Midwinter Sacrifice aka Midwinter Blood

‘And your adoptive parents?’ Zeke wonders.

‘I stopped seeing them. They were part of my old life.’

Wherever this case takes us, Malin thinks, it will be tied up with the warped logic of emotions; the sort of logic that makes someone torture another person and hang them up in a tree in the middle of a frozen plain.

Rebecka clenches her jaw again, then her face relaxes.

‘Unfair, I know. Of course it was. There was nothing wrong with them, but this was a matter of life and death, and I had to move on.’

Just like that, Malin thinks. What was it T.S. Eliot wrote?

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

‘Do you have family?’ Right question, Malin thinks. But I’m asking it for the wrong reason.

‘A son. A long time passed before I had a child. He’s eight now, he’s the reason I’m here. Have you got children?’

Malin nods. ‘A daughter.’

‘Then you know. Whatever happens, you want to be there for their sake.’

‘And the father?’

‘We’re divorced. He hit me once, by mistake really, I think, a hand flying out one night after a crayfish party, but that was enough.’

‘Did you have any contact with Bengt?’

‘With my brother? No, none at all.’

‘Did he ever try to contact you?’

‘Yes, he phoned once. But I hung up when I realised who it was. There was a before, and a now, and I was never, ever going to let them meet. Ridiculous, isn’t it?’

‘Not really,’ Malin says.

‘A week or so after he rang I had a call from some social worker. Maria, I think her name was. She asked me to talk to Bengt, even if I wouldn’t meet him. She told me how depressed he was, how lonely; she genuinely seemed to care, you know?’

‘So?’

‘I asked her never to call me again.’

‘One question, and it’s a harsh one,’ Malin says. ‘Did your father or Bengt ever abuse you sexually?’

Rebecka Stenlundh is remarkably calm.

‘No, nothing like that, ever. Sometimes I wonder if I’m suppressing something, but no, never.’

Then a long silence.

‘But what do I know?’

Zeke bites his lip. ‘Do you know if Bengt had any enemies, anything we ought to know?’

Rebecka Stenlundh shakes her head. ‘I saw the picture in the paper. It felt like everything printed there was about me, whether I liked it or not. You can’t escape, can you? Whatever you do, your past always catches up with you, don’t you think? It’s like you’re tethered to a post with a rope. You can move about, but you can’t get away.’

‘You seem to be managing very well,’ Malin says.

‘He was my brother. You should have heard his voice when he called. He sounded like the loneliest person on the planet. And I shut the door.’

A voice over the Tannoy: ‘Rebecka to the till, Rebecka to the till.’

‘What were you doing on Wednesday evening last week?’

‘I was with my son in Egypt. Hurghada.’

Hence the suntan, Malin thinks.

‘We got a last-minute deal. This cold drives me crazy. We got home on Friday.’

Malin finishes her coffee and stands up. ‘I think that was everything,’ she says. ‘Yes, I think so.’

24

Have I forgiven you, sister?

It didn’t start with you, and it doesn’t end with you. So what is there to forgive, really?

Arrange your apples in rows, raise your child the way we never were. Give him love. Mark your flesh with it.

I can’t watch over you. But I can drift about and see you, wherever you choose to run.

I devoured Maria Murvall’s friendliness like sandwiches made from ready-sliced loaves, like smoked sausage, like unsalted butter. I washed the way she told me to, I ironed my trousers, I listened to what she said, believed in her theories about dignity. But how dignified was what happened in the forest?

How clean?

How pure?

You ought to be drifting with me, Maria, instead of sitting where you sit.

Shouldn’t you?

Shouldn’t we all drift and glide about, like that green Volvo down there on the motorway?

Huskqvarna.

Lawnmowers and hunting rifles. Shotguns for all manner of prey and a matchstick troll looking out over Lake Vattern. The artist, John Bauer, drowned in those waters when his boat capsized. No trolls saved him. Is he resting in one of his dense forests now?

No music in the car. Malin refused. And the coughing of the engine reminds her to turn on her mobile.

It rings at once.

‘You have one new message…’

‘This is Ebba Nilsson. Social worker. You tried to get hold of me last night. I’m home all morning, so feel free to call me back.’

Add number. Call.

One, two, three rings.

No answer again? Ah.

‘Yes, hello. Who is this?’

A shrill voice, like a larynx compressed by fat. Malin can see Ebba Nilsson before her: a short, round woman close to retirement.

‘This is Malin Fors from Linkoping Police. We keep missing each other.’

Silence.

‘And what do you want?’

‘Bengt Andersson. You were his social worker for a while.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’ve heard about what’s happened?’

‘I haven’t been able to avoid it.’

‘Can you tell me anything about Bengt?’

‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ Ebba Nilsson says. ‘I’m sorry. While I was working in Ljungsbro he only came to see me once. He was incredibly quiet, but that wasn’t so strange. He hadn’t had things easy… and of course looking the way he did.’

‘There’s nothing in particular that we should know?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but the girl who came after me got on well with him, or so I heard.’

‘Maria Murvall?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve been trying to get hold of her. But the number we’ve got has been disconnected. Do you know where