Earth Storm_The new novel from the Swedish crime-writing phenomenon_Malin Fors

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Earth Storm_The new novel from the Swedish crime-writing phenomenon_Malin Fors Page 11

by Mons Kallentoft


  ‘It’s more likely that she was taken away from the house by road,’ Malin says.

  Karin nods.

  ‘But the tracks from the house led into the forest, and I didn’t see any footprints or signs of a body being dragged close to the tyre tracks.’

  ‘So, someone who can fly,’ Waldemar says. ‘A ghost.’

  Elin smiles dutifully, but none of the others laughs at Waldemar’s strained attempt at humour.

  ‘Loudmouths,’ Zeke says. ‘The one thing that Nadja and Peder have in common is that they both appear to have been really noisy. In terms of their opinions.’

  Appear to have been, Malin thinks.

  We don’t yet know if Nadja is dead.

  She isn’t.

  ‘I checked those websites Julianna told you about, Malin,’ Johan says. ‘Very briefly, anyway. They’re openly racist. And the choice of words does bear a definite resemblance to the worst of Åkerlund’s pronouncements. For instance, that “the niggers ought to be cleared out of Berga”.’

  ‘Who’s responsible for those sites?’

  ‘Very hard to tell. But Forensics are working on that as well.’

  ‘Åkerlund needn’t necessarily be responsible. Other people could have imitated his choice of words.’

  ‘That’s highly likely,’ Zeke says. ‘Politics. That’s what I mean, that you can never know for sure, if people are trying to get their opinions to become the norm. What they might be capable of.’

  ‘I spoke to Peder’s ex-girlfriend and her new partner yesterday,’ Börje says. ‘I got the feeling they were lying to me about Peder.’

  ‘In what way?’ Malin asks.

  ‘Just a feeling, I’m afraid. They’ve got solid alibis. But Javier didn’t seem altogether convinced by Peder’s conversion. Maybe he didn’t leave them alone like they said he did.’

  A snake.

  That’s what the discussion resembles.

  Back and forth, confused, squirming yet oddly heavy, and Malin misses Sven’s focus, his ability to pull disparate thoughts into a definite direction. So far, Göran Möller hasn’t really demonstrated that ability.

  And he says: ‘We’ve also received an anonymous tip-off. Peder Åkerlund is supposed to have been threatened by Muslims. Verbal threats. From a Suliman Hajif.’

  Shit, Malin thinks.

  Now things are getting really sensitive.

  A few years ago Suliman Hajif was identified by Expressen as someone who was trying to recruit young men to the most extreme Islamist groups fighting in the civil war in Syria, and sorting out travel arrangements for them. He sued the paper, and referred to his record in community integration in his defence. And the fact that he did voluntary work in the mosque with teenagers who were starting to go off the rails.

  The newspaper retracted its claims rather than pay considerable damages. Malin knows they came to an out-of-court settlement because the paper and journalist had no concrete, reliable evidence.

  The whole thing looked like a massive journalistic error.

  ‘It could be a scam,’ Johan Jakobsson said. ‘How did we get the tip-off?’

  ‘An anonymous woman called early this morning.’

  ‘Do we have a number for her?’

  ‘No, just a pay-as-you-go mobile. We’ll never be able to find her.’

  Muslim extremists.

  Activists on both the extreme right and left loathe them. Are frightened of them, and hate themselves for that. Hate their own fear.

  ‘We should probably talk to Hajif,’ Malin says.

  Göran Möller nods.

  Sensitive, sensitive, sensitive. He nods again.

  ‘You take it,’ Göran Möller says, pointing first at Malin, then Zeke. ‘I’ve got to deal with the wretched press conference.’

  Göran Möller feels the sweat start to break out at the base of his spine. They’ve requisitioned one of the rooms in the district courthouse, which is based in a former barracks just a hundred metres or so away from the police station. The reporters are lined up on polished pine benches. The photographers have their cameras ready, angry red lights flash from the television cameras. As he stands there at the podium he feels exposed, as if he were facing a firing squad.

