AUTUMN KILLING

by KALLENTOFT MONS

  ‘What about before that?’

  But Åke Petersson doesn’t answer her question, and says instead: ‘I did my grieving for Jerry a long time ago. I knew he’d never come back to me, so I got all the sadness out of the way in advance, and now he’s gone all I’ve got is confirmation of what I already felt. Strange, isn’t it? My son is dead, murdered, and all I can do is revisit feelings I’ve already had.’

  Malin can feel that her marinated brain isn’t keeping her thoughts in order, and they wander off to Tenerife, to Mum and Dad on the balcony in the sun, the balcony she’s only seen in pictures.

  And pictures, black and white, emerge from her memory, she’s very young and wandering around the room asking for her mum, but Mum isn’t there, and she doesn’t come home either, and she asks Dad where Mum’s gone, but Dad doesn’t answer, or does he?

  Strange, Malin thinks. I always remember Mum as being there, yet somehow not. Maybe she wasn’t even there?

  Tove.

  I’m not there. And she feels acutely sick, but manages to control the gag reflex.

  Then she forces herself back to the present, and stares at the wall of the room. A shelf full of books. Literary fiction, by famous difficult authors: the sort Tove devours and that she can’t stand.

  ‘I started reading late in life,’ Åke Petersson says. ‘When I needed something to believe in.’

  Dad!

  Dad, Dad, Dad!

  What would I need you for? To raise my hand against?

  You know why Mum took the cortisone, the pain in her body ended up as pain in her soul.

  You dragged yourself up from that green sofa for your own sake, not mine, and what did you get up for? Sitting and programming the simplest sort of code, the only thing your pickled brain could handle.

  I see you there in bed, your cramping stroke-paralysed half-body is like a physical embodiment of the muteness that always characterised your side of the family, those taciturn, useless men.

  You tried to contact me, Dad. But I wouldn’t take your calls. What would we have said to each other?

  Would we have spent Christmases in Berga eating cheap sausages? Meatballs, Jansson’s Temptation, pickled herring ad nauseam?

  You stopped trying to contact me.

  Certain doors have to be closed for others to open. That’s just the way it is. But at the same time: is there anything more exciting than a locked door?

  I had been hoping you’d get in touch when I moved back to the city. When I bought the castle. I could have had you driven out there, I could have shown you my home.

  Someone else could have come too.

  There’s something tragic about you now, as you tell the nurse to angle the blinds so you can look out at the rain. You speak to her nicely, with a meekness you’ve learned to express perfectly.

  You look out into the room.

  One eye blind after the stroke.

  You blink.

  As if you can see something you could never see before.

  Is it me you can see, Dad?

  25

  The phone in her hand shaking. The living room of the flat dark, as if darkness could subdue her nerves.

  I’m scared, nervous about calling my own daughter. I’ve spent two days being scared to talk to her. Is that really true?

  The third ring cuts off. Crackling. Fragments of a voice.

  ‘Tove? Is that you?’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘I can hardly hear you, the line’s really bad for some reason.’

  ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll go over to the living-room window, you know reception’s a bit better there.’

  ‘OK, Mum, go to the window.’

  ‘There, can you hear me any better now?’

  ‘I can hear you better now.’

  ‘Are you coming over this evening?’

  ‘It’s already evening, Mum. I’m out at Dad’s.’

  ‘So you’re not coming?’

  ‘It’s a bit late.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow, then.’

  ‘I’ve arranged to meet Filippa tomorrow. We’re going to the cinema. Maybe I could stay over afterwards?’

  ‘I think I’ll be at home. But you’ve probably read in the paper about the man who was found out at Skogså. So I might have to work. But you’d be OK here on your own, wouldn’t you? I might have to come out to the house and pick up a few clothes and things.’

  ‘Let’s talk tomorrow, Mum.’

  Then Tove hangs up, and Malin looks out of the living-room window, at the rain that seems to be trying to whip God out of the church over there.

  Tove.

