‘How about you? Any threats? Strange vehicles?’
Mehmet Khoni gives a wry smile and shakes his head.
He can see straight through me, Malin thinks. He seems to know how her mind works, and says: ‘I’ve never been as devout as Suliman. I don’t care about what’s happening in Syria. If you ask me, misogyny and all that other crap is just stupid. Anyone can see things are a fuck of a lot better here than they are in the Arabic world.’
They stand up and leave the room, and she guides Mehmet Khoni back towards reception. It’s time for him to go home.
When he realises what she’s going to do, he stops abruptly.
‘You don’t think I’m going to walk away from here now? With a madman like that on the loose out there? He snatched Åkerlund and Suliman, and now he’s going to get me. There’s no way I’m walking out of here.’
‘You can’t stay here,’ Malin says. ‘That’s not how it works.’
‘How does it work, then?’
She looks out at the car park, and at the impenetrable darkness beyond it.
‘I haven’t got anywhere else to go.’
‘Your uncle?’
‘I’d be found there.’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Follow me.’
She takes him downstairs to the passageway that leads to the custody unit. She explains the situation to the weary custody office, who mutters something in response, something about it being against the rules, but OK, just for tonight.
Soon they’re standing outside a cell. The guard fumbles with the key, opens the door, and then walks away.
‘Here you are,’ Malin says. ‘Leave the door ajar, because if you lock yourself in, only the guard can let you out.’
‘Thanks,’ Mehmet Khoni says.
Then he disappears into the cell and closes the door behind him, and Malin hears the lock click.
Malin walks slowly through the corridor past the other cells. The time is now half past eleven, and she’s tired, but doesn’t want to go home yet.
There’s still something she hasn’t done, and outside one of the cells she sees the name Raad, Julianna.
She stops. Opens the hatch, and sees the young woman sitting on her bunk, wide awake, and staring defiantly back at her.
‘You,’ she says.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure. Like you have to ask permission.’
A few moments later the custody officer has opened the door to let Malin in, and now the two women are sitting side by side in the cell.
‘Did you know about Hajif and Åkerlund’s dealings with each other? And the fact that they weren’t who they were pretending to be?’
Julianna nods.
‘Why didn’t you say anything? Hajif might still be alive if you had.’
She shrugs her shoulders.
‘Perhaps that’s why.’
To you this is a war, isn’t it? Malin thinks.
‘You don’t remember anything else that might be important?’ Malin asks. ‘I mean, you’ve had plenty of time to think down here.’
Julianna Raad takes a deep breath.
‘This is something, actually,’ she says. ‘I saw a man staring at me several times last autumn. Like he was following me.’
‘Do you remember what he looked like?’
‘He was in his forties, maybe, average looks, brown hair down to here.’
Julianna holds one hand up to her shoulders.
‘There was something weird about him.’
‘Was he wearing a hoodie?’
‘No.’
‘Where did this happen?’
‘I don’t remember. The Gyllen Café, maybe. Or the café at the library? I was spending a lot of time there back then. It could well have been the library café.’
‘Are you sure?’
Julianna Raad leans forward, turns her head to the side, and looks Malin in the eye.
‘I’m not sure of anything. Maybe this man only exists in my imagination. Maybe my subconscious is inventing things to help me get out of here?’
‘You mean you’re saying things you think we want to hear?’
‘Have you ever been shut in one of these cells? For several days?’
Malin doesn’t answer.
She remembers the room at the treatment centre. The cramped little room where she had to spend the first few days all on her own, with just her thoughts for company. Her angst and anger. She spent the time talking to herself, but the words were meaningless because no one was listening. That room will be with her for ever.
What are you saying, Julianna? Malin thinks.
What is this one of the investigation’s voices saying?
What lonely, dark rooms will it lead to?
Svartmåla.
Where Nadja disappeared from.
Viveca Crafoord has a house there. I’ll talk to her.
Hear what she has to say about a person like the one I’m trying to find.
51
Thursday, 18 May
The forest lights up in the beam of the car’s headlamps. The trunks and darkness between them, the moss and undergrowth, the soil they’re growing in.
The coffin containing the tongue.
Are you in a coffin, Nadja?
Where does that image come from? Malin wonders, as she squeezes the wheel more tightly and forces herself to stay awake: she mustn’t fall asleep while she’s driving.
I want to see you come running out of the forest, Nadja. Not like Maria Murvall, naked and raped and covered in sores, but in one piece, intact, both physically and mentally. Promise me that’s how you’ll come to me.
You’re not dead.
I know that.
Neither are you, Tove.
Janne phoned a short while ago. But she didn’t take the call. She knows she’s on her own with this. As is he. If he’s decided to go down to Africa she can’t stop him, and wouldn’t want to either. Perhaps he can find Tove. Good luck, off you go.
She looks along the forest road.
Suliman Hajif saw a black van six months ago.
Julianna Raad saw a weird man at roughly the same time.
The person in the hoodie outside the school.
Are they one and the same man? If so, who?