  Stick to the script, Göran, he tells himself.

  Give short, concise answers.

  Don’t walk into any traps posed by the case’s links to immigration and racism.

  These wolves are going to try to bring me down.

  They want to eat me alive. And if I make a mess of things again, I’m finished.

  ‘Let’s get started,’ he says, in as brusque a voice as he can summon up.

  ‘Is this a political murder? What can you say about the links to the Sweden Democrats?’ are the first questions from the pack.

  28

  Börje Svärd is pacing up and down outside the head teacher’s office in Folkunga School, waiting for the red light on the door to turn green. He walks over to one of the large windows that have been inserted into the almost metre-thick stone façade. Down in the playground he can see Waldemar and Elin talking to the pupils, asking about Nadja Lundin, questions they hope will bring her back from where she is right now, on the boundary between the living and the dead.

  He hears a whirring sound, and the light on the door turns green.

  Börje goes in, and behind a very tidy desk sits a woman his own age, attractive, he notes at once, with sharp features and a blonde bob. Her ring-finger is bare, and he holds out his hand and introduces himself.

  ‘Börje Svärd, Crime Unit, Linköping Police.’

  ‘Kristina Nederdahl.’

  Her handshake is firm and gentle at the same time, and he tries to interpret the look on her face: open or closed?

  She smiles at him as he sits down.

  Open, definitely.

  She knows why they are there, has read on the Correspondent’s website about the disappearance, the dog patrols, the divers.

  She gave them permission over the phone to talk to Nadja’s teachers and friends.

  ‘Do you have any idea where Nadja might be?’ Kristina Nederdahl asks, leaning forward across the desk, her large bust resting on it.

  Concentrate now, Börje.

  ‘No. But we’re almost certain that she’s been abducted.’

  ‘She wasn’t at school yesterday. And that’s unusual. She’s never absent.’

  ‘Not ill much?’

  ‘Never. So, what can I do for you?’

  Kristina Nederdahl smiles again. Playing the game.

  ‘Tell me about her. Anything you think could be important.’

  ‘How should I know what might be important to you?’ Kristina Nederdahl says, smiling even more warmly. ‘But I’ll do my best.’

  Börje nods.

  ‘She loves spending time in the central library. She reads all sorts of things. A lot of history. She always keeps her history and social studies teachers on their toes. And it was a very big deal when she won that competition in Dagens Nyheter. Nothing like that had ever happened in Folkunga School before.’

  ‘You’ve never noticed any threats against her? Anything odd?’

  Kristina Nederdahl shakes her head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was she popular with the other pupils?’

  ‘She’s actually a fairly ordinary girl. She has friends, she’s popular enough. She does her own thing. Most pupils here are only bothered about Instagram and what they’re wearing. That commands a degree of respect.’

  Kristina Nederdahl seems to pause for thought, and Börje notes how attractive she is when she’s thinking.

  Then she exclaims: ‘Christ, how could I forget that?’

  ‘Forget what?’

  ‘Sorry for swearing.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  Kristina Nederdahl takes a deep breath.

  ‘Just after her article was published in Dagens Nyheter, something did actually happen.’

  Elin Sand has withdrawn into the shade of an
old oak tree. In front of her stands a thin, sixteen-year-old girl, with streaked blonde hair and a small star tattooed at the base of her neck.

  Sirje Rapp.

  A slight but by no means mild person.

  Nadja Lundin’s best friend.

  She’s just explained that Nadja went to the house in Svartmåla at the weekend. That she had seemed normal beforehand, that she hadn’t received any specific threats, apart from ‘the idiots from the Sweden Democrats’ who had visited her blog.

  ‘Nadja’s not scared of anything.’

  Just like you, Elin thinks.

  ‘This evening we’re supposed to be handing out leaflets in the city centre. We want them to set up a refugee centre at the old air base in Malmslätt.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘It’s been planned for a long time, but the people living nearby are protesting.’