  It’s as if there’s a great chasm between what I ought to do and what I’m actually doing. She wants to call Tove again, just to hear her voice, try to explain why she is the way she is, does what she does, but she doesn’t even know why herself.

  And Tove wanted to end the call quickly, she didn’t pick up Malin’s remark about maybe picking some clothes up tomorrow.

  Why?

  Does Tove think I’m going to go back?

  Could that be it?

  Maybe she’s had enough of me? Is she holding back to protect herself?

  In the gushing water in the gutter outside, bloated bodies float past. Shiny, covered in silvery drops, with teeth that glow white in the darkness.

  Where do all these rats come from? Malin thinks. From the underground caves where we try to conceal all our human shortcomings?

  Then she thinks about her conversation with Tove, how people can avoid talking about the things that matter to each other, even though the world they share is collapsing. How a mother and daughter can do this. How she herself has never even spoken to her own mother like that.

  The rest of the day had been fairly hopeless for her and Zeke. There had been another press conference, in which Karim hadn’t given the vultures anything at all.

  But Lovisa Segerberg, Johan Jakobsson and Waldemar Ekenberg had had a good day in their stinking strategy room.

  In a way that struck Malin as miraculous, Lovisa had managed to dig out information that proved that the Fågelsjö family had indeed fallen upon hard times, and that was why they had had to sell Skogså to Jerry Petersson.

  They met up inside the windowless room full of documents and files. The entire investigating team, including Sven Sjöman and Karim Akbar.

  It was almost four o’clock, and during the course of the day Waldemar had managed to injure his face in a way that none of them wanted to ask about. One eye was swollen shut and dark blue, and his cheek was vivid shades of blue and lilac.

  ‘I walked into a fucking lamp post when I was going to get cigarettes,’ Waldemar said, but everyone in the room knew that wasn’t true, and Malin thought that he’d finally been given a taste of his own medicine.

  Waldemar looked considerably more worn out than usual when he declared: ‘Only two days into this investigation, and I’m already sick of this paperwork Hades.’

  They had all laughed at the expression.

  Paperwork Hades.

  A kingdom of death for paper, and a hell on earth for police officers.

  Malin had told them about her conversation with Jochen Goldman, how he had seemed almost amused by her call, then they had talked about Petersson’s father.

  Then sudden seriousness when Lovisa started talking.

  ‘I’ve got hold of the records of transactions Fredrik Fågelsjö conducted at the Östgöta Bank during the year before last. Evidently he picked up a lot of stock options, risked a lot of money, and most of them went against him.’

  ‘And?’ Zeke asked, and Malin was glad he asked the question.

  ‘He lost a great deal of money. Far more than he invested. But the day after Skogså was sold, the debts were all written off.’

  ‘So you’re saying that Skogså was sold to cover up the mistakes?’ Karim said.

  Lovisa nodded.

  ‘Probably, yes.’

  ‘So old Axel Fågelsjö can’t
be very happy with his son,’ Malin said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Lovisa said. ‘I can’t find any definite proof of it, but he might have had power of attorney to do what he wanted with the family’s money.’

  ‘He does work at the bank, after all,’ Sven said. ‘He’d have had plenty of opportunities to conduct his own affairs.’

  ‘Doesn’t that go against good banking ethics?’ Waldemar asked.

  ‘Only if you’re a broker yourself,’ Lovisa replied.

  ‘He’s an advisor,’ Zeke said. ‘It said so in the annual report.’

  ‘Well, now we know that it isn’t just a rumour that the Fågelsjös were in financial difficulties,’ Sven said. ‘That backs up our suspicions against Fredrik. Now we know for certain that he could have been angry, possibly even furious, that the family lost Skogså, and maybe he took that anger out on Petersson. We also know that in all likelihood he was the reason the family lost the estate. Of course we’ll have to interview him about it tomorrow morning. But there’s not really any reason to question the other members of the family about this, is there? They’ve just been withholding the truth to protect the family name, and they’d probably just close ranks, so we’ll wait until we’ve got something more concrete. I know we all think they’re hiding a lot from us, but for the time being we’re just going to have to try to uncover their deepest secrets without actually talking to them. If we do find anything, then any future interviews will be all the more effective. And maybe Fredrik himself will reveal something. He might be softening up down there in his cell.’

