‘I’m just worried, Tove.’
A deep sigh from the other side of the world.
‘There’s no need, Mum. We won’t have time to go swimming again. Do you want to talk to Dad?’
‘If he wants to.’
Crackling on the line, calls in the background from someone who must be Janne, then breathing, long breaths that she knows all too well, which for a second send a warmth through her body, a resigned, sad, but still excited warmth.
Janne.
You bastard.
Why, why couldn’t we make it?
‘Hi, Malin.’
His voice, what does she want from it? Solace? Context. Even though the voice can’t give her that.
‘How are you both?’
‘Paradise exists, Malin. Here.’
‘I believe you. So you’re not looking forward to coming home?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You went for a ride on elephants?’
‘Yes, you should have seen her. Beaming with joy as she bounced along.’
Enough, Malin thinks. No more now.
‘How are the fires?’
‘We were out there today,’ Malin says. ‘It looks pretty bad, not under control yet. But there are a lot of volunteers helping out.’
‘Our flight leaves bloody early tomorrow morning,’ Janne says.
‘I know,’ Malin says. ‘And you’re still up so late,’ wanting to say: I miss you so much my heart feels like it’s withering away. My loss is turning into grief, Janne, a strange grief for the living, and every human being can only cope with a fixed amount of grief before they die, and mine is close to overflowing. But instead she says: ‘Make sure you check in on time.’
‘OK. We’d better get to bed now.’
‘Bye.’
A click on the line.
Silence. Warmth.
Solace and context. What can give me that?
Malin had planned to wait until tomorrow, but rings Viveka Crafoord now.
‘Come on over. You’ve got half an hour. We can put off lighting the barbecue for a bit.’
Viveka Crafoord.
Psychoanalyst.
She wants to treat Malin, free of charge, but the very thought of Viveka’s paisley-patterned chaise longue frightens Malin. She can’t bear the thought of touching even the edges of her sadness, let alone its innermost core. So instead there’s a bit of vague talk about her parents in Tenerife whenever she and Viveka bump into each other in the city and go for coffee. The fact that she doesn’t miss them. Their apartment. Her mother’s cheap rugs and ability to dress up her own life, making herself look more important than she is. Viveka polite, listening with interest, but convinced that Malin is just skimming the surface, and is stubbornly and suspiciously holding shut all the doors that lead inside her.
‘And what do you think Janne thinks?’ Viveka had asked.
‘About what?’
‘Well, about the way you talk to him, for instance?’
‘I’ve never given it much thought.’
Viveka’s country cottage is in Svartmala, a sought-after, middle-class village some ten kilometres south of the city.
Malin had trouble finding the house, meandering around the idyllic cottages in the Volvo, unwilling to stop and ask the way.
Then she came to a little turning down towards the lake, its shimmering water ice-white and fiery pink beyond pines and firs.
A simple green mailbox bearing the name ‘Crafoord’ in the shade of some tall maples.
Malin turned off, and couldn’t help smiling as she pulled up in front of the obviously bespoke, architect- designed house with its two irregular floors, lots of glass, grey-stained wood. The house looked like a prototype for the sort of tasteful, costly but restrained architecture that people who are used to having money love. Viveka’s house must be the most exclusive in the area. And with the best location, right on the water, presumably with its own jetty and beach.
‘A microclimate,’ Viveka says, leaning back in the teak bench. ‘Don’t ask me how it happens.’
They’re sitting at the back of the house, on an airy terrace with a view of the lake, Stora Rangen. Perennials and rhododendrons are crowding in on Viveka’s husband, Hjalmar, as he stands at the barbecue with his broad back to them some ten metres away, on green-stained decking laid over grey Oland stone. It’s undeniably cooler on the terrace, maybe five degrees lower than anywhere else, as if the greenery and water in the vicinity somehow magically lowered the temperature.
Just like the summerhouse in the Horticultural Society Park, Malin thinks.
But in there it was hotter.
Malin was right, below a granite outcrop is a motorboat tied up at a jetty, and two aluminium designer sun- loungers on a man-made beach. Malin breathes in the smell of marinated pork sizzling on the hot grill. Bean salad on the table in front of them. She runs her arm over the teak armrest of her chair, its oiled, polished finish making her feel calm.
What does your husband do? Malin wonders. But she doesn’t ask Viveka.
She just thinks how nice this huge man with the gentle face is. Then she looks into Viveka’s face, hardly any wrinkles even though she must be fifty-five or so, no traces of grief, the signs of a good life. And Malin is struck by how little she actually knows about her. Do they have children? Then there is the fact that she has been welcomed out here in spite of the reason for her visit.
‘So what do you think about what I said on the phone?’
She had explained about the case she was working on, and of course Viveka had read the paper, seen the news on television. ‘I’d like to hear your thoughts about the perpetrator.’
‘Let’s eat first.’
And shortly after that a dish of plump sausages and pork chops appears on the table, and they talk about the heat and drink a robust, sweet red wine that suits the meat perfectly. Just one glass for Malin, and Hjalmar becomes nicer with every word, and he explains that he works as a management consultant, freelance after many years with McKinsey in Stockholm.
And then the meal is over as quickly as it began and Hjalmar withdraws: ‘There’s a match on.’ And Viveka throws out her arms, saying: ‘He’s mad about football.’
And Malin realises that darkness has fallen over the terrace and that the only light over the lake is the glow of the moon, and the hopeful lights of a few houses on the far shore.
The approach of night seems to whisper to them, and Malin lets Viveka talk.
‘I’m sorry, Malin. From what little I know, it’s impossible for me to say anything specific. I did a course on profiling when we lived in Seattle, and I’d guess you’re dealing with something of a loner who has a complicated relationship with his mother. But that’s almost always the case. He lives in Linkoping, probably grew up here, seeing as he seems to feel safe in the places where he commits these acts and leaves his victims. And he’s obsessed with cleanliness and making his victims appear pure. But you’ve already worked that out for yourself. But why this obsession with cleanliness? Something to do with virginity? Who knows? Maybe this individual feels sullied somehow. Violated. Sexually. Or some other way. Maybe he’s trying to recreate a form of innocence.’
‘Anything else? You say he, but could it be a woman?’
