Then a voice, a gruff woman’s voice through the noise of the dogs.
‘Easy now, easy.’
And the dogs obey the command in the voice, backing away and Malin sees the woman, maybe one metre eighty tall, dressed in dirty green overalls and a little cap from the farmers’ union that hardly covers her cropped hair.
Her eyes are black.
Angry.
How old is she? Forty-five? Fifty?
As Malin opens the car door she thinks, life has really fucked with you, hasn’t it? And now you’re getting your own back.
The woman in front of them in the farmyard seems to grow in the harsh light.
Louise ‘Lollo’ Svensson, farmer, living alone out in the middle of the Rimforsa forests at Skogalund Farm, with just her dogs, a few pigs and some caged rabbits in one of the outhouses for company.
Malin and Zeke show their ID. The dogs growl over by the porch steps, ready to attack at any moment.
‘And what do you want?’
‘Your name,’ Malin says, ‘has cropped up in an investigation and we’d like to ask you some questions.’
Lollo Svensson steps closer to them.
The dogs show their teeth.
‘What fucking investigation?’
‘The one concerning the girl who was found raped in the Horticultural Society Park. And this morning a girl was found murdered at the beach at Stavsatter.’
‘So one of my sisters has been talking, then? Talking crap about me? Doesn’t surprise me. Most cunts are no better than your average fucking dick.’
‘I’m not at liberty to say . . .’
‘I get that, dear lady constable. So what do you want to ask?’
‘What were you doing on the night between last Thursday and Friday?’
‘I was here at home.’
‘On your own?’
‘No, I had them with me.’
Lollo Svensson gestures towards the Alsatians. ‘But they can’t tell you what we were doing, can they?’
‘There’s no one else who can confirm that you were at home?’
Lollo grins at them.
‘Do you know Theresa Eckeved?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know a Nathalie Falck?’
‘Not her either. Never heard the name before.’
‘Lovelygirl? Does the name Lovelygirl mean anything to you?’
No noticeable reaction.
‘Lovelygirl? I don’t know any Lovelygirl.’
‘So you like to play rough,’ Zeke says. ‘What does that mean? Playing rough with young girls? Is that it?’
For God’s sake, Zeke, Malin thinks, but she knows what he’s doing, lets him get on with it.
But Lollo Svensson doesn’t let herself be provoked.
‘I haven’t got anything to do with any of that.’
‘Do you like tying people up, maybe cut them a bit, whip them? Is that the sort of thing you like, Louise?’
‘You should probably leave now if you haven’t got any more questions.’
‘And you brought a young girl back here and things went a bit wrong with the dildo, was that it? Or else she ran off when you were done, is that what happened?’
‘You should probably . . .’
Lollo Svensson takes three steps back, as if to mark her withdrawal, as if to say: ‘I’ve said what I’ve got to say, now you’re on your own.’
‘I’ve got to see to the pigs,’ she says. ‘The pigs can’t look after themselves, they’re weak, really weak, really pathetic, actually.’
‘Can we take a look around the barns? Inside the house?’
Malin waits for an answer.
‘You’re crazy, Inspector Fors. Like I’d let you in without a warrant? What a fucking joke.’
‘Do you know a girl called Josefin Davidsson? Or a Theresa Eckeved?’
Malin’s voice dry and sharp. Her blouse is sticking to her body, and God knows how hot Lollo Svensson must be in those overalls, and suddenly her large, solid frame slumps before their eyes.
‘I . . .’
‘So you had a bit of rough sex with them out here,’ Zeke says. ‘After you’d brought them out here, lured them out here. What with? Drink? The dogs? Horse riding? Have you got horses?’
No answer.
‘Do you normally use dildos on your girls?’
And when Malin hears Zeke say the word dildo she is filled with a sense that they are missing something obvious in the way they’ve been thinking about the dildo.
But what?
Lollo Svensson turns around and takes the dogs with her into the farmhouse, and Malin and Zeke are left standing beside the Volvo in the farmyard, inhaling the smell of summer forest and silence, of a loneliness so obvious that it makes the summer seem cool.
25
The car bumps unhappily along the gravel road.
‘What do you think?’
Zeke’s voice calmer now, not theatrically agitated or provocative any more.
The forest is closing in on the car, hundreds of pained shades of yellowish green, begging for rain.
‘I don’t know,’ Malin says. ‘I never cease to be amazed at what the forests around this city contain.’
She recalls last winter’s excursions, in connection with the case of Bengt Andersson and the Murvall brothers, and she can still feel the debilitating cold, how it sucked the air from her lungs as she forced her way through the trees towards the sound of death and evil deep within the forests around Hultsjon.
‘No, they’re full of surprises.’
‘Have we got enough for a search warrant?’
‘Probably; we won’t need much considering what’s happened. It might even be enough that she refused to let us in.’
‘I’m curious to see what’s inside that house,’ Malin says.
Young girls.
Their bodies, dead and alive, floating like unfettered manatees in endlessly bubbling water.
Get us up, help us, move us on.
Tove far away on the other side of the world, in paradise, but one with a snake – the Islamic extremists and their violence.
Away with the image, don’t think about her now.
Janne.
Running along a beach with his heart thumping in his body. Always leaving.
‘I want to know what’s hidden inside that house,’ Malin says.
‘Me too,’ Zeke says. At that moment Malin’s mobile rings.
Karin Johannison’s name on the display.
