‘Sounds like a good way for a species to wipe itself out.’
‘Somehow it still led to a sort of evolution,’ Zeke says. ‘Spiders with close-set eyes.’
A young woman walks past with a St Bernard dog on a lead, the dog’s huge body swaying back and forth, looking ready to pass out.
‘Zeke, I was thinking of having a word with Nathalie Falck this evening.’
‘Why not? Just be careful.’
Malin breathes in the summer air, feeling the heat in her lungs.
They go their separate ways at Trädgårdstorget, and when Zeke has disappeared from view Malin pulls out her mobile.
Senior Consultant Hans Stenvinkel sinks onto the uncomfortable chair in his hot office in ward nine of the University Hospital.
A five-hour operation just finished.
He was trying to save the leg of a motorcyclist who had crashed into a tractor outside Nässjö and been flown to Linköping by air ambulance. Time would tell if the young man would be able to keep his leg – the damage had been extensive, the leg split open from the knee to the hip, but the vascular surgeon had done his best.
Is that sweat dripping from my brow, or water from washing after the operation? Bloody hell, Hans thinks just as the phone rings.
Malin’s number.
What does she want?
The mother of his son Markus’s girlfriend, Tove. The tense but pleasant and evidently brilliant detective inspector. The distant, troubled, but after a couple of glasses of wine relaxed woman. Hasse has often thought when in her company that it’s as if she doesn’t really like doctors.
‘Hans here.’
Her voice at the other end of the line isn’t as alert as usual and he can hear the sound of traffic in the background.
‘This is Malin. Tove’s mum.’
‘Hi, Malin. How are you coping with the heat? Haven’t melted yet?’
‘Half of me has just dissolved onto the pavement.’
Hasse chuckles. At least she’s got a sense of humour.
‘How’s Tove getting on in Bali?’
‘She’s having a great time.’
‘Markus is at our summer cottage outside Torshälla, but he’ll be home when Tove gets back.’
‘I was thinking that you might be able to help me with something, Hasse.’
‘OK. Fire away, Malin.’
‘I could do with finding out if there’s anyone in the city who has lost his penis.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Lost his . . .’
‘Sorry, I heard you, Malin.’
‘It’s to do with the rape of that girl.’
‘The one who was found in the Horticultural Society Park?’
‘Yes.’
‘The information you’re after is confidential, Malin.’
‘I know.’
‘Sorry, Malin, I can’t help you. It’s illegal to reveal the details of anyone’s medical notes.’
‘I know that too, Hasse.’
He sounded shattered, Malin thinks, tired, when I asked. Those long operations must be draining. Malin puts her mobile in the front pocket of her skirt, during the day its pale-blue fabric has gained some light brown stains and Malin wonders if you can get jeans that would be thin enough to put up with in this heat.
The pub downstairs is as tempting as ever. Crazy to live in the same building as a pub.
Sitting at the bar, alone, along with everyone else.
Getting happily, hazily melancholic.
Drink a chilled beer, its bitter, sharp coolness, the alcohol going to your head and filling its nooks and crannies with miraculous emptiness.
But no.
Not now.
The key in the door of the flat.
A stale smell, clothes and everything else just one big mess.
Malin stops, looks at herself in the mirror.
Heat wrinkles?
Whatever, they’re certainly new, those little lines in the skin around her eyes.
I’m thirty-four, Malin thinks. And I still don’t recognise my own reflection, I still don’t know who I’m looking at.
They come to her again. Like summer ghosts.
Janne.
Tove.
And Daniel Högfeldt.
And she is consumed by a sudden painful sense that life is over, even while she’s slaving away at it.
17
Saturday, 17–Sunday, 18 July
Her voice fills the bedroom. She’s talking about the girls.
It doesn’t really matter what she says.
It’s the movement of her voice, its vitality, that’s the important thing.
The presenter on local P4. Her friend.
Helen Aneman must be working evenings now, unless she works at pretty much any time of day.
‘And to all you girls out there in Linköping. Please, don’t take any risks. Whatever you’re doing, don’t go out alone. We don’t know what this summer has let loose.’
Then Helen introduces a track and Malin lies on her bed with the blinds closed, listening to her friend’s voice in the relative darkness.
She sounds sexy.
Alone, but not tragic, as if she were waiting for someone to come to her in the studio and take her away.
Her prince charming? Well, why not?
The music starts. A hard-rock track. The words of the lyrics mean nothing. Malin is jerked back, gets up, slamming one hand down on the radio’s off-switch.
Sven Sjöman called half an hour ago, just after nine o’clock.
‘You’re going to see Nathalie Falck?’
‘I called her. We’re meeting up in a little while. She sounded reluctant, to say the least.’
‘It’s good that you’re working, Malin.’
‘So you don’t think I’ve got anything better to do?’
‘No, actually I don’t, Fors.’
The defiance in Nathalie Falck’s dark eyes.
The lies beyond the defiance.
Or truth withheld.
Nathalie agreed to meet her after some persuasion, but maintained in a razor-sharp voice that she had nothing to add.
Chosen location: the cathedral.
‘I can meet you in the cathedral at ten. I go there sometimes.’
‘Is it open that late?’
‘They don’t lock the doors before eleven in the summer. Some new accessibility thing. And it’s cool in there.’
And now they’re sitting in one of the brown-painted wooden pews towards the front, near the modern painted altarpiece, and above their heads grey stones of different shades reach upward to form an arch, stones that have spent centuries trying to disprove the law of gravity.
Nathalie is wearing a black vest and skirt. She radiates a courage and determination that Malin wishes she could have had as a teenager.
‘What do you want to know?’ she asks without looking at Malin.
‘Yes, what do I want to know? Why don’t you tell me? I’m sure you haven’t told us everything that might be of interest to us. Nice skirt, by the way.’
‘Don’t try to manipulate me. It isn’t a nice skirt. H&M crap.’
‘Who’s Lovelygirl?’
Malin looks for a reaction in the girl sitting beside her.
Nothing.
‘I don’t know any Lovelygirl.’
‘It’s an alias on . . .’
‘I’ve seen it on Theresa’s Facebook page. Don’t know who it is.’
That came a bit too quickly, Malin thinks.
‘You’re sure?’
No answer.
Nathalie huddles up, as if to say: thus far, but no further.
Malin falls silent. Lets the church’s faint knocking sounds take over for a few short moments.
‘Is it hard being different?’ she asks eventually, and she can see Nathalie Falck relax.
‘Do you think I’m different?’
‘Yes. It shows. In a good way.’
‘It’s not hard. It’s just different.’