‘Yes. I squeezed his hand just before I left. It was warm. He always had warm hands.’
Malin murmurs to herself. Hears a noise from one of the rooms.
‘I want to tell you something,’ Gabriella says. ‘My mum died when I was a teenager. Quickly, just a couple of days after contracting a bacterial infection. Granddad looked after me then. Mum and Dad were divorced and Dad had moved to Saudi Arabia for work. Granddad was the one who found the flat in Vasastan for me.’
Malin puts her hand on Gabriella Karlsson’s shoulder, then quickly removes it again.
‘What am I going to do now?’ Gabriella says. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘There has to be a post-mortem.’
‘Why?’
Malin looks into Gabriella’s eyes. No need to answer her question.
‘Can I take his computer? His phone? Other things?’
Malin hesitates. She shouldn’t let her. But this is a suicide, so they won’t need anything. She nods.
‘Just don’t delete anything from them.’
Gabriella Karlsson closes her eyes. She takes a few deep breaths before looking at Malin again.
‘What am I going to do? I’ve been coming here several times a week. What would you do?’
‘Do you work?’ Malin asks.
At first Gabriella looks surprised, then she replies: ‘Yes, I’m studying for a PhD in history at the university.’
‘Then I’ll give you a piece of advice,’ Malin says, handing Gabriella her card. ‘Throw yourself into your work. Don’t think too much, or it’ll drive you mad.’
You see me now, Gabriella, and I see you.
I see how confused and sad you are. I see you stroke my cheek with your hand, but I can’t feel it.
Your hand, your thin, white fingers, remind me of Mother’s. She used to stroke my cheek like that in the flat in Borensberg, where we ended up after the farm was sold and the bank had taken its share. I would lie in bed in the living room, trying to sleep, and Mother’s palm would stroke my cheek. She was alone.
There was nothing but loneliness in Borensberg.
And the ice that settled thin as a breath on the Boren River, the swirling, cold snow that burned my face as I walked further and further out, when the others chased me onto the ice, shouting: ‘Poor brat, little bastard, your dad was an adulterer and you’re a son of a bitch.’
Further and further out.
They never caught me.
But life caught me, Gabriella. I did wrong things, and I did some right ones. I tried to do right by you.
Now you can be free.
I know you’re wondering what really happened last night.
Life was finished with me, that much is beyond any shadow of a doubt.
15
Hans Morelia rubs his eyes, thinking about Lova. How his love for her is so strong that it forces out everything else. How her friends and schoolmates become shapeless brats for whom he can’t muster up any feelings at all.
Lova.
He sometimes looks at her and thinks, is a miracle like her really possible?
She shall have the most expensive riding boots that can be bought.
He thinks about the figure in the garden. The one he saw. Or was he just imagining that?
From up in his office the buildings of the city look like pale Monopoly houses. Linköping looks so unassuming from high above.
Money is about height. About substance. Cleanliness. Views. Evidently that old man, Konrad Karlsson, had money.
Hans Morelia is leaning back in his desk chair in his corner office on the twelfth floor of Merapi’s headquarters, which is also the headquarters of the other businesses in the company: Take Care. Golden Days. Good Time.
The Tuscan calfskin of the seat is soft against his back, and through the glass doors he can see the febrile activity in the open-plan office, people doing their jobs carefully and efficiently, people counting and invoicing, analysing and purchasing, people trying to make money.
He’s always been generous with share options.
A lot of the people sitting out there in the office will become millionaires if they manage to close the deal with Nexxon. Overnight they will become some of Linköping’s wealthiest citizens. Just as others did when IFS, Industrial and Financial Systems, was listed on the stock market twenty years ago. The receptionist there was able to buy one of the fanciest villas in Ramshäll.
From his office Hans Morelia can see the spire of the cathedral, and the oblong wooden box of the library. He can see the river and Cloetta Centre where the LHC ice hockey team play their matches. He has a box there, but rarely uses it. His employees make use of the seats according to a rota.
He had lunch down in the canteen today. Mixing with his employees, wanting to make them feel that he’s one of them, just as he does when he visits the Cherub or any of the many other care facilities he owns.
It’s three o’clock now, and he wonders about making a quick visit to the gym.
But then the phone on Hans Morelia’s desk starts to ring.
Malin Fors lifts the bar towards the ceiling. When she went down to the gym she was surprised to find Elin Sand there already, in a training vest that’s far too small for her, busy adding weights to the bench press.
‘We can spot each other,’ Elin said, giving her a smile that Malin thought was an invitation to competition, and now she is lying with her back against the bench, with too much weight on the bar, and looking up at Elin’s face from below.
Sixty kilos, three times twelve, and Malin screams out loud, screams: ‘COME ON NOW FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’
She finds strength in breathing out, breathing in and screaming, and her vision goes white and black at the same time, perhaps the way it did for Konrad Karlsson.
And Elin Sand’s smile from underneath.
Push.
Shit.
‘Come on!’ Elin Sand yells. ‘One more!’
I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of helping me, Malin thinks, and shuts her eyes, pushes the bar upwards and feels the veins in her temples expand to bursting point.
