Midwinter Sacrifice

52

The voices.

Let them fly.

Listen to them all in the investigation.

Let them have their say. Then they’ll lead you to your goal.

The hall of Niklas Nyrén’s flat is full of transparent packs of biscuits, round, beige raspberry dreams, chocolate tops, chocolate balls that used to be called nigger-balls, and the green rug is covered in biscuit crumbs. There was a dark blue Volvo estate outside in the drive, parked far too close to a letterbox.

Be careful, Malin thought as she rang the doorbell. If the boys did it, he could have helped them with the body.

Niklas Nyrén leads her into the flat, into the tidy living room which is entirely dominated by a big red sofa in front of a wall-mounted flat-screen television.

There’s nothing in the flat to suggest that Niklas Nyrén is anything but a completely ordinary middle-aged man.

He’s wearing jeans and a green polo-neck sweater, his face is round and his stomach bulges out above his belt. Too much standing still. Too much driving, and too much of a taste for his own products.

‘I was going to ring you,’ Niklas Nyrén says, and his voice is oddly dark to belong to someone with a weight problem; his voice ought to be higher, hoarser.

Malin doesn’t answer, and sits down on an imitation Myran chair at the little dining table by the window facing the Cloetta factory.

‘You had some questions?’ Niklas Nyrén says, sitting down on the sofa.

‘As you know, Joakim Svensson’s name has cropped up in connection with the investigation into the murder of Bengt Andersson.’

Niklas Nyrén nods. ‘I find it hard to imagine that the boy could be involved. He just needs to learn a few manners, get a few male role-models too.’

‘You get on well with him?’

‘I try,’ Niklas Nyrén says. ‘I try. I had a pretty crap childhood myself, and I wanted to help the lad. He’s got keys to this flat. I want to show him I’ve got faith in him.’

‘Crap in what way?’

‘Nothing I want to talk about. But Dad was a hard drinker, if I can put it like that. And Mum wasn’t exactly affectionate.’

Malin nods.

‘And the night between Wednesday and Thursday last week, what were you doing then?’

‘Margaretha was here, and I’m pretty sure Jocke was watching that film with Jimmy. Like they said.’

‘Jimmy? You know Jimmy Kalmvik?’

Niklas Nyrén gets up, goes over to the window and looks out at the factory.

‘They’re joined at the hip, those two. If you want a decent relationship with one of them, you have to build bridges in various directions. I usually try to come up with things I think they’ll like.’

‘And what do they like?’

‘What do boys like? I took them to a skateboarding show in Norrköping. We went to Mantorp Park. I let them drive my car on the gravel track out by the old I4. Hell, I even took them to the rifle range once last summer.’

You probably don’t have to be too careful, Malin. Niklas Nyrén exudes thoughtlessness, unless he’s just playing naïve?

‘Do you hunt?’

‘No, but I used to shoot as a sport. Small-bore rifle. Why?’

‘I’m not going to get into trouble now, am I?’ Niklas Nyrén is hunting through a wardrobe in his white-painted bedroom. ‘You don’t have to have a gun cabinet for a small-bore rifle, do you?’

‘I think you probably should.’

‘Here it is.’ Niklas Nyrén holds a narrow, almost spindly, black rifle out to Malin, who loses her train of thought when she sees the weapon. No one is going to touch it until forensics have taken a look.

‘Just put it on the bed,’ she says, and Niklas Nyrén looks perplexed and lays the gun on his bed.

‘Do you have any freezer-bags?’ Malin says.

‘Yes, in the kitchen. That’s where I keep the ammunition as well.’

‘Good,’ Malin says. ‘Go and get both of them. I’ll wait here.’

Malin sits down on the bed beside the gun. Breathes in the sour, stale air and looks at the pictures on the walls: Ikea prints of different sorts of fish, in cheap frames.

Malin shuts her eyes and sighs.

Joakim Svensson has a key to the flat.

He and Jimmy Kalmvik must have taken the rifle some time when Niklas Nyrén was off on one of his sales trips, and gone up to Bengt Andersson’s flat and fired a few shots just to scare him, to tease him. The little sods, Malin thinks, then stops herself. Testosterone and circumstances can cause a great deal of trouble for teenage boys, and someone who sees themselves as abandoned and downtrodden often ends up treading on others.

Malin opens her eyes to see Niklas Nyrén coming back from the kitchen.

In one hand he has a packet of freezer-bags, and in the other a box of ammunition.

‘I usually use rubber bullets,’ he says. ‘Damn. I was sure this box hadn’t been opened. But someone must have opened it. There are three bullets missing.’

Disappointment transforms Niklas Nyrén’s face into a grimacing mask.

Put pressure on the Ljungsbro bullies and get them to confess that they fired shots at the window of Bengt Andersson’s flat? Put a bit more pressure on them and get them to say even more?

If there is anything more to tell?

However much I want to go in one direction, it’s too early yet, Malin thinks.

She presses harder on the accelerator pedal, on her way right across the snow-covered plain towards Maspelösa. She’s already decided to wait, see what fingerprints Karin finds on the rifle, which is in the boot, wrapped up in a blanket. But Malin can’t help playing with the idea. Shouldn’t I turn round and go and put some pressure on Jimmy Kalmvik? I can do that on my own, child’s play compared to the Murvalls. No, better to let Karin do her thing, work out if the rubber bullets in Bengt Andersson’s flat come from Niklas Nyrén’s rifle, and, if so, present the boys with hard facts. The uniforms can take their fingerprints, and Karin can match them against any she may have found.

