‘We’ve got three minutes and twenty-two seconds until this track is over. But I can give us twice as long if I don’t bother to talk before the next one.’
‘I’ll get straight to the point, then. Did you know three brothers by the name of Murvall, who grew up out in Vreta Kloster?’
‘The Murvall brothers. Sure. Everyone knew them.’
‘Infamous?’
‘You could say that. They were always known as “the crazy Murvall brothers”. They were pretty nasty. But all the same… there was something tragic about them. You know, they were the ones who everyone knew would never turn into anything, but who rage and rebel against the system. You know, the ones who are sort of on the periphery right from the start. Who are, I don’t know, maybe doomed always to be outside normal society, knocking to get in. They were branded, somehow. They lived in Blasvadret. The worst, most windswept hellhole on the whole plain. That was Murvall family territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still live there.’
‘Do you remember Maria Murvall?’
‘Yes. She was the one who was going to make something of herself. She was in the parallel class to me.’
‘Did you hang out with her?’
‘No, she was sort of on the sidelines as well, somehow. As if she were branded the same way, like her good grades were almost, I don’t know, it sounds awful, but a meaningless attempt to break free. Her brothers protected her. There was one boy who tried to bully her about something, I forget what, and they sandpapered his cheeks. Two horrible wounds, but he didn’t dare tell anyone who did it.’
‘And the father?’
‘He did odd jobs. Blackie, that was his name. He was actually quite fair, but everyone called him Blackie. He had some sort of accident, broke his back and ended up in a wheelchair. Then he drank himself to death, although I think he’d already made a start on that. I’m pretty sure he broke his neck when he rolled down the stairs in their house.’
‘Mother?’
‘There were rumours that she was some sort of witch. But I dare say she was just an ordinary housewife.’
‘A witch?’
‘Gossip, Malin. A shitty little rural dump like Ljungsbro lives off rumour and gossip.’
The voice on the radio.
‘And this next track is for my good friend Malin Fors, the brightest star of Linkoping Police.’
Zeke chortles.
‘Carry on the good work, Malin. Soon you’ll be world-famous. Right now she’s investigating the case of Bengt Andersson, which everyone in the city has such an interest in. If you know anything about the case, call Malin Fors at Linkoping Police. Anything at all could help them.’
Zeke is chuckling louder now. ‘You’re going to get such a torrent of calls.’
The music starts.
‘Country Boy’ by Eldkvarn.
‘This is my love song. This is my time on earth…’
Plura Jonsson’s voice, tremulous with longing and sentimentality.
‘… I am what I am… a country boy, call me a country boy…’
What am I? Malin thinks.
A country girl?
Not out of love. Maybe out of obligation.
30
As the song on the radio ends, the phone on Malin’s desk rings.
‘That’s a bit quick,’ Zeke says.
‘Could be anything,’ Malin says. ‘Doesn’t have to be about the case.’
The phone seems to vibrate on its next ring, demanding to be taken seriously.
‘Malin Fors, Linkoping Police.’
Silence on the line.
Breathing.
Malin makes a quick gesture to Zeke, holding up her hand.
Then a gruff voice that’s only recently broken: ‘I was the one with the computer game.’
Computer game? Malin ransacks her memory.
‘Playing Gnu Warriors.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You came to ask me about-’
‘Now I remember,’ Malin says, and sees Fredrik Unning sitting in the basement of the smart house, joystick in hand, sees the father looking at his son, aloof.
‘Yes, I asked you if there was anything else we ought to know.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I heard on the radio.’
The same fear in his voice now as there was in his eyes then. A quick, fleeting feeling, gone as soon as it appeared.
‘And you know something?’
‘Can you come out here, you and that other bloke?’
‘We’re heading out towards Ljungsbro later today. It may take a while, but we’ll be there.’
‘No one needs to know, do they? That you’re coming?’
‘No, we can keep this between us,’ Malin says, thinking, It depends on what you’ve got to say, of course. And it strikes her how easily she is prepared to lie outright to a young person, as long as it helps the investigation. And she knows she would hate to be treated like that. But still she says, ‘This is just between us.’
‘Okay.’
Then a click, and Zeke’s curious expression on the other side of the desk.
‘Who was that?’ he says.
‘Do you remember Fredrik Unning? The teenager playing computer games in that posh house?’
‘What, him?’
‘Yes, he’s got something to tell, but we’ll do the Murvalls first. Don’t you think?’
‘Murvalls,’ Zeke says, gesturing towards the door. ‘Now what could be troubling young Unning?’
‘When you cross this road property prices sink by thirty per cent,’ Zeke says, as they turn off at a deserted Preem garage on to the road leading to the collection of houses that goes by the horribly appropriate name of Blasvadret, ‘windy weather’. The cold crackles through the melancholy outside the car. The chill seems to twist in the wind, picking up snow from the dead drifts, throwing it in transparent waves across the windscreen.
‘God, it’s windy,’ Malin says.
‘And the sky is white.’
‘Shut up, Zeke. Just shut up.’
‘I love it when you use platitudes, Malin, I just love it.’
An eerie place. That’s the immediate feeling.
Good to have Zeke alongside. Because if anything happens, he can switch in a fraction of a second. Like when that junkie whipped out a syringe and held it to her neck. She didn’t even have time to see what was happening, but Zeke lashed out and knocked the syringe from the junkie’s hand. Then she saw Zeke kick the man to the ground and carry on kicking him in the stomach.
She had to drag Zeke off to stop him.
‘Don’t worry, Fors, it’ll look like a couple of punches. But it’ll hurt more. He was trying to kill you, and we can’t have that, now, can we?’
Another, even more powerful, gust.
‘God, this is weird, there was hardly any wind on the main road. What is this?’
