the river and the fast-flowing, grey-black water. The noise from the power station further downstream cuts the air, the turbines running on full, sending out a faint metallic smell into the air.
A summer for swimming.
Small children paddling in the enclosed safe area this side of the jetty. Over-confident teenage boys diving far out into the flow and struggling to get back; their gangly, unfinished bodies scare Malin, they reek of potency.
‘That looks good,’ Zeke says, as he crouches at the top of the slope in the shade of a fir tree.
‘I wonder if it really cools you down. It must be thirty degrees in the water.’
‘Yes, and how clean is it?’
‘All this sweating makes you obsessed with cleanliness,’ Malin says, as she rubs a small leaf between her fingers, soft and almost cool on one side, rough and warm on the other.
The kiosk outside the Glyttinge pool turns out to be closed as well. The privately owned pool is a very successful investment during a summer like this one, and behind the fence Malin and Zeke can hear the noise of the bathers, their shouts and yelps, their happy laughter.
Behind them Skaggetorp, and Ryd not far away.
It’s not so strange that the pool is busy. In those areas, where the poor and the immigrants live, people are spending the summer in their flats.
‘We’ll try Slavenca Visnic at home. Maybe she isn’t well?’
‘It’s still odd,’ Malin says. ‘All three kiosks are closed. This is the time of year when they make their money. And if she isn’t going to be there herself, she ought to have employees, don’t you think?’
‘The same thought did occur to me, Malin.’
‘There’s something weird about it.’
‘What’s weird is this heat, Malin. Shall we take a dip? To clear our heads?’
‘Have you got anything to wear?’
‘Skinny dipping’s good enough.’
‘I can see the headline in the
‘Mr Hogfeldt would like that,’ Zeke says.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What do I mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t mean anything, Malin. Relax.’
Slavenca Visnic’s flat on the ground floor of Gamlegarden 3B in Skaggetorp is deserted as well.
The smell of the forest fires is very noticeable here, closer to the blaze, and the smoke seems to have filtered between the low, white-brick blocks of flats.
No one answered when they knocked on the door in the stairwell. No sounds from inside the flat, and now they’re standing in the little garden looking through the blinds into a gloomy room where only the furniture stands out: a sofa, a table, a couple of armchairs, and an almost empty bookcase, set out on what looks like oak parquet flooring.
‘Does this woman actually exist?’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Zeke replies.
‘Maybe she’s gone away. Abroad. Or just for the day.’
‘Yes, but now, and with three kiosks?’
‘We’ll have to check her background. The Immigration Agency ought to know something. I’ll get one of the uniforms onto it,’ Malin says.
Then her mobile rings.
Sven Sjoman.
‘A woman who was out running on the jogging track in Ryd yesterday evening has called. Said she felt as if she was being watched, that someone was lying in wait, stalking her. If you’ve got time, go and talk to her.’
‘Sure. We’re done here.’
A name.
An address down on Konsistoriegatan, in the centre of the city.
Linda Karla offers them chilled apple juice in the kitchen of her tastefully furnished two-room apartment. The flat is in a building dating from the thirties: beige stucco, well-kept, one of the oldest housing cooperatives in the city, with astronomical prices to match.
They sit with their drinks around the kitchen table, and Linda Karla apologises for taking up their time. Zeke explains that they’re interested in anything that could be connected to the murder and the other attack.
‘I was out running,’ Linda Karla says. ‘I run a lot. Not all that often in the forest in Ryd, and I don’t know why, but I suddenly got the feeling that someone was watching me, waiting for me deeper in the woods. I didn’t see anyone, but there was someone there. It could have been a man. Or a woman. I know I was being watched, and when I ran there was someone following me. There was a sort of snaking sound, at least that’s what I thought at the time. But I’m fast, so I made it to the car park.’
‘You didn’t see anything?’ Malin asks.
She makes sure that her voice sounds interested.
‘No. But there was someone there. I just thought maybe you’d like to know. Maybe he, whoever did it, lives in Ryd?’
‘Maybe. If it is a he. And if it was him.’
‘Well, it terrified me, anyway.’
‘Best to stay away from the forest in Ryd for a while,’ Zeke says. ‘Go running on open streets until we’ve sorted this out.’
Linda Karla looks relieved.
Almost surprised that they’re taking her fears seriously.
‘It’s really much nicer to go swimming at this time of year,’ she says. ‘There are so many good pools in the city.’
Outside the building, on the way back to the car, Zeke asks: ‘So what do you make of that?’
‘Yes, what the hell do I make of that?’ Malin says.
It’s just after two o’clock when they get back to the station. They grabbed lunch out at Ikea in Tornby, the warehouse full of people trying to escape the heat and pick up some summer bargains from the great Ingvar, purveyor of fine design to the masses.
Karim Akbar is standing, looking wretched, in front of the computer at the desk he’s had set up for him in the open-air office, in addition to the large office he has upstairs.
‘What’s up with him?’ Zeke says as he wipes the sweat from his brow and pulls his shirt away from his chest.
‘God knows,’ Malin says. ‘Do you think it’s got a bit cooler in here? They must have got the air conditioning going again.’
‘Perfect,’ Zeke says. ‘Can’t be more than twenty degrees.’
Karim waves them over to him.
Two windows open on the huge computer screen.
They’ve both put the football angle on their front pages.
The
Both sites include quotes from Pia Rasmefog.
She’s furious that the team is the focus of this sort of attention without any concrete evidence being