  A breeze passes through the crown of the oak, and the shadows move anxiously across Sirje Rapp’s face.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell me about Nadja? Anything at all?’

  ‘She’s kind. And far more engaged than me. I’m pretty quiet, really, but she wants much more.’

  ‘Is she always kind?’

  ‘Almost. Sometimes she can get impatient. Make fun of people. She’s so smart that she almost can’t help it.’

  ‘What sort of thing does she do?’

  ‘Like, if we’re at a café – she’ll order a latte, then make them give her a fresh one because the milk wasn’t organic. If they object, she gives them a long speech about consumers’ rights. Or in H&M. She can make the staff feel stupid by talking about their factories in China.’

  ‘OK,’ Elin says. ‘It sounds like she is just trying to show how smart she is.’

  ‘Kind of, but she doesn’t mean any harm by it.’

  ‘Do you know if anything special had happened to her recently? Has she mentioned anything?’

  ‘When her article was published in Dagens Nyheter, some time after that, there was a man in a hoodie standing outside the school yard for a few days.’

  ‘What?’

  Elin Sand takes a step back, and turns to look in the direction Sirje Rapp is pointing. Part of the wall surrounding the playground is lower, and beyond it she can make out a red-brick admin block.

  ‘Yes, there was a man. He stood there watching us. Mostly Nadja, it looked like. He was pretty creepy. And it was cold, but he wasn’t wearing much. Some sort of black hoodie. You couldn’t see his face. I think we saw him three days in a row. Then the head phoned the police, but he was gone by the time you arrived.’

  Kristina Nederdahl is on her feet now.

  She is pouring coffee for the two of them from the machine on a small sideboard.

  ‘I saw him standing there,’ she says, ‘looking into the school yard. He didn’t seem dangerous, so I ignored him. Our pupils are relatively mature, and there’s nothing illegal about looking into the school grounds.’

  Börje nods.

  ‘But on the third day I decided to call the police anyway.’

  ‘Did you try to talk to him?’

  ‘That was why I called.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Kristina Nederdahl passes Börje his cup before sitting down again.

  More beautiful than most women my age, he thinks. I wonder if she ever goes to the gym? No, she’s not the type.

  ‘I went outside to talk to him, and he ran off. I thought that was a bit odd.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  Kristina Nederdahl shakes her head.

  ‘Do you know the names of the police officers who came?’

  ‘No, I don’t remember what they were called. They were in uniform.’

  ‘There’ll be a report about it.’

  Kristina Nederdahl nods.

  ‘And you’re sure it was a man?’

  ‘I can’t be absolutely certain. But that’s the impression I got from his build.’

  ‘No car?’

  ‘No.’

  Börje drinks a sip of coffee.

  ‘Was he looking at Nadja in particular?’

  ‘Impossible to say. Her friend Sirje thought he was. And of course he could have been, seeing as it came right after the publication of her article. I seem to recall that the Correspondent made a big deal of her winning the competition.’

  Börje sits in silence.

  Doesn’t know what else to ask. Well, he does know, but he wants this moment to last, doesn’t want to leave the room.

  ‘We never saw him again,’ Kristina Nederdahl says, answering the question he was on the point of asking.

  Börje puts his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket. Takes out a card and hands it across the desk to Kristina.

  She takes it.

  And her face changes. From determination to an anxiety that seems to verge on hatred.

  ‘You have to find her,’ she says. ‘Young girls have to be able to make their voices heard without suffering any repercussions.’

  ‘We’ll find her,’ Börje says. ‘Get in touch if you think of anything else.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call,’ Kristina Nederdahl says, flashing him a smile full of anticipation.

  Sirje Rapp is still standing beneath the oak with Elin Sand, who has put her hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Is he coming for me next?’

  She’s repeated the same phrase ten times now, and Elin Sand says: ‘We don’t even know if there is a he.’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Don’t go out alone. Never, not even during the day. Don’t be alone.’

  ‘So there is a threat?’