Rickard Skoglöf’s address is in her mobile, but it’s not easy to find the house, and Malin spends a while driving among fields until she finds the little farm.

She stops.

The grey stone buildings are huddled against the cold, snow on the thatched roofs, and there is light coming from the windows of the main house.

Æsir nutters, Malin thinks, before she knocks. I can deal with them on my own as well.

It only takes a few seconds before the man who must be Rickard Skoglöf opens the door, wearing a kaftan and with his hair and long beard in one great tangle. Behind him a white-clad woman’s form moves, presumably that of Valkyria Karlsson.

‘Malin Fors, Linköping Police.’

‘He must have been relieved of duty, that other one, after the shooting,’ Rickard Skoglöf says with a smile as he lets her into the house. A damp warmth hits Malin, and she can hear the crackle of an open fire somewhere in the house.

‘You can go in there.’

Rickard Skoglöf points to the left, into the living room, where a huge computer screen shimmers on a shiny desk.

Valkyria Karlsson is sitting on the sofa, her feet drawn up under a white nightgown.

‘You,’ she says as Malin walks into the room. ‘The one who interrupted me.’

Rickard Skoglöf comes in, carrying three steaming cups on a plate.

‘Herbal tea,’ he says. ‘Good for the nerves. If that’s ever a problem.’

Malin doesn’t reply, takes a cup and sinks on to the black office chair in front of the computer. Rickard Skoglöf stays on his feet after giving a cup to Valkyria.

‘Does it feel good,’ Malin says, ‘encouraging young people to do idiotic things?’

‘What do you mean?’ Rickard Skoglöf laughs.

Malin gets an urge to throw the hot tea in his leering face, but controls herself.

‘Don’t play stupid. We know you sent emails to Andreas Norling, and who knows what else you might have got other people to do.’

‘Oh, that. I read about that in the Correspondent. I never thought they’d go through with it.’

‘Have you had any contact with Jimmy Kalmvik? Or a Joakim—’

‘I don’t know any Jimmy Kalmvik. I presume that’s one of the teenagers the paper mentioned, the ones who had been tormenting Bengt Andersson. I want to say once and for all that I, the two of us, had nothing to do with that.’

‘Nothing,’ Valkyria says, stretching out her legs on the sofa, and Malin notices that her toenails are painted with luminous orange varnish.

‘I’m going to confiscate your hard drive right now,’ Malin says. ‘If you protest I’ll get a warrant to search the whole house within hours.’

Rickard Skoglöf is no longer grinning, looks afraid.

‘Go. Go. You’ll never get us, you police bitch.’

Tove comes home just after six o’clock. She slams the door shut, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s because she’s happy or upset.

A reasonable Sunday, Malin thinks as she waits for Tove to come into the living room.

The rifle is at the National Laboratory of Forensic Science; Karin and her colleagues will check the weapon first thing tomorrow morning. Rickard Skoglöf’s hard drive is safely secured at the station. Johan Jakobsson and the IT experts can get going on that, check if the bastard Æsir prophet had goaded anyone else to do anything really, really stupid, like murdering Bengt Andersson. If he has, there ought to be traces in his computer of emails and so on. Who knows how much more crap this winter, this landscape, can throw up?

Tove is standing in front of Malin, smiling, and her face and eyes are calm, free of anxiety and restlessness.

‘Was the film good?’ Malin asks from her place on the sofa.

‘Hopeless,’ Tove says.

‘But you seem happy.’

‘Yes, Markus says he can have dinner here with us tomorrow. Is that okay?’

Tove sits down on the sofa and takes a crisp from the bowl on the table.

‘He’s very welcome.’

‘What are you watching?’

‘Some documentary about Israel and Palestine and double agents.’

‘Isn’t there anything else on?’

‘Bound to be. Have a look.’

Malin passes the remote to Tove, who zaps through the channels until she finds the local channel. Linköping have beaten Modo away, and Martin Martinsson scored three goals, and there are rumours that scouts from the NHL were at the match.

‘I went round to Grandma and Grandad’s earlier today.’

Tove nods.

‘Grandad rang. He was wondering if you’d like to go and see them during half-term?’

Malin waits for a reaction, wants a smile to spread over Tove’s lips, but instead she looks worried.

‘But we can’t afford the plane ticket?’

‘They’re paying.’

Tove looks even more worried.

‘I don’t know if I want to go, Mum. Will they be upset if I say no?’

‘You can do what you want, Tove. Exactly what you want.’

‘But I don’t know.’

‘Sleep on it, darling. You don’t have to make a decision before tomorrow or Tuesday.’

‘It’s hot there, isn’t it?’

‘At least twenty degrees,’ Malin says. ‘Like summer.’

There are apples hanging in the trees and a boy, two boys, three, four boys are running around in a verdant garden. They fall and the grass colours their knees green, and then there’s just one single boy left and he falls but gets up again and runs. He runs until he reaches the edge of the forest, then hesitates for a while before summoning his courage and heading into the darkness.

He runs between the tree trunks and the sharp branches on the ground cut his feet but he doesn’t allow himself to feel any pain, he doesn’t stop to fight the monsters roaring in the deep holes left by the roots of toppled trees.

Then the boy is standing by Malin’s bed. He presses her ribcage up and down with even movements, helping her to breathe in the yellow air of the morning.

He whispers in her sleeping, dreaming ear, What’s my name, where am I from?