Do you want to go to the cinema?
A romantic dinner, just the two of us?
He’s lying there, just a few metres away, but he’s still present within her as a feeling, a closeness, yet also distance.
A dildo.
A double distance. It must be like being filled with something that has nothing to do with human life, it must be the perfect tool for someone who wants movement, yet who also wants to stay where they are.
Malin leaves Daniel Högfeldt’s flat, creeping through the hall, convinced he’s awake somewhere behind her.
I hear you leave, Malin. Let you leave.
The bedroom is hot and the damp of our bodies is still in the sheets, the sweat under me both yours and mine.
Trying to get you to stay would be impossible. What could I say? Would I even be able to sound like I meant what I said? You’re too complicated for me, Malin. Too many contradictions, far too smart.
Obvious and straightforward.
Like a pane of glass on a summer’s day.
And a bit stupid, but with a good heart. That’s the kind of woman I want. Unless the truth is the exact opposite. That I want you. But I don’t know how to say it. Either to you, or to myself.
Home, shower, drink coffee, change clothes, miss Tove, Janne, enough regret to make her sick, and before she knows what’s happened Karim is standing by a whiteboard summarising the state of the investigation into the attack of Josefin Davidsson and the murders of Theresa Eckeved and Sofia Fredén.
Tove’s coming home tonight.
I want to focus on that, Malin thinks. But it will have to wait.
The morning meeting, nine o’clock as usual.
The detectives in the room tired, their faces somehow furrowed by the summer heat and the violence, the human actions that it’s their job to get to grips with. If not to understand, then to make reasonably manageable, and contextualise them for both the public and themselves.
‘The press are going crazy,’ Karim says. ‘They’re crying out for information about the case, but we can’t let ourselves be influenced by that. So, where shall we start? How are things going with the various lines of inquiry?’
‘We questioned Behzad Karami and his parents yesterday,’ Waldemar Ekenberg says. ‘The anonymous tip-off was right. They were lying about the family party. Behzad claims he was standing guard over his blackberry canes in an allotment down by the river, and I think he’s telling the truth, even if there are no witnesses who can state categorically that he was there. But they’ve seen lights on in the small cottage on the allotment on the nights in question.’
‘What about you, Sundsten?’
Sven Sjöman pants as he says the words, his face deep red.
‘It seems to make sense.’
‘Seems?’
‘We can’t be absolutely certain. But the likelihood is that it’s the truth. We’re waiting to hear who made the call claiming that Behzad was involved. We really need to talk to them.’
‘So how are we going to get hold of them?’
‘With difficulty. But Telia are trying to give us the location the call was made from. It was on their network, and we might be able to draw some conclusions based on people we know who are acquainted with Behzad. They’re pretty familiar faces to you here in Linköping, after all.’
‘Good. What about the list of known sex offenders?’
‘We got hold of three more of them yesterday. All in the clear.’
‘And nothing new about the person who called in about Josefin Davidsson?’
‘No,’ Malin says. ‘That feels like a thousand years ago now.’
‘In all likelihood it was just a passer-by who didn’t want anything to do with us,’ Sven says, before going on. ‘OK. Well, the news from Mjölby is that the interviews with Sofia Fredén’s parents and close friends haven’t turned up anything. Sofia seems to have been an ambitious young woman, good at school, never involved in anything stupid. And Forensics haven’t come up with anything from the crime scene. But we’d guessed as much, hadn’t we? Whoever is doing this is obsessively clean and careful. There were traces of bleach on Sofia Fredén’s body. And the traces of paint found in her vagina are identical to those found in the earlier victims. And the cause of death was strangulation. Forensics are looking at her computer, and the lists of calls to and from her mobile are on their way.’
Sven lets his words sink in.
Nothing is easy in this case, they’re not getting anything for free.
‘And still nothing from Facebook or Yahoo!. They seem to be mainly concerned with protecting the confidentiality of their clients.’
‘There’s nothing we can do to pressurise them? What about the courts?’ Zeke wonders.
‘We could certainly make a legal request. But they could always appeal. And it’s hard to know where the information would be. Who do you hold responsible for a server on the Cayman Islands?’
Sven changes the subject.
‘As far as the dildo is concerned, Forensics have ruled out three hundred and fifty models. That’s if it is even a dildo.’
‘What about Sofia Fredén’s wounds?’ Zeke asks. ‘Has Karin been able to say exactly what caused them?’
‘Animal claws. But apparently it’s impossible to say which animal.’
‘Louise Svensson keeps rabbits on her farm,’ Malin says. ‘And rabbits have claws.’
‘Loads of people in this city have rabbits and other animals with claws,’ Sven says. ‘And you can buy those necklaces of animal claws at any market.’
Malin nods.
‘I know, it was a long shot.’
‘Anything else?’
Sven turns to face Malin and Zeke.
‘We spoke to Slavenca Visnic,’ Malin says. ‘And there’s a connection between her and two of the girls. She has no alibi, but we haven’t got anything concrete.’
Malin explains the connections, that Theresa was found near one of the kiosks and that Josefin had worked at another one, which could mean something to the case, or could just as easily be coincidence, even if that would be unusual.
‘It makes me uneasy,’ Malin says.
‘Synchronicity has driven loads of officers mad,’ Per Sundsten says. ‘Connections that exist but that turn out to be completely meaningless. So where do we go with that?’
‘We’ll bear it in mind, but we carry on working without any preconceptions.’
‘Hardcore police work,’ Zeke says. ‘That’s what counts now.’
‘I’d like to talk to Theresa Eckeved’s friend, Nathalie Falck, again,’ Malin says. ‘It feels as if she’s not telling us everything we ought to know. Maybe she’ll talk now, seeing as things have got worse. I don’t think we’d get anything more from Peter Sköld, her supposed boyfriend.’
‘Talk to her,’ Karim says. ‘From where we are now, we’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘And we’ve just received the file about Louise “Lollo” Svensson from the archive,’ Zeke says, and Malin gives him an angry glance, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Calm down, Malin,’ Zeke says. ‘No need to get excited,’ and the others laugh, and the laughter relieves the tension in the room, making the sense of hopelessness less pervasive, as they seem to clamber one circle higher away from the investigative hell they are all in.
‘I only got them five minutes before the meeting. Otherwise I would have shown you first.’
Zeke usually gets annoyed when Malin goes off on her own track, and on the rare occasions when he has done so she gets unreasonably cross, cursing him and behaving like a unfairly treated child.
‘I wouldn’t dare do anything else.’ And now they’re all laughing again, at my expense, Malin thinks, but there’s warmth in their laughter, a pleasant warmth, not like this tormenting summer heat. And Malin thinks they could do with this laughter, she needs it, needs to hear that someone isn’t taking this so incredibly seriously.