And you’re free, yet somehow not.
Theresa.
Are you still here? Where are you?
I can hear a voice.
I don’t recognise it. But it’s asking me where I am.
I want to know where I am. Because if I know where I am, I can get away from here, get away from the cold and the dark and the lonely and find my way home.
Everything is black now.
And cold.
So please, ask where I am again. Let your voice be an audible beacon to show me the way out of fear and this dark dream.
Ask again, please.
Ask.
‘Theresa, where have you gone?’
Malin says the words out loud as she pauses beside the summerhouse.
Birdsong.
Faces. Peter Sköld, Nathalie Falck, Behzad Karami, Ali Shakbari, other faces without clear features, the one who made the phone call, others, and still others.
Have to talk to Nathalie again.
Who is Lovelygirl? Maybe she knows.
Malin crouches down.
Fumbles in the grass with her hand.
A badger rooting about.
Who are you, who would do something like this? What sort of despair are you in? What happened to you, to make you capable of doing this to Josefin? What do you want to tell me? Has a smouldering snake from hell been released into your verdant paradise? Maybe the inferno is here, now and for ever. And why so clean? What did you want to scrub away? Or scrub into being?
Time clusters together. The ground, memories, give way, the truth fleeing to protect its bearer.
How? Malin thinks.
How can I get you to want to remember, Josefin?
The stench of cremated forest.
Of cremated insects, animals, moss.
The forest now a penal colony for the wretched.
The stench of glowing worms teeming out of fire-ravaged ground. It’s strong in Malin’s nostrils, and if she could fly, glide over the plain and Lake Roxen and the forests around Tjällmo she would see the fire twinkling far below her. She would see the burning points of light and wonder if they were magma, or the truth, or brutality that has decided to seep out, as if some breaking point has been reached.
She would see the girls drifting and crackling like fireflies in the darkness.
15
Saturday, 17 July
Saturday working.
No question now, when their summer has taken a turn into unimagined, dark Dante-esque circles.
They have to work. None of their colleagues will be called in from their holiday unless it’s strictly necessary.
The smell of charred wood and extinguished lives is even more apparent in the morning.
But not intrusive, just different, almost pleasant, like a fire lit by the characters in one of Tove’s old picture books, a fire for children to warm their frozen hands around.
No wind today, and for the time being at least the light is merciful, Malin thinks as she sees the flags hanging limply against their poles in front of the entrance to the police station, the large car park behind her almost empty, just a couple of cars with police markings ready for the hunt.
Malin drags herself through the heat.
Tired today.
Even at five to eight the heat is debilitating and she is sweating under her white jacket and T-shirt. She’s wearing a skirt again, couldn’t stand the thought of trousers, even if she hardly ever wears a skirt for work, it feels too feminine, too weak, too much like a statement. Her world is a masculine world. Whatever any feminists on the National Police Board might like to think.
So she usually wears trousers.
But not in this sort of heat. Not today.
She read about the forest fires on the Correspondent’s website over breakfast. A photograph of the blazing forest covered the first page, and other pages detailed the efforts of the fire brigade to put the fires out. Several hectares were alight. The fire had taken hold in the drought and wanted more, had become dependent on territory, on life. Fire crews from Linköping, Norrköping, Motala and Finspång were all battling in the dusty forests.
Janne wishes he were there.
Fire would be better than Bali. He wants to plough all of his longing into work, into firefighting, saving others instead of trying to understand himself, me, Tove. Us.
And then her investigation.
A page to itself.
A picture of a dildo with the text: Police suspect attacker used blue dildo. Prejudices. Karami. Shakbari. Speculation about Lovelygirl.
How the hell did word of the dildo leak out?
Karin Johannison? Sven Sjöman? Maybe Sven, under pressure from some journalist.
Oh well, it was out now.
The door of the police station glides open automatically. Ebba is sitting behind the reception desk, in early.
Says: ‘Good morning, Malin.’
Malin nods in response.
Zeke and Sjöman are at their desks, even though the morning meeting isn’t due to start for another hour.
Always this meeting, whenever they’re working. No matter whether it’s overtime or not.
They’re both studying various documents, but they still notice her arrival, looking up at her almost simultaneously, and Sven says: ‘Malin, so you thought you’d show up!’
Zeke happy to be in ahead of her for once.
‘Malin, welcome!’
Sven, wearing a creased pair of white linen trousers, is evidently also pleased to see her.
When she sees the look on Sven’s face, Malin decides not to mention her visit to the Horticultural Society Park last night, although she had been planning to, she knows that Sven likes it when you try to get the feel of a crime scene afterwards.
‘Did you go for that beer, Malin?’
No, Malin thinks, but I had a stiff tequila when I got home.
‘You’re looking a bit tired.’
Zeke crowing, grinning, friendly, almost paternal.
They start their morning meeting before nine.
They don’t bother with the meeting room again, one of the round tables in the staffroom will do, there are hardly any uniforms or civilian staff to disturb them today.
Sven looks more tired than usual, and Malin wonders where his new tiredness comes from, thinking that it must be the heat. She notices the fine sawdust on his hairy lower arms. The dust clings to his skin in little lumps and Malin thinks, Sven, you must have been up early this morning, working away in your basement, and maybe that’s just as well, what with these forest fires and sluggish investigations.
As if he could hear her thoughts, Zeke says: ‘That’s one hell of a blaze in the forests. It’s just getting worse and worse.’
‘Eighty firemen,’ Sven says.
‘And the fire’s heading for Lake Hultsjön,’ Malin adds, and silence falls in the staffroom as the three of them sip coffee from their caffeine-stained porcelain mugs.
‘OK, let’s get going,’ Sven says. ‘We’ve got a recently released rapist in the area whom we ought to check out. A Fredrik Jonasson living in Mjölby, thirty-two years old. Evidently he lives with his mother. Attacked a woman outside her flat. Attempted rape and violent assault.’
‘Mjölby can deal with that,’ Zeke says. ‘Are we going to check other sex offenders as well, or just the ones that have been released recently?’
‘We’ll start with this,’ Sven says. ‘We haven’t got the resources to do more right now, but I’ll make sure we have a list.’
‘What else?’ Malin says. ‘How are we going to deal with Behzad Karami and Ali Shakbari? We need to check Behzad’s alibi. Can we get some uniforms to talk to the people who are supposed to have been at the party? Have we got enough people for that? Or are we going to have to pull in someone from their holiday?’