Done.
Ha!
The bar settles into its cradle with a hard metallic clang. Elin doesn’t have time to help.
Malin notices the stagnant air. The stench of sweat that seems to seep from the vomit-green walls. She sits up on the bench, rests her elbows on her knees, and breathes out. Feels her muscles slowly recover.
Then she stands up, raises her chin towards Elin, and says: ‘Your turn.’
Elin pushes the bar towards the ceiling with ease.
Once, twice, three times …
Something about Elin’s apparently effortless movement makes Malin think of Stefan. Incapable of moving a single muscle in his body.
She’s been to visit him three times in the past year.
Stefan is getting thinner and thinner, and on each visit he was unshaven, dressed in dirty clothes, and increasingly distant.
She’s accepted that he’s never going to understand who she is. Has reconciled herself to that.
… seven, eight, nine …
Trying to give love without getting any real response. Without expecting any. Sending love into him and hoping it finds its way, to a place that only he can access.
… ten, eleven, twelve …
Elin Sand seems quite untroubled by the weight. She puts the bar down and gets to her feet without comment.
Fucking machine, Malin thinks, and says: ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than hang about down here?’
Elin frowns, seems to be about to say something, but holds back.
‘Do you want me to spot you?’ she asks instead.
‘I’m done with the bench,’ Malin says.
She lies down on a yoga mat and starts to do sit-ups, and from the corner of her eye she sees Elin Sand move through the gym.
She does two hundred sit-ups.
Rests.
Does more sit-ups and lets her thoughts ro
am free.
I can’t accept the fact that Stefan is being poorly cared for, she thinks.
She’s called the director of the regional council in Hälsingland to point out the failings. But nothing has happened.
Hans Morelia.
She couldn’t help herself when he showed up at the care home earlier today. She just couldn’t. And the fury that bubbled up inside her when his well-manicured figure breezed in felt good. As if something inside her were waking up. Something that was actually her.
Fifty more.
Up, down.
She feels her stomach muscles work.
She’s been thinking that they ought to find a new home for Stefan, move him somewhere that’s still run by the state. Or by a company that’s less obsessed with profit than Merapi.
‘I’m going now,’ Elin Sand calls.
Why should I care? Malin thinks.
A few more.
Done.
She stands up, feels the pain in her stomach.
Tove’s right, we need to go and see Stefan.
They promised things would improve last time, and we can go tomorrow. Tove’s not working, is she? I can take some time owing, there’s nothing much happening at the station during the summer lull.
Then Malin’s phone rings, she hears it buzz on the little table over by the dumb-bells.
Is that you, Tove, wanting to talk about what happened this morning?
Elin Sand stands in front of the mirror in the changing room of the gym. She has to bob down to see her face.
How crabby can a person be? she thinks, and tries to smile at the thought of Malin Fors. But the smile isn’t genuine. Because she knows that if she can’t gain Malin’s respect, she’ll never get any from the others either.
That’s how it works here.
Elin takes a red lipstick out of her bag. But changes her mind before applying it.
Hans Morelia is holding the phone close to his ear. He recognises the voice at the other end. It’s sharp and dark and belongs to the journalist from the Correspondent, Daniel Högfeldt.
He interviewed Högfeldt when they were looking for a new head of PR, but Högfeldt chose to take a job at Stiff Technologies instead. The last thing Hans Morelia read about him in the paper was that Högfeldt had left Stiff and gone back to being a reporter for the Correspondent.
Daniel Högfeldt has somehow found out about what’s happened at the Cherub. He’s been asking about it, and now he says: ‘Is it a common occurrence for patients to kill themselves in your care facilities?’
Straight to the point.
Clumsy, coarse.
‘No. As far as I’m aware, this is only the second time it’s happened,’ Hans Morelia says.
‘What about the first time? Where and when did that happen?’
‘I’m prevented from disclosing that because of patient confidentiality.’
Daniel Högfeldt seems happy with that answer, and Hans Morelia wonders why he’s talking to the journalist at all: how come his call was put through? But he follows his PR advisor’s policy of honesty and openness. Secrecy only leads to a load of rumours that are difficult to control.
‘Do you think the suicide could have anything to do with deterioration in care as a result of your cost cutting?’
‘The quality of care within Merapi’s businesses hasn’t deteriorated, if anything it’s got better. We’ve conducted research that—’
‘I’m aware of that research. Into patient satisfaction. But the thing about research is that you can get exactly the result you want if you’re the person who commissions it. You just have to ask the right questions and omit others. You know that just as well as I do. That’s certainly the case with the private research company you used.’
Hans Morelia doesn’t react to the allegation.
Who the hell does he think he is, this Daniel Högfeldt?
‘Shouldn’t you be watching your patients more closely, to ensure that something like this can’t happen?’
‘We can’t watch over all our patients and clients twenty four hours a day. The majority of them are basically healthy people who want to be left in peace.’
‘But surely you should have seen the signs?’
‘I can’t discuss any individual case.’
‘You don’t think the reduction in staffing levels and the resulting increase in stress has anything to do with this?’
