the train as they had been told, and, if he was, find out exactly what his secrets were.
She has called the security guards at Collins. They checked their logs and confirmed that Karl Murvall was in the factory from 19.15 on Wednesday evening until 7.30 the following morning. He had worked all night on a big update which had gone according to plan. She had asked if there was any other exit, or if there was any way he could have got out, and the guard had sounded certain: ‘He was here all night. The main gate is the only way out. And the fence has sensors connected to our office. We would have noticed if anyone was messing about with it right away. And where. And he was up in the server room when we made our rounds.’
Dinner with Tove yesterday. They talked about Markus. Then they watched ten minutes of a Pink Panther film before Malin fell asleep on the sofa.
Now she can just make out the train coming over the Stangan bridge.
The Cloetta Centre like a UFO off to the left on the other side, and the chimney of Tekniska Verken obstinately struggling against the smoke, the lettering of the logo glowing red like eyes on an unsuccessful photograph.
The train appears to increase in size as it approaches, the engine now at the end of the platform, a grandiose projectile fashioned by engineers.
Malin is alone at the station. She wraps her arms round her padded jacket and adjusts her hat.
No Henrietta Kalmvik, Malin thinks. I’m the only one here to meet someone. And I’m hunting a murderer.
Only one train door opens, two carriages away, and Malin hurries over, feeling the frozen air tug at her lungs. Only one man gets out on to the platform, carrying two big red suitcases, one in each hand.
A weather-beaten face and a body that is heavy but still muscular, and his whole being radiates familiarity with cold and privation; his blue coat isn’t even done up.
‘Goran Kalmvik?’
The man looks surprised. ‘Yes, and who are you?’
The door of the carriage closes again, and the sound of the conductor’s whistle almost drowns out Malin’s voice as she says her name and title. When the whistle has faded away and the train has left the platform, she quickly explains why she is there.
‘So you’ve been trying to get hold of me?’
‘Yes,’ Malin says. ‘For a few explanations.’
‘Then you’ll know that I wasn’t out on the rig.’
Malin nods. ‘We can talk in my car,’ she says. ‘It’s warm. I left it running in neutral.’
Goran Kalmvik inclines his head. His expression is one of relief, tinged with guilt.
A minute later he is sitting beside her in the passenger seat, and his breath smells strongly of coffee and toothpaste, and he starts talking without her having to ask.
‘I’ve had a woman in Oslo for about ten years now. I’ve been lying to Henrietta for ten years; she still thinks I work three weeks and have two off, but it’s the other way round. I spend the missing week in Oslo, with Nora and her lad. I like him, he’s more straightforward than Jimmy. I’ve never really understood that boy.’
Because you’re never at home, Malin thinks.
‘And guns? Do you have any idea where Jimmy might have got hold of a gun?’
‘No, I’ve never been interested in that sort of thing.’
‘And you don’t know what he used to do to Bengt Andersson?’
‘Sorry.’
Because you’re never at home, Malin thinks again.
‘I’ll need the number of your woman in Oslo.’
‘Does Henrietta have to find out about any of this? I don’t know what I want. I’ve tried telling her, but you know how it can be. So if she has to find out…’
Malin shakes her head. As an answer, as an attempt to get Goran Kalmvik to shut up, and as a reflection on the other gender’s occasionally incurable weakness.
Malin is sitting in the car, watching Goran Kalmvik’s taxi disappear off towards Ljungsbro, past the miserable brick box of the supermarket.
She is thinking.
Letting the possibilities wander freely through her head, then takes out her mobile and calls Niklas Nyren’s various numbers. But he doesn’t answer, hasn’t called back, and she wonders if he might be at Margaretha Svensson’s, clicks up her number from the list, then stops when she sees what time it is: 6.59. Saturday morning.
It can wait.
There have to be some limits, even in a murder investigation. Let the worn-out single mother sleep.
Then Malin drives home. Gets into bed after checking on Tove. And before she falls asleep the image of Valkyria Karlsson comes back to her, naked in the field, like an angel, perhaps one of the devil’s angels.
47
When does a case turn into a black waking dream?
When does the search for truth start to go in circles? When does the first doubt appear among the police officers working on the investigation, the feeling that we may not manage to solve this one, maybe this time the truth will elude us?
Malin knows.
It can happen early or late in a case, it can be there as a suspicion after a first phone-call. It can happen suddenly or build gradually, little by little. It can happen on a tired, early Saturday morning in a meeting room where five overworked officers who ought to be at home sleeping instead of drinking disgusting black coffee get to start the day with bad news.
‘We’ve just received the final report from forensics about the raid at the Murvalls’. They’ve been working round the clock on this one and what good has it done?’
Sven Sjoman looks miserable, standing at the end of the table.
‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing but animal blood, elk, deer, wild boar, hares. Animal hair in the workshop. Nothing else.’
Shit, Malin thinks, even if she has known deep down all along.
‘So we’re stuck,’ Johan Jakobsson says.
Zeke nods. ‘Stuck in solid concrete, I’d say.’
‘We’ve got other lines of inquiry. The ?sir lead. Borje?’ Sven asks. ‘Anything new? Did you talk to Valkyria Karlsson after Malin found her out at the oak?’
‘We’ve tried to get her on the phone, and we’re aiming to catch up with her today,’ Borje Svard replies. ‘We’ve also spoken to twenty other people with links to Rickard Skoglof, but none of them seems to have the slightest connection to Bengt Andersson. But we still have one big question to answer: what was she doing out at the crime-scene? Like that? And why?’
‘Disorderly conduct,’ Johan says. ‘Isn’t that what meditating naked comes under?’
‘She wasn’t harming anyone,’ Malin says. ‘I called Goran Kalmvik’s woman in Oslo and she confirmed his story. And I’m hoping to talk to Niklas Nyren today. It feels like he’s the only unturned stone left in this line of inquiry.’
‘Well, we’ll simply have to keep going,’ Borje says, and these words are no sooner out of his mouth than there’s a knock at the door, and before anyone has time to shout ‘come in’, police constable Marika Gruvberg opens the doors and looks in.
‘Sorry to interrupt. But a farmer’s found some animal carcasses hanging in a tree in a field. We’ve only just taken the call.’
Circles, Malin thinks.
Seven circles.
Everything points downwards.
Shades of greyish white keep changing and blurring, impossible to detect with the naked eye, and it’s hard to tell the difference between land and sky.
