Summertime Death

Theresa Eckeved missing.

A connection?

Josefin.

You wandered about until you were found, but you’re still here with us.

And you’re free, yet somehow not.

Theresa.

Are you still here? Where are you?

I can hear a voice.

I don’t recognise it. But it’s asking me where I am.

I want to know where I am. Because if I know where I am, I can get away from here, get away from the cold and the dark and the lonely and find my way home.

Everything is black now.

And cold.

So please, ask where I am again. Let your voice be an audible beacon to show me the way out of fear and this dark dream.

Ask again, please.

Ask.

‘Theresa, where have you gone?’

Malin says the words out loud as she pauses beside the summerhouse.

Birdsong.

Faces. Peter Skold, Nathalie Falck, Behzad Karami, Ali Shakbari, other faces without clear features, the one who made the phone call, others, and still others.

Have to talk to Nathalie again.

Who is Lovelygirl? Maybe she knows.

Malin crouches down.

Fumbles in the grass with her hand.

A badger rooting about.

Who are you, who would do something like this? What sort of despair are you in? What happened to you, to make you capable of doing this to Josefin? What do you want to tell me? Has a smouldering snake from hell been released into your verdant paradise? Maybe the inferno is here, now and for ever. And why so clean? What did you want to scrub away? Or scrub into being?

Time clusters together. The ground, memories, give way, the truth fleeing to protect its bearer.

How? Malin thinks.

How can I get you to want to remember, Josefin?

The stench of cremated forest.

Of cremated insects, animals, moss.

The forest now a penal colony for the wretched.

The stench of glowing worms teeming out of fire-ravaged ground. It’s strong in Malin’s nostrils, and if she could fly, glide over the plain and Lake Roxen and the forests around Tjallmo she would see the fire twinkling far below her. She would see the burning points of light and wonder if they were magma, or the truth, or brutality that has decided to seep out, as if some breaking point has been reached.

She would see the girls drifting and crackling like fireflies in the darkness.

15

Saturday, 17 July

Saturday working.

No question now, when their summer has taken a turn into unimagined, dark Dante-esque circles.

They have to work. None of their colleagues will be called in from their holiday unless it’s strictly necessary.

The smell of charred wood and extinguished lives is even more apparent in the morning.

But not intrusive, just different, almost pleasant, like a fire lit by the characters in one of Tove’s old picture books, a fire for children to warm their frozen hands around.

No wind today, and for the time being at least the light is merciful, Malin thinks as she sees the flags hanging limply against their poles in front of the entrance to the police station, the large car park behind her almost empty, just a couple of cars with police markings ready for the hunt.

Malin drags herself through the heat.

Tired today.

Even at five to eight the heat is debilitating and she is sweating under her white jacket and T-shirt. She’s wearing a skirt again, couldn’t stand the thought of trousers, even if she hardly ever wears a skirt for work, it feels too feminine, too weak, too much like a statement. Her world is a masculine world. Whatever any feminists on the National Police Board might like to think.

So she usually wears trousers.

But not in this sort of heat. Not today.

She read about the forest fires on the Correspondent’s website over breakfast. A photograph of the blazing forest covered the first page, and other pages detailed the efforts of the fire brigade to put the fires out. Several hectares were alight. The fire had taken hold in the drought and wanted more, had become dependent on territory, on life. Fire crews from Linkoping, Norrkoping, Motala and Finspang were all battling in the dusty forests.

Janne wishes he were there.

Fire would be better than Bali. He wants to plough all of his longing into work, into firefighting, saving others instead of trying to understand himself, me, Tove. Us.

And then her investigation.

A page to itself.

A picture of a dildo with the text: Police suspect attacker used blue dildo. Prejudices. Karami. Shakbari. Speculation about Lovelygirl.

How the hell did word of the dildo leak out?

Karin Johannison? Sven Sjoman? Maybe Sven, under pressure from some journalist.

Oh well, it was out now.

The door of the police station glides open automatically. Ebba is sitting behind the reception desk, in early.

Says: ‘Good morning, Malin.’

Malin nods in response.

Zeke and Sjoman are at their desks, even though the morning meeting isn’t due to start for another hour.

Always this meeting, whenever they’re working. No matter whether it’s overtime or not.

They’re both studying various documents, but they still notice her arrival, looking up at her almost simultaneously, and Sven says: ‘Malin, so you thought you’d show up!’

Zeke happy to be in ahead of her for once.

‘Malin, welcome!’

Sven, wearing a creased pair of white linen trousers, is evidently also pleased to see her.

When she sees the look on Sven’s face, Malin decides not to mention her visit to the Horticultural Society Park last night, although she had been planning to, she knows that Sven likes it when you try to get the feel of a crime scene afterwards.

‘Did you go for that beer, Malin?’