Malin called Viveca as soon as she got back to the police station from the custody unit.
‘Where are you?’
‘Out in the country.’
‘Can I come over?’
It’s been several years since they were last in touch, when the brilliant psychologist helped her with a case. Viveca must have been able to hear the seriousness in Malin’s voice.
‘Of course you can. I’m on my own out here, my husband’s in the city.’
‘I need your help.’
‘I do read the papers, Malin. So I can understand that.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
‘You remember where the house is?’
‘How could I forget?’
She drives into Svartmåla, past Nadja’s family’s summer cottage, the house from which she went missing. It’s dark and deserted now, and there are lights on in just a couple of the houses in the area. No one noticed anything the night Nadja disappeared.
She carries on past the dark gardens for three hundred metres, some of them wild, some neatly maintained, until she reaches Viveca Crafoord’s architect-designed wood-and-concrete box.
The front door opens, and there’s Viveca, standing in the light of the headlamps.
The wrinkles on her face are a bit deeper, her shoulder-length hair a bit greyer, but the energy and nobility in her bearing are the same.
‘You don’t mind if I have a drink?’ Viveca asks. She doesn’t bother to wait for an answer, and pours herself a whisky from the decanter on the sideboard.
‘No problem,’ Malin says. ‘Have you got a glass of water?’
Viveca disappears into the kitchen and comes back with an espresso and a glass of cold mineral water.
‘You
might need this,’ she says, smiling at the espresso.
They sit down on the comfy white sofas, and Malin notices that the art has changed since last time, it’s more contemporary now, must have cost a fortune from the fancy galleries in Stockholm.
Viveca leans forward and takes a sip of her whisky.
‘How can I help you?’
Malin explains about the case they’re working on, the murders, the abduction, the messages, the brutality, the links to Syria, and the feeling of utter confusion, the fact that they don’t know where to start looking, which threads they should follow, and that nothing is getting any clearer, either to her or the other detectives.
‘What sort of person are we looking for? Who would be capable of something like this? A parent exacting revenge for the loss of their child?’
There’s a noise from the forest outside the house. Malin thinks she can hear scratching, but knows it’s just her imagination.
‘Parents don’t usually take revenge like that,’ Viveca says. ‘That stems from a much simpler type of rage. I’d imagine that you’d want a less ambiguous course of action if you were taking revenge for your child.’
‘So what do you think, then?’
Malin can feel how tired she is. She wants Viveca to reveal the truth to her, here and now, give her the name of the murderer, and tell her where they can find Nadja Lundin.
‘I think you should be looking for someone who felt very exposed as a child,’ Viveca says. ‘These games could be a way of establishing control, power. The violence seems to be closely connected to the underlying motivation, and could be a way of looking for love, even if that sounds very odd. He might be re-enacting things he himself has experienced. In some ways he sees no difference between violence and love. Perhaps the violence also gives him a degree of sexual satisfaction.’
‘A sexually-motivated lunatic?’
Viveca shrugs.
‘That’s probably not all that likely, really. If that were the case, the corpses would show signs of sexual assault. Another thought that occurred to me is that he might have been beaten to make him be quiet.’
‘And now he wants to make himself heard.’
‘Something like that. I’m just speculating, Malin. And the question is, what does he want to say? I’ve got no idea about how he chooses his victims.’
‘You keep saying “he”?’
‘I’d be very surprised if it was a woman.’
‘How old do you think he is?’
‘Somewhere between eighteen and forty-five, but obviously that’s a guess.’
‘Marital status?’
‘Single. Incapable of an intimate relationship with another person.’
‘Where should we look?’
‘Go back in time. Look at old cases of abused children. Talk to Social Services.’
‘And Nadja?’
‘I’ve met her,’ Viveca says. ‘She had coffee here once. Smart girl. Full of life, plenty of opinions about the world.’
Malin smiles.
‘What do you think about her?’
‘I think she’s alive. At least, I want to think she is.’
Malin takes a sip of the espresso. The bitter liquid tastes perfect at this moment of exhaustion.
‘The same man?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Why would he keep her alive?’
Viveca shuts her eyes, nods to herself.
‘To demonstrate his power. To give the game another dimension. But there’s a risk that he’ll kill her as soon as he gets fed up. Maybe he saw her being mean when she was playing with someone else, and wants to give her a taste of her own medicine.’
‘You think it’s urgent?’
‘You know it is.’
‘The two victims presented one image of their ideologies in public whilst actually believing the exact opposite. What does that mean?’
‘If the murderer knows about that, he may have experienced something similar. Perhaps he’s been misled, profoundly let down. And he probably has a dual personality himself, of course, someone who appears to be perfectly ordinary in many ways. Serial killers usually are.’
The whisky on the table. The amber-coloured liquid. Shimmering, and Malin wants to reach her hand out, grab the glass, and down it in one.
‘Is it hard?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Every day.’
And Malin comes close to telling her about Tove, can feel anxiety tearing her apart, but she says nothing, wants to keep this discussion clear and defined.
