‘Yes, apparently.’
And Daniel Hogfeldt hadn’t managed to dig that out?
‘But that could easily have been a load of rubbish. It must be a good twenty years since it happened. Maybe more. He was probably completely harmless. He had kind eyes. I could see that from here. You can’t see that on the pictures in the
13
Malin is standing by the fence looking in at the football pitch, a grey-white field with some even greyer school buildings beyond. On the left is the clubhouse, a length of red wooden buildings with concrete steps leading to a green-painted door, and a hotdog kiosk bearing the Cloetta logo.
She sniffs the air. Maybe there is the slightest hint of cocoa?
Behind the kiosk is a tennis hall, a temple to the smarter sport.
She takes hold of the fence.
Through her black Thinsulate gloves she can’t tell how cold the metal is, and it seems to be just clumsy, lifeless wire. She shakes the fence, closes her eyes and can see green, can smell new-cut grass, expectation in the air as the first team run on to the pitch, cheered on by eight-, nine-, ten-year-old boys and pensioners with their flasks, and you, Ball-Bengt, alone behind the fence, outside.
How does anyone get to be so alone?
An axe in the head?
They’ll check your name in the records in the archive; it’s bound to turn up. The ladies in the archive are diligent, good at their job, so we’ll find you. We’ll be able to see you. Don’t doubt that.
Malin stretches her hands in the air. Catches the ball with her hands, before becoming heavy and motionless, before she stumbles backwards and to one side, thinking, They laughed at you, but not all of them, you and your hopeless attempts to catch the ball, your attempts to be part of these small occasions, the little things that make up life in a small community like this. Little did they understand that you were one of the ones who made this community what it is. You must have been a constant presence in many people’s lives, visible yet invisible, known yet unknown, a walking tragic joke that brightened up completely normal lives simply by being told over and over again.
They’ll miss you when spring comes. They’ll remember you. When the ball sails over the fence they’ll wish you were still there. Maybe then they’ll appreciate that that’s what having a nagging feeling at the bottom of your stomach feels like.
Is it possible to be any more alone than you? The butt of jokes when you were alive, unconsciously missed when you’re dead.
Then her mobile rings in her pocket.
She can hear Zeke’s voice behind her. ‘It’s probably Sjoman.’
And Sjoman it is. ‘No one else has called, even though he was some sort of local celebrity. Have you found anything?’
‘There are rumours of an axe to the head,’ Malin says.
‘A what?’
‘Rumour has it that he smashed an axe into his father’s head, sometime maybe twenty years ago.’
‘We’ll start looking,’ Sjoman says. Then he adds, ‘You can go to his flat if you want. Forensics have finished. They’re certain he wasn’t killed in the flat. Considering the level of violence used, there would have been at least some traces of blood left. But the Luminol test didn’t come up with anything. Edholm and a few others are knocking on doors. Harnavagen 21b, ground floor.’
Four sliced Skogaholm loaves on a speckled grey, laminated kitchen worktop. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling make the plastic packaging look wet and unwholesome, their contents a danger to health.
Malin opens the fridge door, to find what must be twenty packets of sausages, full-fat milk and several packs of unsalted butter.
Zeke looks over her shoulder. ‘A real gourmet.’
‘Do you think he lived off this?’
‘Yes,’ Zeke says. ‘It’s not impossible. That bread is basically nothing but sugar. And the sausage is fat, so they go together nicely. Typical bachelor diet.’
Malin shuts the fridge door. Behind the lowered blinds she can make out the shapes of a few children braving the cold and trying to create something with the frozen snow. It had to be pretty hopeless, the harsh substance resisting every attempt to mould it. They are all immigrant children. These white, two-storey council blocks, plastered concrete and flaking brown wood, had to be the absolute pits of Ljungsbro.
Muted laughter from outside. But still joyful, as if the cold can be mastered.
Maybe not the pits after all.
People live their lives. Happiness breaks out, shining points of magma in everyday existence.
A sofa with garish 1970s fabric against a wall of yellow and brown mottled wallpaper. A card table with a green felt top, a couple of rib-backed chairs, a bowed bed in one corner, its orange bedspread neatly tucked in on all sides.
Spartan, but not terrible. No mess of pizza boxes, no cigarette ends, no piles of rubbish. Loneliness kept neat and tidy.
In one of the living-room windows there were three small holes, taped over, with tape carefully placed across the cracks radiating from the holes.
‘Looks like someone’s been throwing stones at the windows,’ Zeke says.
‘Yes, looks like it.’
‘Do you think it means anything?’
‘There are lots of kids in places like this, and they’re always out playing. Maybe they just threw some gravel a bit too hard?’
‘Unless he had a secret admirer?’
‘Yeah, right, Zeke. We’ll have to get forensics to take a good look at that window, if they haven’t already done so,’ Malin says. ‘See if they can work out what made the holes.’
‘I’m surprised they didn’t take the pane with them,’ Zeke says. ‘But I dare say Johannison was here, and maybe she just didn’t feel like it.’
‘If Karin had been here, that glass would be in the lab by now,’ Malin says, heading towards a wardrobe in the alcove containing the bed.
Enormous gabardine trousers in various muted colours in a row, neatly hung up on hangers, washed, ironed.
‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Zeke says. ‘Everything’s neat, his clothes are washed, but he’s supposed to have smelled of dirt and urine.’
‘I know,’ Malin says. ‘But how do we know he actually did smell? Maybe he was just expected to? And then one person told another and so on, until it became accepted truth. Ball-Bengt, stinks of piss. Ball-Bengt, never washes.’
Zeke nods. ‘Unless someone’s been here since and cleaned.’
‘Forensics would have noticed.’
‘Are you sure?’
Malin rubs her forehead. ‘Well, I suppose it could be difficult to tell.’
‘And the neighbours? Didn’t any of them notice anything unusual?’
‘Not according to Edholm, who was in charge of the door-to-door.’
The last remnants of her headache are gone. Now there’s just the feeling of being a bit swollen and unwashed left, the feeling when the alcohol is on its way out of her body.
‘How long did Johannison say he’d been dead? Between sixteen and twenty hours? I suppose someone might have been here. Unless the dirt was just a myth.’
The hot chicken curry is on the stove, the smell of garlic, ginger and turmeric is spreading through the flat, and