  How can I answer that? Elin Sand thinks. Do I say that a sixteen-year-old in Linköping ought to be afraid, that fear might be the smart choice?

  ‘Just be careful,’ she says. ‘Until we know what’s happened to Nadja.’

  29

  Elin Sand watches Sirje Rapp walk off towards the main school building, and its heavy, curved stone frontage seems to want to make her feel small.

  Sirje had an alibi for every evening for the past week. She’s been at home; they’ve got relatives visiting.

  Could the man in the hoodie have been Peder Åkerlund?

  Or was it someone else?

  The murderer, the kidnapper? Or one of them, if they’re different people?

  There’ll be a report of the incident in their records. In all likelihood nothing will have been done about it.

  Sirje Rapp skips up the wide stone steps.

  Opens the wooden door.

  Swallowed up by the darkness of the building.

  Linköping’s mosque is tucked up against the maples and lime trees on a hill in Berga.

  The imam is known for being a moderate. A man who understands both the weight of tradition and the ostensible lightness of the modern world.

  They’ve left the car in the centre of Berga, and as Malin and Zeke walk towards the mosque past blocks of flats, their balconies bristling with satellite dishes, she tries to recall what they know about Suliman Hajif.

  Johan has checked his website. It contains guidance for how Muslims should fit in to society. A benevolent tone. Completely at odds with the supposed threats.

  Then there was the newspaper article about his supposed attempts at recruitment. None of it makes sense, and the contradictions can’t help but remind Malin of Peder Åkerlund, and the doubts surrounding his conversion.

  But perhaps genuine Islamists are involved in the murder?

  Too obvious. And if the murder and Nadja Lundin’s disappearance are connected, why would Hajif attack her?

  Suliman Hajif is twenty-seven years old, but in the pictures in the paper he looks more like fifty, with his dark, unkempt beard and thin face. Dressed in a white kaftan.

  Some pigeons are pecking at the arched tin roof of the mosque. There’s no one in sight, and Malin feels an urge to draw her pistol from its holster under her jacket, but knows she’s just being paranoid. Fear driven by pre
judice is playing tricks on her. She’s had dealings with the imam before, he’s a sensible man, and she knows that he’s asked Suliman Hajif to be there, that he’s waiting inside ready to talk to them.

  The small room is covered with Persian rugs, and Suliman Hajif is sitting on the floor next to the imam, Samid Samudra. His brown eyes are tranquil, but Malin imagines she can see hatred in his expression.

  A woman!

  A police officer!

  Threat. Fear.

  That’s exactly what Jimmie Åkesson and his followers in the Sweden Democrats want me to feel in the face of a man like Suliman Hajif. In the face of the imam.

  They’ve introduced themselves, he shook her hand and poured them some tea, and now they’re sitting opposite each other in the overheated, windowless room, drinking tea that’s too hot.

  But that’s all fine.

  There’s no time for pleasantries.

  Just as well to get straight to the point.

  So Malin says: ‘Peder Åkerlund. Did you know him?’

  ‘I didn’t know him, but I knew who he was.’

  ‘What was your opinion of him?’

  ‘I’m opposed to all forms of racism. But he had changed his views, and was therefore forgiven.’

  ‘We’ve received an anonymous tip-off claiming that you threatened Peder Åkerlund,’ Zeke says.

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘You had very different opinions.’

  Suliman Hajif smiles.

  ‘If you’re working to promote integration, that’s not a problem.’

  ‘What were you doing on the night between Sunday and Monday?’ Zeke asks.

  The imam holds up his hands.

  ‘Do you really believe that Suliman had anything to do with this?’

  ‘Let him answer,’ Malin says.

  ‘I was at home with my brothers. I’ll give you their numbers so you can check.’

  Malin adds the numbers to her mobile.

  ‘Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Åkerlund, anyone who might be involved? For religious reasons?’

  ‘No. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Too obvious? I don’t believe in violence, and I don’t know anyone here who would be capable of doing something like that.’

 

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