the barn with me. I have to feed S?hrimnir and the others.’
Cackling hens run to and fro in an even colder space with badly plastered walls. There is a pair of new cross- country skis leaning in one corner.
‘You like skiing?’ Johan asks.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘But you’ve got a new pair of skis.’
Rickard Skoglof doesn’t reply, just carries on towards the animals.
‘Bloody hell, it’s below freezing in here,’ Borje says. ‘Your livestock could freeze to death.’
‘No chance,’ Rickard Skoglof says as he scatters food for the hens from a bucket.
Two pens along one wall.
A fat black pig in one, a brown and white cow in the other. They are both eating, the pig grunting happily at the winter apples he has just been given.
‘If you think I’m going to give you the names of the comrades who usually come to our meetings, you’re mistaken. You’ll have to find them yourselves. But it won’t do you any good.’
‘How do you know that?’ Johan asks.
‘Only harmless kids and old folk with no lives of their own are interested in this sort of thing.’
‘What about you? Haven’t you got a life of your own?’
Rickard Skoglof gestures towards the animals. ‘The farm and these beasts are probably more of a life than most people have.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I’ve got the gift,’ Rickard Skoglof says.
‘So what is this gift, Rickard? In purely concrete terms?’ Borje is staring intently at the canvas-clad figure in front of them.
Rickard Skoglof puts down the bucket of feed. When he looks up at them his face is contorted with derision. He waves the question away with his hand.
‘So the power of soothsaying gives and takes life,’ Johan says. ‘Is that why you make sacrifices?’
The look in Rickard Skoglof’s eyes gets even more weary.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You think I’m the one who strung up Bengt Andersson in a tree. Not even that journalist who was here before you thought that.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘If I make sacrifices? Yes, I do. But not like you think.’
‘And what do we think?’
‘That I kill animals. And maybe people. But it’s the gesture that matters. The willingness to give. Time, labour. The unity of bodies.’
‘The unity of bodies?’
‘Yes, the act can be a sacrifice. If one is open.’
Like my wife and I do every third week? Johan thinks. Is that what you mean? Instead he asks, ‘And what were you doing on the night between Wednesday and Thursday last week?’
‘You’ll have to ask my girlfriend,’ Rickard Skoglof says. ‘Right, the animals will be okay for a while now. They can stand a bit of cold. They’re not as feeble as other creatures.’
When they come out into the yard a young woman is standing barefoot in the snow with her arms raised away from her body. The cold doesn’t seem to bother her, she’s wearing just pants and a vest, and she has her eyes closed, her head raised to the sky, her black hair a long shadow down the white skin of her back.
‘This is Valkyria,’ Rickard Skoglof says. ‘Valkyria Karlsson. Morning meditation.’
Johan can see Borje losing his temper.
‘Valkyria,’ he yells. ‘Valkyria. Time to stop the mumbo-jumbo. We want to talk to you.’
‘Borje, for God’s sake.’
‘Oh, shout away,’ Rickard Skoglof says. ‘It won’t help. She’ll be done in ten minutes. There’s no point trying to disturb her. We can wait in the kitchen.’
They walk past Valkyria.
Her brown eyes are open. But they see nothing. She’s millions of miles away, Johan thinks. Then he thinks about the act, of opening yourself to someone else, something else.
Valkyria Karlsson’s skin is pink with cold, her fingers somehow crystal clear. She is holding a cup of hot tea in front of her nose, inhaling the aroma.
Rickard Skoglof is sitting at the table, grinning happily, evidently pleased that he is making things difficult for them.
‘What were you doing yesterday evening?’ Borje asks.
‘We went to the cinema,’ Rickard Skoglof says.
Valkyria Karlsson puts down her cup.
‘The new Harry Potter,’ she says in a soft voice. ‘Entertaining nonsense.’
‘Did either of you know Bengt Andersson?’
Valkyria shakes her head, then looks at Rickard.
‘I’d never heard of him until I read about him in the paper. I have a gift. That’s all.’
‘What about last Wednesday evening? What were you doing then?’
‘We made a sacrifice.’
‘We opened ourselves at home,’ Valkyria whispers, and Johan looks at her breasts, heavy and light at the same time, breaking the law of gravity, floating under her vest.
‘So you don’t know of anyone in your circles who could have done this?’ Borje asks. ‘For heathen reasons, so to speak.’
Rickard Skoglof laughs. ‘I think it’s time for you to leave now.’
23
The canteen of the ICA shop is pleasantly decorated, gently lit by an orange Bumling lamp. A smell of freshly brewed coffee permeates the room, while the almond tart is sticking to their teeth in a very pleasant way.
Rebecka Stenlundh is sitting opposite Malin and Zeke, on the other side of a grey laminate table.
In this light she looks older than she is, Malin thinks. Somehow the light and shadows emphasise her age, revealing almost invisible wrinkles. But everything she has been through has to show somewhere. No one escapes unblemished from that sort of experience.
‘This isn’t my shop,’ Rebecka says. ‘If that’s what you’re thinking. But the owner lets me do what I like. We’re the most profitable shop of this size in the whole of Sweden.’
‘Retail is detail,’ Zeke says in English.
‘Exactly,’ Rebecka agrees, and Malin looks down at the table.
Then Rebecka pauses.
You’re gathering your strength, Malin thinks. You’re taking a deep breath, in it goes, helping to prepare you to talk.
Then she starts to speak again: ‘I decided to leave everything to do with Mum and Dad and my brother Bengt behind. I decided I was bigger than that. Even if I hated my father in a lot of ways, I realised eventually, just after I turned twenty-two, that he couldn’t own me, that he had no right to my life. In those days I was hanging out with the wrong guys, I smoked, drank, sniffed glue, ate too much, all the while exercising so hard that my body could hardly take it. I dare say I would have started shooting up heroin if I hadn’t made that decision. I couldn’t be angry and scared and sad any longer. It would have killed me.’
‘You decided. Just like that?’ Malin is taken aback at how the words come out, almost angry, jealous.
Rebecka starts.
‘Sorry,’ Malin says. ‘I didn’t mean to sound aggressive.’
Rebecka clenches her jaw before going on. ‘I don’t think there’s any other way of doing it. I made up my mind, Officer. If you ask me, that’s the only way.’