‘What could he have done with Nadja? Raped her? Locked her up somewhere? Buried her alive in the forest? We did find that buried coffin with a calf’s tongue in it, after all.’
Viveca appears to ponder this, but Malin knows she’s had the answer ready since the start of the conversation.
‘Like I said, I think he’s keeping her alive somehow. And that he’s enjoying the fact that no one can hear her scream for help.’
52
I can hear her scream. Inside me, at least.
What would be the point of this game otherwise?
I’m the only one who can hear her voice, the sense of impotence it conveys. I can recognise myself in that feeling. In the tone of voice rather than the pointless words.
And that feeling, I can use it. I can take it by the hand, go back in time to that room, and there I can take my own hand and say: Everything’s going to be OK.
Everything’s OK.
I tried to wake Mum up, but it was impossible. I whispered in her ear that she could say whatever she wanted, as long as she woke up.
I understood who Dad was. How he had misused words. What falseness was.
Nadja Lundin.
Not as lovely as everyone seems to think. I saw her behaving stupidly, making fun of people. And that’s when I had the idea. Of playing a game with her and the police, the way the police played with you, Mum.
I hear Nadja, and believe the lies. I fall silent and play, and write a new message. Destroying the hypocrites.
That way I can give you your words back, Mum. And if I do that, all the words will have their right meanings again.
I read what I’ve written.
Words are like worms crawling out of the ground after heavy rain. They think they’ve reached salvation, only to be crushed beneath a little boy’s boots.
I love hearing her scream.
The warm hand in mine.
Mum’s hand, before it grew cold.
53
Let me out. I don’t want to die here. I want to be able to move again, I don’t want to lie here in my own excrement, howling, and you hear me, through the earth.
It feels damp now. Has it been raining? Or am I in the jungle?
But I have to get out. Otherwise I’ll die.
I’m dying, Mum.
And Malin imagines she can hear the words as a whisper in her third dream that night. She thinks it’s Tove who’s whispering, and Malin is running through a dark jungle where snakes snap at her legs and leeches want to penetrate her body, and unknown predators from long ago call after her: ‘She’s dying, Malin.’
‘She’s dying, and it’s your fault.’
Then she reaches a clearing.
Nothing growing on the ground, just earth, wet earth, dry earth, and she kneels down in the middle of the clearing and starts digging with her hands. Her nails are torn off, blood pours from her fingertips down into the earth, and she digs and digs, and in the end she is standing in what will one day be her grave.
She tries to climb out. But the edges are slippery, because the rain has reached the jungle. She can’t get a grip, and now wet earth is being shovelled over her, and she screams, falls to the bottom of the grave, feels the earth fill her mouth, and she screams, everything turns black, and she screams, and hears Daniel’s voice: ‘Wake up, Malin. Wake up, for God’s sake!’
His arm around her.
Sweat. Mine or his? Mine.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
He holds me.
He holds me tightly, and I want him to go on doing that.
I couldn’t manage without you, Daniel. Nothing bad must ever happen to you.
Two kilometres away the doorbell rings in Börje Svärd’s villa.
Kristina Nederdahl called him in the middle of the night, said she couldn’t hold back any longer, wanted to see him, said yes when he asked.
He opens the door.
Sees her smiling face.
Her whole being is beautiful and expectant, and he lets her in, takes hold of her shoulders while they’re still in the hall, and she turns around and her lips meet his, and he feels something burst inside him, feels that something about this moment is right, right in a way it hasn’t been since Anna died.
54
Malin reads the online newspapers on her laptop as she stands at the kitchen worktop. She’s just sent an email to the others, telling them what Viveca said about their potential perpetrator.
She drinks coffee. Feels how tired she is. It’s just past six o’clock, she’s slept for four hours. That will have to do.
She reads the updated version of Daniel’s article, the one she knows he wrote at the scene where they found Suliman Hajif.
The conclusions he draws are fairly detailed, and Malin wonders if they seem far-fetched given the information he had. Does it look as if he knows anything he shouldn’t?
She feels like going into the bedroom and waking him up. He’s betrayed a confidence.
Then she reads the article again. Calms down. I’m just being paranoid, she thinks. Then she reads his opinion piece. It’s bold, almost to the point of being foolhardy. What if the murderer reads it? Gets it into his head to silence Daniel? But it needed to be written. We can’t let ourselves be frightened into tolerating violence without a fight.
She closes the laptop and drinks the last of her coffee.
She goes out into the hall. Looks for her keys in her jacket, and finds a piece of paper that wasn’t there before.
She takes the note out. Unfolds it.
Daniel’s handwriting.
‘You’re the best.’
Damn.
Now I’ve started to cry.
She holds the note tightly in her hand, forces back her tears, and leaves the flat. Fifteen minutes later she reaches the station after a brisk walk during which she does everything she can not to think about Tove.
Earth Storm_The new novel from the Swedish crime-writing phenomenon_Malin Fors Page 19