No lift.
At the landing of the second floor Malin can hear her heart beat faster, and she is starting to pant, and by the time they reach the third floor she is almost having trouble catching her breath. Zeke is panting alongside her.
‘It’s always such a shock,’ he says. ‘How bloody awful stairs are.’
‘Yes, the snow yesterday was nothing compared to this.’
Murvall.
They ring the bell, hear it ring behind the door. Silence from what seems to be an empty flat. They ring again, but there’s no answer.
‘Must be at work,’ Zeke says.
‘Shall we try the neighbours?’
Rydgren.
After two rings the door is opened by an elderly man with an outsized nose and deep-set eyes, and he looks at them suspiciously.
‘I’m not interested,’ he says.
Malin holds out her police ID.
‘We’re looking for Karl Murvall. He isn’t at home. Do you happen to know where he works?’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
The man is wary.
‘Do you know-’
‘No.’
The man slams the door shut.
The only other person who happens to be at home is an elderly lady who thinks they are from meals on wheels and have brought her lunch.
One by one the brothers are brought out of their cells, taken into the interview room, and answer Sven Sjoman’s questions.
‘I haven’t got a brother called Karl,’ Adam Murvall says, rubbing his forehead. ‘You can say we’re family if you like, and from your way of looking at it that’s probably right, but not the way I see it. He chose his own path, and we chose ours.’
‘Do you know where he works?’
‘I don’t have to answer that, do I?’
‘What do you think, Malin? Shall we wait in the pizzeria over lunch, see if he comes home to eat?’ They’re standing by the car, and Zeke is fumbling with the keys as he talks. ‘And it’s been a bloody age since I had pizza.’
‘Fine with me. Who knows, they may even know where he works.’
Inside the Conya pizzeria there is a smell of dried oregano and yeast. Not the usual woven wallpaper, but pink and green fabric and Bauhaus chairs around polished oak tables. A swarthy man with improbably clean hands takes their order.
I wonder if he’s the owner? Malin thinks. It’s no myth that immigrants have to start their own businesses if they want to make a living. What would Karim say about you? He’d probably call you a good example. Someone who hasn’t given up your responsibility for earning a living to other people, but actively trying to look after yourself.
The virtuous circle we all have to hope in. Your sons, Malin thinks, if you have any, will doubtless be among the best on their courses out at the university. Hope so.
‘What would you like to drink? It’s included in the price of lunch.’
‘Cola,’ Malin says.
‘Same here,’ Zeke says, and when he gets out his wallet to pay he pulls out his police ID.
‘Do you happen know a Karl Murvall who lives in one of the flats upstairs?’
‘No,’ the restaurant-owner says. ‘No one I know. Has he done something stupid?’
‘Not as far as we know,’ Zeke says. ‘We just want to talk to him.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Is this your place?’ Malin asks.
‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘I just wondered.’
They sit down at a table with a view of the entrance to the flats. Five minutes later the man places two pizzas in front of them, the cheese has melted and the fat is floating in pools over the tomato sauce, ham and mushrooms.
‘Bon appetit,’ he says.
‘Great,’ Zeke says.
They eat, looking out at Tanneforsvagen, at the cars driving past, at the angry grey-white exhaust fumes falling heavily to the ground.
What would cause such a breach between people who share the same blood? Sven Sjoman wonders.
He has just finished questioning Jakob Murvall. His words have stuck in his head.
‘He lives his life. We live ours.’
‘But you’re still brothers.’
‘Brothers aren’t always brothers, are they?’
What makes people who ought to make each other happy, who ought to help each other, turn their backs on each other? Become something like enemies instead? People can fall out over any number of things: money, love, beliefs, pretty much anything. But family? Within a family? If we can’t even hold things together on a small scale, how on earth are we going to manage on a larger one?
It is half past one.
The pizza is sitting like sluggish concrete in their stomachs and they lean back against the flexible wicker backrests.
‘He’s not coming,’ Malin says. ‘We’ll have to come back tonight.’
Zeke nods. ‘I thought I might go back to the station. Write up the report from yesterday,’ he says. ‘Do you mind going out to Ljungsbro on your own to talk to Niklas Nyren?’
‘Okay, I’ve got a few other things I want to check out,’ Malin says.
‘Do you need any help?’
‘I’m happy to go alone.’
Zeke nods. ‘Like you did with Gottfrid Karlsson in the home?’
‘Hmm.’
They wave in thanks at the restaurant-owner as they leave.
‘Pretty good pizza,’ Zeke says.
Karl Murvall is a human being, but he is at best uninteresting in the eyes of his family, that much is clear.
‘Karl?’
Elias Murvall looks at Sven Sjoman blankly.
‘Don’t talk about that jumped-up cry-baby.’
‘What did he do?’
Elias Murvall seems to consider this, to soften slightly. Then he says, ‘He’s always been different, he’s not like us.’
43
Malin’s vision clears as she gets closer to the tree in the field.
Doesn’t want to believe what her eyes are telling her.
The lonely tree in the field is no longer so alone. A green estate car with a roof-box is parked on the road, and on the snow, right where Bengt Andersson’s body must have fallen, stands a woman wearing a white sheet, no, she isn’t wearing anything, and she’s holding her arms out from her body, her eyes closed.
She doesn’t open her eyes even as Malin’s car approaches.
