Midwinter Sacrifice

54

‘No one, not even the police, can come and see any of my residents unannounced.’

‘But—’

‘No one, Inspector Fors, no one. And that includes you.’

Sister Hermansson dragged Malin to the little nurses’ station out in the corridor, then went on the attack.

‘The residents here can appear stronger than they are, but most are weak, and at this time of year, when the cold is at its worst, we often lose several in quick succession, and then things get very anxious for my . . .’

To start with Malin got angry. Residents? Didn’t that mean that this was their home? That they could do as they liked? But then she realised that Hermansson was right, and if she didn’t make the effort to protect the old people, who else would?

Malin apologised before she left.

‘Apology accepted,’ Hermansson said, and looked visibly pleased.

‘And you should change your disinfectant,’ Malin added.

Hermansson looked at her quizzically.

‘Well, you use unperfumed. There are hypoallergenic perfumed disinfectants that smell much nicer and probably don’t cost much more.’

Hermansson thought for a moment.

‘Good idea,’ she said, and began to look through some papers as if to underline the fact that the conversation was over.

And now Malin is heading towards her car over in the car park, when her mobile rings.

She jogs back to the lobby, and, inside the chemical-scented warmth once more, pulls out her phone.

‘We were right. The Shipping Federation had it on its database.’ Johan Jakobsson sounds very pleased with himself.

‘So an M/S Dorian sank, and there was a Palmkvist on board who drowned?’

‘Exactly. He wasn’t among the men rescued in lifeboats.’

‘So some of them did survive?’

‘Yes, it looks like it.’

‘Thanks, Johan. Now I really do owe you one.’

Ruins.

And a lake where the ice seems to have settled for good. Malin takes her eyes off the road for a few seconds to glance at Lake Roxen. Cars driving along a ploughed path over the metre-thick ice slip across in relative safety, and on the other side of the lake, far off in the distance, smoke is streaming from the chimneys of postage-stamp-sized cottages.

Stjärnorp Castle.

It burned down in the 1700s, was rebuilt, and to this day is still the residence of the Douglas family, and it still reeks of money.

The castle could hardly be more gloomy. It’s a grey-stucco two-storey stone building with shrunken windows, facing a practically featureless courtyard flanked by unadorned outhouses. The ruins of the old castle slumber alongside, like a permanent reminder of how badly things can turn out.

The old people’s home is on the edge of the estate, just beyond the bend where the road finally disentangles itself from the forest and opens up to the view of the lake.

The three-storey building is whitewashed, and Malin estimates that there can’t be more than thirty old people living here, and how quiet it must be, only a few random cars driving past.

She parks in front of the entrance.

What sort of Hermansson figure am I going to run into here?

Then she thinks of that evening, how Tove has invited Markus to dinner; she hopes she makes it back okay. She looks up at the building, thinking, Weine Andersson, there’s a chance there may be a problem with dinner.

Weine Andersson is sitting in a wheelchair by a window with a view straight out over Lake Roxen.

When Malin reported at reception the elderly nurse seemed pleased at her visit. The nurse didn’t seem bothered, and certainly not annoyed, by the fact that Malin was a police officer on duty. Instead she said, ‘That’ll cheer Weine up. He doesn’t get many visitors.’ Then a pause: ‘And he likes young people.’

Young people? Malin thought. Do I still qualify as that? Tove’s a young person. Not me.

‘His right side is paralysed. A stroke. It hasn’t affected his speech, but he gets upset a lot.’

Malin nodded and went in.

The bald man in front of her has sailor’s tattoos on both hands. On the lame hand, supported by a sling, someone has etched an anchor, and filled in the rough outline with ink.

His face is wrinkled and the skin covered with liver-spots, one eye is blind, but the good one seems to make up for it in brightness.

‘Yes,’ he says, his eye firmly fixed on Malin. ‘I was on board that ship. I shared a cabin with Palmkvist. It would be going a bit far to say we were friends, but we came from the same parts so it was natural that we spent a lot of time together.’

‘He drowned?’

‘Off Cape Verde we got caught up in a storm. No worse than many others, but the ship was hit by a huge wave. We started to list and in just half an hour we had sunk. I swam for it and got into a lifeboat. We spent four days out in that storm before we were picked up by the M/S Francisca. We survived by drinking rainwater.’

‘Weren’t you frozen?’

‘It was never cold. Just dark. Not even the water was cold.’

‘And Palmkvist?’

‘I never saw him. I think he was caught in the galley when the first wave hit. It probably filled up with water straight away. I was on watch up on the bridge.’

Malin can see it all in front of her.

The ship lurches.

A young man wakes up with a jolt, then everything is black and the water rises, comes closer in the darkness, like a mass of octopus tentacles; she sees how the cabin door is shut tight from the pressure on the other side, how his mouth, nose, head are covered, and how he finally gives up. Inhales the water and lets himself sink into a soft mist where there is nothing but peace and a warmer darkness than the one he has just left.

‘Did Palmkvist know he was going to be a father?’

Weine Andersson can’t suppress a chuckle. ‘I heard those rumours when I got home. But I can tell you for a fact that Palmkvist wasn’t the father of Rakel Karlsson’s boy. He wasn’t interested in women in that way.’

‘He didn’t want children?’

‘Sailors, Inspector Fors. What sort of men used to become sailors in the old days?’

Malin nods, pauses for a moment before going on. ‘So who was the boy’s father if it wasn’t Palmkvist?’

‘I made it ashore afterwards. The third night in the storm, just when we thought it was easing, it started up again. I tried to hold on to Juan but he slid out of my grasp. It was night and it was dark and the wind was blowing like the worst night of winter. The sea was opening up for us, roaring out its hunger, it had us in its grip, it wanted to devour us, and even though . . .’

Weine Andersson’s voice cracks. He raises his healthy arm to his face, bows his head and sobs.

‘. . . even though I was holding on as hard as I could, he slid out of my arms. I could see the terror in his eyes, as he vanished down into the blackness . . . there was nothing I could do . . .’

Malin waits.

Lets Weine Andersson collect himself, but just when she thinks he’s ready for the next question, the old man in front of her starts to cry again.

‘I lived on,’ he says, ‘. . . alone after that, there was no other choice for me . . . I don’t think.’

Malin waits.

She watches the sadness draining out of Weine Andersson.

Then, without her having to ask, he says, ‘Palmkvist was concerned about the rumour about Rakel Karlsson. It started before we even set off. But I knew, and a lot of other people knew who fathered the child she was expecting.’

‘Who? Who was it?’

‘Have you ever heard of a man called Cornerhouse-Kalle? He was the father of her boy, and they say he was the one who beat Blackie so he ended up in the wheelchair.’

Malin feels a warm glow course through her body. A warmth that is icy cold.