Midwinter Sacrifice aka Midwinter Blood

in the front of my head and now it’s ringing again, and my mouth, I’m supposed to talk with it, but it’s so dry, where am I?

Then it stops ringing.

Thank God.

But then it starts again.

Sufficiently awake now to recognise the mobile phone. The hall floor. The rag rug. How did I get here? My jacket is lying next to me, unless it’s my scarf? The letterbox from below. Jacket. Pocket. Mobile. Sandpaper mouth. My pulse, a pulsating cyst, an electronic globe spinning in the front of my head. Malin digs in the pocket. There, there it is. She holds her head with the other hand, fumbling blindly, puts the phone to her ear, scarcely audible: ‘Fors, Malin Fors.’

‘This is Sjoman. We know who he is.’

Who he is? Tove, Janne. The man in the tree. Missed by no one.

‘Malin, are you there?’

Yes. Probably. But I don’t know if I want to be.

‘Are you okay?’

No, not okay. I gave in yesterday.

‘I’m here, Sven, I’m here. I’ve only just woken up, that’s all. Hang on a moment.’ She hears some more words as she shifts from lying to sitting: ‘… have you got a hangover, ah…’ Her head upright, black fog settles in front of her eyes, lifts, reappears as a vibrating pressure against her forehead.

‘A hangover? A small one. The sort people have on Sunday mornings.’

‘Saturday, Malin. And we know who he is.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Half seven.’

‘Shit. Sven. Oh shit. Well?’

‘They got the picture sorted yesterday. That funeral bloke, Skoglund, he did a good job. We sent it to the Correspondent and the news agencies, and the Correspondent put it up on their website at eleven and someone called straight away, and we’ve had more calls this morning. They all say the same name, so it should check out. His name’s Bengt. Surname Andersson. But, and this is the funny thing, they all call him by his nickname; only one person knew his real name.’

Her head. Pulse. Don’t put any lights on, no matter what. Focus on someone else’s pain instead of your own; it’s supposed to help. Group therapy. Or what was it someone said? The pain is always new, always different. Personal?

‘Ball-Bengt. They called him Ball-Bengt. From what people have said so far, his life seems to have been as miserable as his death. Can you be here in half an hour?’

‘Give me forty-five minutes,’ Malin says.

Quarter of an hour later, just out of the shower, in fresh clothes, the rumble of painkillers in her stomach, Malin switches on her computer. She leaves the blinds closed even if it is still dark outside. The computer is on the desk in her bedroom, the keyboard hidden in a tangle of dirty underwear and vests, bills, paid and unpaid, mocking payslips. She waits, types in her password, waits, opens her browser, then the Correspondent’s website.

The light from the screen makes her head throb.

Daniel Hogfeldt has done a good job.

The man in the tree. His face blown up in the most prominent part of the site. He looks like a human being, the swellings and bruises just shades of grey on the black and white photograph, like blemishes covered by make-up rather than traces of a fatal attack. Skoglund, whoever he is, is almost able to bring the dead back to life. The amount of fat makes this man, Bengt ‘Ball-Bengt’ Andersson’s face shapeless. His chin, cheeks and brow hang together in a soft, round lump over his bones, making one big, plump mass. His eyes are closed, the mouth a small line, his upper lip full, but not the lower lip. Only the nose sticks out, hard, straight, noble, Ball-Bengt’s only stroke of luck in the genetic lottery.

Can I manage to read?

Daniel Hogfeldt’s language.

Jaunty. Nothing for someone feeling sick and with a headache.

He probably knows more than we do. People call the papers first. To get the reward for a tip-off. So they can feel special. But who am I to blame them?

The Ostgota Correspondent can today reveal the identity of the man who…

The letters form themselves into burning arrows firing into her brain.

Bengt Andersson, 46, was known as ‘Ball-Bengt’. He lived in Ljungsbro, where he was regarded as something of an eccentric, a loner. He lived alone in a flat in the Harna district and had been on social security benefits for several years, unable to work because of mental health problems. Bengt Andersson got his nickname from the fact that he would go to Ljungsbro IF’s home games and stand on Cloettavagen, behind the fence at the end of the Cloettavallen pitch, and wait for the ball to be kicked over the fence.

Balls, Malin thinks. Balls in my head now.

I can kick, Dad, I can kick all the way to the apple tree! Mum’s voice: No balls in the garden, Malin, you might hit the roses.

Tove wasn’t interested in football.

A woman who wants to remain anonymous has told the Correspondent:

‘He was the sort of person everyone recognised, but no one really knew.

There’s someone like him in every community.’

Bengt Andersson was found on Friday…

Direct quotes, not reported speech: Daniel’s special trick for added immediacy.

Duplications. Repetitions.

When will we leave the dead alone?

Malin walks out of the door of the building. It is just as cold today. The wall of the church is a mirage, far, far away.

But today the cold is welcome, throwing its weight over her thoughts, wrapping her in a muffling fog.

The car isn’t where it is supposed to be.

Stolen. Her first thought.

Then she remembers. Her parents’ apartment.

‘You’ll water the plants, won’t you?’

Hamlet.

Can I have another beer? Anonymous there, an older crowd, and me.

Taxi? No, too expensive. It’ll take ten minutes to the police station if I hurry.

Malin starts walking. The walk will do me good, she thinks. The grit on the snowploughed pavement crunches under her feet. She can see bugs in front of her eyes. The gravel chips are bugs, an invasion that she has to crush with her Caterpillar boots.

She thinks about the fact that the man in the tree now has a name. That their work will be able to get started properly, and that they have to approach this with caution. What they came across out on the plain was no ordinary violence. It was something different, something worth being afraid of.

The cold was sharp against her eyes.

Sharp, cutting.

Have I got grasshoppers dancing in front of my eyes? she thinks. Unless the cold is forming crystals on the surface of my eyes. Just like yours, Ball-Bengt. Whoever you were.

11

What does this world do to a person, Tove?

I was twenty.