‘I can’t comment on that.’
‘No personal thoughts?’
‘OK, what are you trying to get at here? An old man has committed suicide, which is extremely tragic. Not least for his relatives. Surely you normally take that into account when you write about suicides?’
‘Usually we do,’ Daniel Högfeldt says, ‘unless the circumstances are exceptional.’
Hans Morelia squirms on his chair. He stares at the painting on the wall, a large watercolour of young women who look like wild animals.
Shifts his gaze slightly.
And looks at all the future millionaires on the other side of the glass.
Malin listens to the voice on the phone, brittle but still full of vitality, and remembers the sculpted face from the care home, the red hair, the sorrow in those green eyes.
The gym stinks of sweat, but the smell is still better than the stench at home on Ågatan.
‘I just wanted to say that I think it’s really odd that Granddad could have got himself into that noose, even with the help of the bed,’ Gabriella Karlsson says. ‘He couldn’t really have done it on his own. His shoulders were worn out, one side of his body was paralysed, and once he was lying down he had great trouble even raising himself into a sitting position.’
Malin feels like saying that willpower can release unexpected energy, that panic and exhaustion can do the same, but she holds back, because there may be something in Gabriella Karlsson’s observation. Could someone have helped Konrad Karlsson? And Malin realises that the question is hanging in the air, unspoken.
‘Do you know if his bed was broken yesterday?’
‘No, why?’
‘Just wondering,’ Malin says.
The green walls of the gym are making her feel sick. She wants to go for a run along the banks of the river, she hasn’t finished tormenting her body yet, she wants to feel her heart almost burst in the hot, stagnant air, feel her body become mute with exhaustion and dehydration.
‘Had your grandfather’s mood changed recently?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sure your grandfather is where he wanted to be now,’ Malin goes on. ‘Perhaps he just couldn’t face it any more.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
Maybe it’s true, Malin thinks.
Where are you? At home in your flat?
I know nothing about you beyond the fact that you’re grieving.
Gabriella.
Who are you? You were one of the last people to see him alive.
‘He was an electrician, after all,’ Malin says. ‘And they tend to be very nimble-fingered, masters at managing cables.’
Silence at the other end of the line.
‘OK. Well, I just wanted to let you know,’ Gabriella Karlsson says.
16
Beneath the big white parasols in Stora torget the tables are full of people drinking rosé wine and beer, savouring the late summer heat.
The hottest day of the year has turned into its most pleasant evening.
It’s nine o’clock, and Malin and Tove have just finished their hamburgers on the outdoor terrace of the Central Hotel. Tove is drinking her second beer rather too quickly.
But Malin can still see that she’s trying to drink considerately. She sees the condensation slowly trickle down the outside of the glass, sees the shimmering liquid and quickly grasps her own glass of cranberry juice and drains it.
Tove puts her beer back down on the table.
Malin says: ‘Yes, I’d like a drink, but don’t worry – I can handle it.’
A few tables away sit th
ree men in their mid-forties, with package-holiday suntans. One of them is extremely handsome and Tove can see him looking at her mum, trying to catch her eye, but her mum’s ignoring him, if she’s even noticed. Then the man looks at Tove instead, his eyes roaming along the hem of her skirt, and she wants to make him look away, doesn’t want him looking there.
She’d rather tell her mum to look in the man’s direction, take a bit of a chance, but the last time she tried that, when she persuaded her mum to go and surprise Peter in his room up at the hospital, it really didn’t turn out well.
A musician has started playing inside Mörner’s Inn, and the music entices people in from the pavement. The sign of the Central Hotel glows green in the growing darkness, and the wooden decking of the terrace smells of cigarette butts and spilled beer and food rotting in the gaps. But there’s also a scent of dew, of a summer’s night, and even the sweet, distant smell of the river in the air.
‘Do you feel like talking about what happened at work today?’ Malin asks, looking at her daughter.
‘No. Hilda thought I should talk to the psychologist who showed up, but I didn’t. It’s not a problem, Mum.’
She’s OK, Malin thinks.
She’s a thousand times stronger than me, and Malin thinks about the phone call she received in the gym, thinks about what Gabriella Karlsson said, and how it echoes what she herself has been wondering. Karin’s post-mortem will give them the answer, and – if someone did help Konrad Karlsson with the noose – do they even want to know that? If someone helped him to die?
It’s understandable that he didn’t want to live any more, and in that case he had a right to end his life.
At a time of his own choosing.
Why should anyone have to travel to a clinic in Switzerland to get help to die?
The problem is that he doesn’t appear to have wanted to die.
Tove says as much again now: ‘I still can’t get my head around the fact that he killed himself.’ She takes a cautious sip of the beer, and Malin can tell that she’s drinking less that she would really like to.
You’re a bit too thirsty.
You’re still upset.
Malin feels like telling her not to drink at all. And for a brief moment she wonders if Tove’s thirst stems from her own, if her weakness, her desires, have been passed on to Tove? And shame almost makes Malin beckon the waiter over and order all the drink in the whole fucking world.
Souls of Air (Malin Fors 7) Page 6