‘Eight police, eight mobile phones,’ Zeke says.
‘Plus ten others,’ Malin says.
‘Plus ridiculously low wages,’ Karim adds, before leaving them and heading off towards Daniel.
‘What was that about?’ Borje says. ‘An attempt to show solidarity with the foot soldiers?’
‘Who knows?’ Zeke says. ‘Maybe he’s had an epiphany that’s gone beyond getting his own face noticed.’
‘He’s okay,’ Malin says. ‘Stop mucking about.’
Then blue lights do start to flash urgently outside the entrance and soon their gym-pumped colleagues are opening the doors of the white police van.
Muscles.
Iron fists on Adam Murvall’s upper arms, bent back and up, the metal of the handcuffs cutting into his wrists, then a jerk, and his body leans forward instinctively to protect itself. His head is bent downwards, and their blue- clad legs, black boots and the magnetic blue light make the snow-covered tarmac look like a star-studded sky. Camera flashes. Automatic doors opening. One sort of cold exchanged for another.
A shrill voice, woman or man?
‘Adam Murvall, do you know why you’ve been arrested?’
Do you think I’m stupid?
Then another door, a blue and beige pattern under his feet, voices, faces, the young girl, a couple of moustaches.
‘Take him into the interview room right away.’
‘Which one?’
‘One.’
‘We’re waiting for Sjoman.’
A firm male voice. He probably thinks his accent can’t be heard. But he’s just a fucking coon.
Through the window of the interview room Malin sees Sven Sjoman turn on the tape recorder, she hears him give the date and time and his own name and the name of the person being questioned and the case number.
She sees Sjoman sit down on the black-lacquered metal chair.
The room.
Four metres by four.
Grey walls covered in perforated acoustic panels. A large mirror that doesn’t fool anyone: behind that mirror I’m being watched. The ceiling is painted black with recessed halogen spots. Confidences are built up, broken, guilt is allocated, admitted. The truth will out, and the truth needs silence and calm.
No one is calmer than Sven.
He has the gift.
The ability to get strangers to feel trust, to make a friend of someone who is an enemy. Briefed: ‘What’s it like where they live? Inside their homes? Details, give me details!’
On the other side of the table: Adam Murvall.
Calm.
Hands in handcuffs in front of him on the polished silver tabletop, the beginnings of bruises just above the metal rings. In the relative gloom the colour of his eyes fades and for the first time Malin notices his nose, how it sticks out tentatively at the root, then juts out in a sharp tip before easing into two flared nostrils.
Not really a peasant’s nose.
Not a tap, as they say on the plain.
‘So, Adam,’ Sven says. ‘You couldn’t help yourself?’
Adam Murvall’s face doesn’t move an inch, he just shifts his hands, making a shrieking sound of metal on metal.
‘We don’t have to talk about that now. And not about your sister either. We can talk about cars, if you’d rather.’
‘We don’t have to talk at all,’ Adam Murvall says.
Sven leans forward over the table. With a voice that is the very essence of friendliness and confidence he says, ‘Come on, tell me a bit about all those cars you’ve got at home in your gardens. I dare say you get quite a bit of money from breaking them apart?’
35
Sven Sjoman.
A master at coaxing, at getting people to talk.
Adam Murvall thinks that this policeman has been at it for a long time, but not long in this city, because then he should have remembered me. Because he couldn’t have forgotten me. They usually never forget. Or is he pretending? Now they’re standing behind the mirror, staring at me; fine, go on staring, what do I care? You think I’m going to talk, but how can you even think that? Don’t bother with the cars, but, sure, if you’re wondering about the cars I can always talk about them; what’s so secret about the cars?
Adam reluctantly feels his antipathy slip a little.
‘You weren’t here ten years ago,’ Adam Murvall says. ‘Where were you then?’
‘Believe me,’ Sven says, ‘my career is very dull. Ten years ago I was a detective inspector in Karlstad, but then the wife got a job here and I had to make the best of it.’
Adam Murvall nods and Malin can see he’s happy with the answer. Why does he care about Sjoman’s CV? Then it hits Malin: if Sjoman had been here for a while, he ought to have remembered the brothers.
‘What about the cars, then?’
‘Them? They’re just something we do.’
Adam Murvall sounds confident, his voice a well-oiled engine.
‘We take them apart and sell the good bits.’
‘Is that all you live off?’
‘We’ve got the petrol station as well. The one on the road down by the aqueduct. The Preem garage.’
‘And you make a living from that?’
‘More or less.’
‘Did you know Bengt Andersson?’
‘I knew who he was. Everybody knew that.’
‘Do you think he had anything to do with the rape of your sister?’
‘Shut up about that. Don’t talk about it.’
‘I have to ask, Adam, you know that.’
‘Don’t talk about Maria, her name shouldn’t be grunted by your sort.’
Sven makes himself comfortable, nothing in his body language giving any indication that he’s remotely upset by the insult.
‘Are you and your sister close? I’ve heard that you’re the one who visits her.’
‘Don’t talk about Maria. Leave her in peace.’
‘So that was why you wrote the note?’
‘This is nothing to do with you. We’ll sort this out ourselves.’
‘And what were you doing on the night between Wednesday and Thursday?’
‘We ate dinner at Mother’s. Then I went home with my family.’
‘So that’s what you did? You didn’t hang Bengt up in that tree, then? Did you sort that out yourselves as well?’
Adam shakes his head. ‘Pig.’
‘Who? Me or Bengt? And was it you or one of your brothers who shot through the window into his living room? Did you creep down there one evening, just like you crept to Inspector Fors’s flat tonight? To leave a
