‘No.’
‘You didn’t know he was questioned during the investigation into the rape of your sister?’
Without his tone changing, Karl Murvall replies, ‘Well, that’s only natural. He was one of her clients, and she cared about all of them. She got him to take care of his personal hygiene.’
‘Are you and your sister close?’
‘It’s very hard to be close to her.’
‘But before?’
Karl Murvall looks away.
‘Do you visit her?’
Silence again.
‘You and your brothers seem to have a strained relationship,’ Zeke says.
‘My half-brothers,’ Karl Murvall says. ‘We don’t have any contact at all. That’s correct.’
‘Why is that?’ Malin asks.
‘I got an education. I’ve got a good job and I pay my taxes. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t sit well with my half-brothers. I presume they’re angry about it. They probably think I imagine I’m better than them.’
‘And your mum as well?’ Zeke goes on.
‘Maybe my mother most of all.’
‘You’re half-brothers. On your birth certificate it says that your father’s identity is unknown.’
‘I’m Rakel Murvall’s first child. My father was a sailor who disappeared in a shipwreck when she was pregnant. That’s all I know. Then she met him, their father, Blackie.’
‘What was he like?’
‘To begin with, a drunk. Then a crippled drunk. Then a dead drunk.’
‘But he took you on?’
‘I don’t understand what my childhood has to do with any of this, Detective Inspector Fors, I really don’t.’
And Malin can see the change in Karl Murvall’s eyes, how matter-of-factness turns to sadness, and then to anger.
‘Maybe you two ought to be therapists instead. Those people out on the plain live their lives, I live mine, and that’s just the way it is, all right?’
Zeke leans forward. ‘Just for the sake of formality: what were you doing on the night between Wednesday and Thursday last week?’
‘I was at work. I had a big update of the system to install and it had to be done at night. The security guard at Collins can confirm that. But is that really necessary?’
‘We don’t know yet, but no, probably not.’
‘Were you working alone?’
‘Yes, I always do when it’s a difficult job. To be honest, no one else understands what needs doing, and they just get in the way. But the guard can confirm that I was there all night.’
‘What do you know about your brothers’ affairs?’
‘Nothing. And if I knew anything I wouldn’t tell you. They are my brothers, in spite of everything. And if you don’t look after each other within your own family, when else would you?’
As they are pulling on their jackets and getting ready to leave the flat, Malin turns to face Karl Murvall.
‘I noticed the roof-box on the car. Do you ski?’
‘I have it for carrying things,’ Karl Murvall says, before going on: ‘I don’t ski. Sport has never been my thing.’
‘Well, thanks for the coffee,’ Malin says.
‘Thanks,’ Zeke says.
‘But you didn’t touch yours,’ Karl Murvall says.
‘Maybe, but thanks anyway,’ Zeke says.
Malin and Zeke are standing side by side next to Karl Murvall’s estate. The back of the car is covered by blankets, and on top of the blankets is a large toolbox.
‘He can’t have had it easy, growing up out there,’ Malin says.
‘No, just thinking about it gives me nightmares.’
‘Do you want to go out to see Niklas Nyren?’
‘Malin, we must have called him at least ten times. He’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Go home and rest. Go home to Tove.’
45
The train moves forward slowly.
Goran Kalmvik is lying on the bunk in his compartment. Letting his thoughts come and go.
When won’t there be anything to come home to? he thinks. You can be away so much that away becomes home. And I, at least, pick up things along the way.
It’s still dark outside the windows of the train, but he can’t sleep, in spite of the carriage’s regular dunking against the joints of the rails, in spite of the fact that he is alone in a first-class compartment, and in spite of the fact that the sheets are crisp, yet warm and soft and smell soporific and freshly laundered.
Statoil is paying the fare.
He wonders how much longer he can do this.
It’s time to pick a life. He’s forty-eight and has been living a double life for almost ten years now, lying right in Henrietta’s face every time he comes home.
But she never seems to suspect anything. She seems happy with the money, pleased at not having to work, just buying things.
It’s worse with the lad. He gets more distant every time he goes away.
And the stories from school. Can it really be him acting up like that?
Little sod, Goran Kalmvik thinks, as he rolls over. Is it really so hard to behave properly? He’s fifteen now, and has always had everything he wanted.
Maybe it would be better to pack up and leave? Move to Oslo. Give it a try.
Work is terrible at this time of year. So cold that something freezes deep inside you even if you’re just moving back and forth in the icy wind on the drilling platform at the top of the rig, and your body never has time to warm up between shifts, and no one can be bothered to talk as they work.
But the pay is good.
It’s worth having experienced people out on the rigs considering how much it costs every time production grinds to a halt. Pipes like cold snakes full of black dreams.
Soon Norrkoping. Then Linkoping.
Then home.
Quarter to six.
Henrietta won’t meet him from the train. She stopped doing that a long time ago.
Home.
Unless it has now become away.
46
Sleeping-cars from Oslo sent on from Stockholm down towards Copenhagen, a slow, steady train full of people dreaming or about to wake up.
It is 6.15. The train is due at sixteen minutes past, and the morning has only just started to make itself felt. It is almost even colder than last night. But she managed to get up, wanted to check if Goran Kalmvik was actually on
