‘But you’re allowed to be in town, Peter.’
‘Am I? That’s not how it seems. Listen to me: we
‘Yes, he has,’ Sten Skold says, a new firmness in his voice.
‘So you’re not meeting another friend when you say you’re going to meet Theresa?’
Malin throws the words at Peter Skold.
‘And who would that be, then?’
‘You tell us.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Are you sure?’ Zeke says. ‘Completely sure?’
‘What exactly are you getting at?’ Sten Skold asks.
Peter Skold smiles.
‘I haven’t got anything else to tell you.’
‘And you don’t know if Theresa met anyone else when she said she was going to meet you?’ Zeke asks.
‘We’re together, I told you.’
‘You don’t seem particularly worried that she’s missing.’
‘I am. I am worried. I just show it in my own way.’
‘Your own way?’
Peter Skold sinks back in his chair, pushing his hair back from his forehead.
You little shit, Malin thinks. Fourteen years old? Fifteen? And already so . . . yes, what?
His eyes. Malin looks into them.
Shame. There’s shame in those eyes. And fear. I ought to be giving you a hug, but you’ve made that impossible now.
‘OK, so tell us everything you know that might be of interest to us,’ Malin says.
‘Well . . .’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Sten Skold says. ‘Is my son suspected of anything?’
‘And Nathalie Falck?’ Malin asks.
Peter Skold smiles again, seems to consider his options before saying: ‘A school friend. Nothing more. We like the same sort of music, the three of us.’
‘What sort of music?’
‘Anything new,’ Peter Skold says. ‘I really haven’t got anything else to say. Can we go now?’
‘Theresa is missing. A girl called Josefin has been raped,’ Malin says. ‘Tell us what you’re hiding. Now. Do you know Josefin?’
‘I don’t know any Josefin.’
‘My son has already said he’s told you what he knows,’ Sten Skold says, standing up. ‘We’re going now, Peter.’
‘He hasn’t told us everything,’ Zeke says.
Once father and son have left the police station Malin and Zeke sit down at their desks.
‘He’s not telling us everything,’ Zeke repeats.
‘Maybe you wouldn’t either if you were him.’
‘Do you think his dad was holding him back?’
‘No. That father knows his son. I don’t think he was all that keen for Peter to say anything else.’
‘What do you think he knows, Malin?’
‘Something, Zeke. Something.’
Teenage worlds.
Tove’s world.
The way she didn’t tell Malin about Marcus to start with. How Malin had been hoping that their lives would somehow get more similar the older Tove got, that they would have more things in common.
Has that happened?
No.
Although.
No. Don’t lie to yourself, Malin.
I don’t know if Tove is keeping secrets from me. God knows, I certainly annoy her. Sometimes, Malin thinks, I can see that she almost despises me and the life I lead.
Unless that’s something inside me instead? Am I being too hard on my daughter?
That must be it.
It must be.
Sven Sjoman slumped in his chair at the end of the table in the meeting room. His furrowed cheeks burning red from the heat and perhaps a night of too little sleep.
It is 9.00 a.m. exactly.
The morning meeting starting on time this Friday.
Beside him is Willy Andersson from Forensics.
In front of Andersson, Theresa Eckeved’s bulky white computer is whirring away. The internet cable hangs limply towards the floor yet still seems to have something to say to them.
Zeke and Malin are standing behind Willy Andersson, looking at the screen, and Malin thinks that he’s done a quick job, whatever he’s found.
‘Well?’ Zeke says.
‘She doesn’t use the computer very much,’ Willy Andersson says. ‘I haven’t found any pictures, just a couple of school essays about biology, and I can assure you that they aren’t of any interest.’
Andersson.
Is he capable of working out what’s of interest to us? Malin thinks.
Biology essays.
Yes, he probably is.
‘What else?’
Malin can hear the expectancy in her own voice.
‘She empties the memory cache regularly, so I haven’t been able to track her surfing habits very far back. The information might be on the hard drive, or maybe we could get it from the service provider’s servers, but that’ll take time.’
‘How long?’
‘Weeks. Information wiped from the cache is left as fragmentary traces on the hard drive. It takes time to build up any sort of comprehensible picture from them. And at this time of the summer the service providers won’t be terribly keen on going through their server logs.’
‘But?’
Malin can tell from Willy Andersson’s voice that he’s found something else.
‘From what I have been able to find in the memory cache and web browser, I can see that she has a Facebook page.’
Willy Andersson clicks to open the page.
Theresa Eckeved’s face.
Innocent. But also hard.
No notes. Only a few friends: Peter Skold, Nathalie Falck. Only one who leaves comments: a certain Lovelygirl. Nothing more than an alias.
‘Hello darling!’
‘You’re so beautiful.’
‘Suck me.’
‘Can you find out who this Lovelygirl is?’ Malin wonders.
‘She’s a registered user, but she hasn’t got a page of her own,’ Willy Andersson replies. ‘I can get in touch with Facebook and see if they can give us any information that could help us identify her.’
‘Anything else?’
