Midwinter Sacrifice aka Midwinter Blood

yes, to stay with you… to Tenerife, his parents are okay about it… oh, I see… maybe you should talk to Mum… MUM, MUM, GRANDAD WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.’

Malin gets up and goes out to the kitchen. The smell of tonight’s dinner is still in the air.

She takes the receiver from Tove’s hand, puts it to her ear.

‘Malin, is that you?’

He sounds upset, his voice almost falsetto.

‘What do you mean by this? That some Markus should come too? Is this your idea? You always have to abuse the slightest little bit of faith anyone shows in you. Don’t you realise that you’ve spoiled everything now, when all we wanted was to give Tove the chance to come to Tenerife…’

Malin holds the receiver away from her. Waits. Tove is standing beside her, expectant, but Malin shakes her head, has to prepare her for the inevitable. She sees disappointment settle over Tove’s body, her shoulders drooping.

When she puts the phone to her ear again it has gone quiet.

‘Dad, are you there? Have you finished?’

‘Malin, whatever makes you put this sort of idea in Tove’s head?’

‘Dad. She’s thirteen. Thirteen-year-old girls have boyfriends that they want to spend their free time with.’

Then Malin hears a click.

She hangs up.

Puts an arm round Tove’s shoulders, whispers, ‘Don’t be sad, darling, but Grandad didn’t think it was a very good idea about Markus.’

‘Then I’ll stay at home,’ Tove says, and Malin recognises the defiance, as strong and defined as her own.

Some nights the bed is endlessly wide, some nights it contains all the loneliness in the world. Some nights it is soft and promising, when waiting for sleep is the best part of the day. Some nights, like this one, the bed is hard, the mattress an enemy that wants to force your thoughts into the wrong track, that seems to want to mock you for lying there alone, without another body to rest into and against.

Malin reaches out her hand and the empty space is as cold as the night outside the window, and it gets many times larger because she knows that the empty space is there even as she reaches out her hand to it.

Janne.

She thinks about Janne.

How he is starting to get older, how they are both getting older.

She feels like getting up, calling him, but he’ll be asleep, or at the station, or else… Daniel Hogfeldt. No, not that sort of loneliness tonight, a much worse sort. Real loneliness.

Malin kicks off the covers. Gets out of bed.

The bedroom is dark, a meaningless and empty darkness.

She fumbles with her portable CD player on the desk. Knows which disc to insert. Puts in the earplugs.

Then she lies down again and soon Margo Timmins’s gentle voice is streaming through her head.

Cowboy Junkies. Before they got boring.

The abandoned woman alone, longing, but in the last verse triumphant: ‘… kinda like the few extra feet in my bed…’

Malin pulls out the earplugs, fumbles for the phone, dials Janne’s number and he answers on the fourth ring.

Silence.

‘I know it’s you, Malin.’

Silence.

‘Malin, I know it’s you.’

His voice is the only voice she needs, gentle and calm and safe. His voice is an embrace.

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No worries. You know I don’t sleep well.’

‘Same here.’

‘Cold night tonight, isn’t it? Maybe the coldest so far.’

‘Yes.’

‘Luckily the new boiler seems to be working.’

‘That’s good. Tove’s asleep. Nothing came of that plan with Markus and Tenerife.’

‘He got angry?’

‘Yes.’

‘They never learn.’

‘What about us, do we?’

But those aren’t the words that pass her lips. Instead: ‘You must be getting through a lot of oil this winter.’

Janne sighs down the line. Then he says, ‘Time to sleep, Malin. Goodnight.’

61

Wednesday, 15 February

Somehow the church seems to have grown accustomed to the cold. Got used to having its greying plaster covered by a thin layer of frost. But the trees are still protesting, and the pictures over in the travel agent’s windows, the ones of beaches and clear blue skies, are just as mocking.

There’s a smell of fresh baking. Malin was up early and had time to put some half-baked little baguettes in the oven. She’s already eaten two, with apricot jam and Vasterbotten cheese, and now she’s sitting by the window in the flat.

Behind her on the kitchen table lies the Correspondent. She hasn’t even bothered to open the paper. It’s all there on the front page.

POLICE REPORTED FOR HARASSMENT IN MURDER CASE.

The headline is a joke, Malin thinks as she sips her coffee and looks down towards Ahlens, with its window displays of padded jackets and hats.

But if the headline is a joke, the article itself is a very bad one, an outright lie.

… even though the police have no evidence at all that the Murvall family is involved in the murder of Bengt Andersson, they have visited 72-year-old Rakel Murvall’s home to interview her on no fewer than seven occasions. Only a year ago Rakel Murvall suffered a minor stroke… this looks very much like a clear case of harassment from the police…

Attributed to Daniel Hogfeldt. So he’s hitting back. In full form. Hard. Where has he been?

A short article alongside, about the fact that the shots fired into Bengt Andersson’s flat have been cleared up, and that police are not linking them to the murder itself. A quote from Karim Akbar: It is highly improbable that there is any connection.

Malin sits down at the kitchen table.

Opens the paper.

Rakel Murvall identifies her and Zeke in one quote.

They’ve been here seven times and forced their way in. The police show no respect, even to an old woman… But at least my boys are home again now…

The boys Mrs Murvall refers to are her sons, Elias, Adam and Jakob, who were released from custody yesterday when the accusations against them were found not to be sufficient to justify holding them any longer…

A picture of Karim.

His face captured in a slightly distorted pose. His eyes staring into the camera: Naturally, we are treating this complaint very seriously.

He’s not going to like that picture, Malin thinks.

It looks as though the police have ground to a halt in their investigation of the murder. Chief of