  And Malin thought of Fredrik Fågelsjö, maybe lying curled up on his bunk, alone, in the way that only a murderer can be alone.

  But she has trouble believing that.

  Then Sven again: ‘Have we dug out anything else?’

  ‘No,’ Waldemar said, and Lovisa and Johan agreed.

  ‘We’ll keep going with the tenancy agreements and the IT company. Petersson doesn’t seem to have had a will.’

  ‘Well, good work so far,’ Karim said, and it struck Malin that the divorce seemed to have taken all the fight out of him, and she knew he shared her sense of loss, that he longed for his wife and son, that he was trying to find an opening back to everyday life, a crack to crawl through.

  Malin has sat down in the living room.

  She’s resisting, just as Åke Petersson must have done. The most sensible thing would be to pour the remaining contents of the bottle of tequila down the sink out in the kitchen, but she can’t bring herself to do that.

  You never know when it might come in handy. Now, perhaps?

  I should have told Tove to get a taxi. Any other mother would have done anything to see their daughter.

  But not me.

  I let the conversation run into the sand, I couldn’t handle it.

  How did Tove sound? Disappointed? Alone? Neutral? Keeping her distance? She didn’t actually want to come.

  Have I given in to my fear now? Malin wonders. Have I realised that I can’t keep you safe for ever, Tove?

  You can actually die, beloved daughter.

  I learned that last summer.

  And that’s why I daren’t love you, look after you, because I’m so damn scared of that pain, just the thought of it makes me want to wipe out my own consciousness.

  What’s wrong with me, unable to deal with the most basic genetic love of all. Tove, I understand if you hate me.

  I should have asked to talk to Janne. Checked if I could pick up my things.

  But out of all the possessions she has out in the house in Malmslätt, the only ones she misses are the files relating to the case of Maria Murvall. She would have liked to have them with her now, spread out across the floor, trying to fit reality into a system, construct a pattern, a structure that would explain all the mysteries, make all the subtleties look obvious, a solution to a riddle that might help her understand herself.

  But maybe it’s just as well that the files are out in Malmslätt.

  Because it must be a hopeless case.

  Jerry Petersson.

  Jerry.

  A rented flat in Berga, maybe no bigger than mine, possibly even smaller. Did he hit you? Did he? When he was drunk. Or did he just frighten you? I hit Janne. The same thing? No. Hitting a child is different, isn’t it? And your mother, was she drugged up with all her painkillers? Did she take the cortisone to put an end to it all? And you watched all this happen, not the subdued drama I had out in the villa in Sturefors, with Mum and Dad living in silence, all the words that should have been said, but which remained unspoken, the way Mum avoided me without me even realising, how all I wanted was her embrace, but it was never open to me. It’s possible to hit someone without actually doing so physically.

  We both made it to Stockholm, Jerry, but your driving force must have been much stronger, more focused than mine, because mine had no focus at all really, did it? You hit a home run, while I hit a punchbag in the gym. Drinking. But there’s not really much difference.

  You broke away from your father. My own break with my father was slow and painful, but with Mum it occurred at the start of my adult life.

  Or earlier? Had Mum broken with me from the start?

  Malin wants to stop thinking, so she turns on the television. The evening news is coming to an end, and she doesn’t know if they’ve covered her case tonight, but they must have had something about it. The final item is some footage from a courtroom somewhere in the USA, an anti-abortion activist shooting a doctor who carried out abortions in his clinic.

  She turns off the television.

  An early night.

  Her whole body is itching with nerves and she lies down in bed, but the only colour she sees when she closes her eyes is the dark brown colour of the tequila, endlessly enticing.

