to talk to someone, way out here on a desolate winter plain, Malin thinks.

‘And the break-in to the barn?’

‘Of course. Follow me.’

Dennis Hamberg pulls on a black Canadian Goose parka and leads them across the yard to a red-painted barn, and points to the marks left by a crowbar in the door frame.

‘This is where they got in.’

‘More than one?’

‘Yes, there are loads of footprints inside.’

‘Okay, we’ll have to try not to stand on them,’ Zeke says.

Prints from trainers and heavy boots. Military? Malin wonders.

In the barn there are several cages of rabbits. There’s a single lamb in a pen, and in a square of concrete a black sow lies suckling something like ten piglets.

‘Iberico. Pata Negra from Salamanca. I’m going to make ham.’

‘This was where they took a pig?’

‘Yes, they took one of the young ones. A lamb too.’

‘And you didn’t hear anything?’

‘Not a sound.’

Malin and Zeke look round, then go back out into the yard, followed by Dennis Hamberg.

‘Do you think there’s any chance I’ll get the animals back?’ he says.

‘No,’ Zeke says. ‘They were found hanged in a tree outside Ljung this morning.’

The muscles in Dennis Hamberg’s face seem to wither away instantly, his whole body shudders, then he pulls himself together and tries to get a grip on something that seems completely incomprehensible.

‘What did you say?’

Zeke repeats what he said.

‘But things like that don’t happen here.’

‘It looks like they do,’ Malin says.

‘We’ll be sending out a forensics team to conduct a search.’

Dennis Hamberg looks across the fields, pulling his hood over his head.

‘Before we moved here,’ he says, ‘I never knew how windy it could get. Sure, it’s windy in Egypt, on the Canary Islands, in Tarifa, but not like this.’

‘Do you have a dog?’ Malin asks.

‘No, but we’re going to get cats before summer.’ And then Dennis Hamberg thinks for a moment before asking, ‘The animals, will I have to identify them?’

Malin looks away, over the fields, and can hear from Zeke’s voice that he’s suppressing a laugh.

‘Don’t worry, Dennis,’ he says. ‘We can assume the animals are yours. But if you’d like to identify them, I’m sure that can be arranged.’