Midwinter Sacrifice aka Midwinter Blood

‘Fors,’ Sven says, ‘go home and get some sleep. It would be best for everyone if you got some rest before tomorrow, and then we’ll take a thorough look at where he might be then.’

‘No, I-’

‘Malin,’ Sven says. ‘You’ve already gone too far, you have to get some rest.’

‘We’ve got to find him. I think…’

Malin lets the sentence die; they wouldn’t understand the way she’s thinking.

Instead she gets up and leaves the room.

On her way downstairs Malin bumps into Daniel Hogfeldt.

‘Is Karl Murvall suspected of murdering Bengt Andersson and attacking Rebecka Stenlundh?’ As if nothing had happened.

Malin doesn’t answer.

Pushes past him down the stairs.

She’s tired and stressed, Daniel thinks, as he climbs the last steps up to the flat where two uniformed officers are on guard outside the front door.

Might be tricky getting in. But if you don’t try…

Malin didn’t seem bothered that I turned down Expressen.

But was I expecting her to be? We’re nothing more than fuck-buddies, are we? Something for the body, not the soul.

But you looked beautiful just now, Malin, when you pushed past me. So fucking beautiful and tired and exhausted.

The last step.

Daniel smiles at the uniformed officers.

‘Not a chance in hell, Hogfeldt,’ the taller one says with a smile.

Sometimes when Malin thinks that sleep will be elusive it comes to her in just a minute or two.

The bed is warm beneath her in her dream.

The bed is the soft floor of a white room with transparent walls that are swaying in a warm breeze.

Outside the walls she sees them all as naked shadows: Mum, Dad, Tove, Janne. Zeke is there, and Sven Sjoman and Johan Jakobsson, Karim Akbar and Karin Johannison and Borje Svard and his wife Anna. The Murvall brothers, Rebecka and Maria, and a fat figure lumbering with a football in his hands. Markus pops up, and Biggan and Hasse and the security guard at Collins, and Gottfrid Karlsson, Weine Andersson and Sister Hermansson, and the Ljungsbro bullies, Margaretha Svensson, Goran Kalmvik and Niklas Nyren and lots, lots more; they’re all in the dream, like fuel for her memories, as navigation points for her consciousness. The people in the events of recent weeks are buoys anchored in an illuminated space that could be anything. And in the middle of that space beams Rakel Murvall, a black light radiating from her shadow.

The alarm clock on the bedside table rings.

A harsh, loud, digital noise.

The time is 7.35.

After an hour and a half, the time of dreams is over.

The Correspondent is lying on the hall floor.

They’re behind on developments for once, but probably only because of the inevitable delay caused by the printing process.

They’ve got everything on Rebecka Stenlundh, that she’s the sister of the murdered Bengt Andersson, but nothing about Karl Murvall, or that they carried out a raid on his flat last night.

The paper must have gone to press by then. But they’re bound to have it on the net. I can’t be bothered to look right now, and what could they have that I don’t already know?

Daniel Hogfeldt has written several of the articles in the paper. As usual.

Was I too abrupt with him earlier? Maybe I ought to give him an honest chance to show who he is.

The water in the shower is warm against her skin, and Malin feels herself waking up. She gets dressed, stands by the draining-board to drink a cup of Nescafe made with water heated in the microwave.

Please, let us find Karl Murvall today, Malin thinks. Dead or alive.

Might he have killed himself?

Anything is possible now as far as he is concerned.

Might he commit another murder?

Did he rape Maria Murvall? Karin would soon have the results, some time today.

Malin sighs and looks out of the window at St Lars Church and the trees. The branches haven’t given in to the cold, they’re still sticking out defiantly in all directions. Just like the people at this latitude, Malin thinks, as she catches sight of the posters in the travel agent’s windows. This place really isn’t habitable, but we’ve managed to create a home for ourselves here nonetheless.

In the bedroom Malin pulls on her holster and pistol.

She opens the door to Tove’s room.

Most beautiful in all the world.

Lets her sleep.

Karim Akbar is holding tight on to his son’s hand, feeling the eight-year-old fingers through the glove.

They are walking along a gritted path towards the school. The blocks of flats in Lambohov, three and four storeys high, look like moon-bases, randomly scattered across a desolate plain.

Usually his wife walks their son to school, but today she said she had a headache, couldn’t possibly get up.

The case is cracked. They just have to catch him. Then, surely, this will all be over?

Malin has delivered. Zeke, Johan and Borje. Sven: their rock. What would I do without them? My role is to encourage them, keep them happy, and how feeble it is compared to what they do. Compared to the way they deal with people.

Malin. In many ways she’s the ideal detective. Instinctive, driven and, not least, a bit manic. Intelligent? Certainly. But in a good way. She finds short cuts, dares to take chances. But not rashly. Not often, at least.

‘What are you going to do at school today?’

‘I don’t know. Normal stuff.’

And they walk on together in silence, Karim and his son. When they reach the low, white-brick school building Karim holds the door open for him and his son disappears inside, swallowed up by the dimly lit corridor.

The Correspondent is in the postbox by the road.

Rakel Murvall opens her front door and steps on to the porch, notes that the cold is damp today, the sort that gives her aches. But she is accustomed to that sort of physical pain, thinking, When I die I shall fall down dead on the spot. I’m not going to hang around in some hospital, rambling and unable to keep control of my own shit.

She walks carefully through the snow, worried about her hip-joints.

The postbox seems a long way off, but it’s getting closer with every step.

The boys are still sleeping; soon they’ll be awake, but she wants to read the paper now, not wait for them to bring it in to her, or read the latest news on the screen in the living room.

She opens the lid, and there it is, on top of some half-covered dead earwigs.

Back inside she pours a cup of fresh coffee and sits down at the kitchen table to read.

She reads the articles about the murder of Bengt Andersson and the attack over and over again.

Rebecka?

I understand what has happened.

I’m not that stupid.

Secrets. Shadows from the past. My lies, now they’re seeping out of their leaking holes.

His father was a sailor.

As I always said to the boys.

Was everything a lie, Mother?

Questions that lead to other questions.

Was Cornerhouse-Kalle his father? Have you been lying to us all these years? What else don’t we know? Why did you and Dad get us to torment him? To hate him? Our own brother?

Maybe even more.