  Then she opens her eyes.

  Fredrik Fågelsjö.

  The look of fear on his face. His body under the blanket on the bunk in his cell. Were you just scared? Or did you actually give in to your fury and kill Jerry Petersson?

  If your poor business sense cost your family the castle, then your father must despise you, hate you. Maybe your sister Katarina feels the same, but she’s still your sister. Malin feels her stomach contract, in a gentle but painful longing for the brother or sister she never had.

  And Jerry Petersson. Who pops up in the middle of the family scandal and is later found dead in a moat that is said to house the unquiet spirits of Russian soldiers. Jochen Goldman.

  People who are said to have disappeared. Murdered.

  Ruthlessness and inadequacies.

  Malin closes her eyes again.

  Waits for sleep, feeling her consciousness drift away inside itself, and soon the world outside is just one electrical impulse among many for her memories to navigate by.

  The world outside the window gradually disappears, turning into a crackling sound, and she hears someone whisper, wonders: who’s trying to tell me something?

  Is it the voice from the forest, from the bar in the Hamlet?

  The figures aren’t there, don’t want to show themselves, and in the borderlands between sleep and waking Malin gets a sense that he, or they, or whoever it is, is afraid for their own fate, afraid to entertain the idea of their own pain.

  Then she sees a lawnmower in the beginning of a dream, moving across grass, and she sees it from the perspective of the blades.

  Not a manual rotary mower like her dad had, but a red Stiga chasing a pair of filthy feet across dew-wet grass. She sees the blades lick the boy’s ankles, hears a voice shout: ‘Now they’re going to eat up your feet, now they’re going to tear your little feet to shreds.’

  The images in the dream are black and white, but the machine and the blades are red and the noise of the engine and the petrol fumes blur her thoughts.

  Then the boy stops. Lets the mower’s blades run over his feet.

  Malin wants to see the boy’s face, but he keeps looking the other way.

  Then he runs, on
bloody stumps now, he takes aim and drifts right out of her vision.

  26

  Sunday, 26 October

  Malin Fors has dreamed a dream about a person who is a mistake, not an unwanted person, but a mistake. She can’t remember the person, she can’t even remember the dream, but its narrative is inside her like a slow earth tremor as she stands in front of the counter of freshly baked bread in the Filbyter patisserie that has started opening on Sundays to fight off the competition from the cafés out at the Tornby shopping centre.

  Empty fridge. Waking up hungry. Toiletries, clothes, and that was where her shopping spree had ended.

  Zeke on his way there for a quick breakfast before the morning meeting at the station. Sunday like a normal Monday when they’re dealing with a case of this size, Saturday working yesterday, Sabbath working today.

  Two days since they found the body, no chance of any time off while the investigation is still in its infancy.

  She should really have had the day off today. Come up with something to do with Tove. Going to the pool, anything. Maybe even picking up her wretched things, talking to Janne, they could have had lunch together, Sunday steak and cream sauce.

  That could have worked.

  Couldn’t it?

  That whole life feels like a mockery. And she wishes that Janne would call and shout at her, but he hasn’t even done that. Should I call and shout at him because he hasn’t called to be cross with me? Or to criticise me for ignoring Tove? But he must realise that I’m working today, the papers are full of the case.

  She sits upstairs, with her three cheese rolls and a large mug of coffee, looking out at the desolate square, where a transparent, persistent rain makes all the shop signs pale, and only a few pigeons can bear to face the day, pecking away just as they always seem to.

  She’s finished one of the rolls by the time she sees Zeke’s shaved head appear over by the stairs, and he smiles as he sees her, calling to her: ‘You look a hell of a lot better today. And that top suits you.’

  ‘Shut up,’ she says, and Zeke smiles.

  ‘You know I’m only concerned about you. And that is a nice top.’

  Malin adjusts the pale blue top she’s wearing, one of her new purchases from H&M. Maybe Zeke’s being serious, she must have looked like a pig in that red top yesterday.