Anger wells up inside Malin.
At the same time she feels reluctantly flattered by Karim’s compliment.
‘Malin, joking aside, I don’t want to stand there on my own again with nothing to say. It would be nice if you could come along and say nothing as well. And helpful. It might calm them down a bit.’
‘So you don’t mean that stuff about being prettiest, then?’
Karim grins.
‘Look in the mirror, Malin.’
‘Can we let them have the dildo?’
‘That it was the same model?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, that could lead to everyone assuming that Suliman Hajif is guilty. He doesn’t deserve that yet. You saw the papers yesterday. That was bad enough.’
The papers had been full of pictures of Suliman Hajif with his face blacked out. Headlines like:
So that’s where this crazy summer has got me?
A role as a shop-window dummy.
Twenty minutes later Malin and Karim are standing before a group of journalists in the foyer of the police station. Of the television stations only SVT is there, but there are several radio stations and maybe ten press reporters, a couple of photographers, presumably from the
‘We have spent the day pursuing a number of lines of inquiry,’ Karim says.
There’s a crackle of flash photography before he goes on: ‘We’re expecting a breakthrough in the case shortly, but for the time being I don’t have any further information for you.’
‘What about you, Malin, can you tell us anything?’
More flashes, and Malin squints.
Daniel.
She didn’t see him before, he must have been late arriving.
‘No.’
‘Nothing?’
And Malin sees the gang of reporters, the hunger in their eyes, the curiosity and exhaustion, just like their own, and before she knows it the words are pouring from her mouth: ‘Well, we’ve been in touch with a psychoanalyst who has put together a simple profile of the perpetrator. We’re probably dealing with someone who has themselves been the victim of abuse, who has a fragile ego, and a distorted self-image. A person who is part of society, yet still somehow separate. I can’t say any more than that.’
‘And the name of the psychoanalyst?’
‘I’m afraid we can’t reveal that.’
Karim fills in this last remark, making the best of the fact that Malin is revealing information that no one else knows about, having evidently decided that there’s no harm in it.
‘The profile isn’t official, and was produced in haste, and they’re currently working on a more detailed profile at National Crime.’
‘What about Suliman Hajif? You’re still holding him? Any new evidence against him?’
‘We’re still holding him in custody.’
‘But you expect to be able to rule him out of the investigation?’
‘No comment,’ Karim says. ‘That’s all.’
Several of the reporters want to interview Malin on her own, but she fends them off, saying: ‘My daughter’s waiting for me at home. I’m heading home to my daughter, sorry.’
With a start she realised the cameras weres still rolling.
‘That’s off the record,’ she said.
How stupid, Malin thought to herself. The last thing I need is to share personal details with the viewing public.
Tove and Malin are finishing off the pizzas she picked up on the way home, no longer hot, but almost nicer in this heat now that they’re cold.
Tove still tired after the flight home.
She’s slept most of the day away, never got out for that swim, hasn’t even met Markus, but she’s spoken to him.
‘When are you going to see Markus?’ Malin asks as she stuffs the last of the pizza in her mouth.
‘Tomorrow,’ Tove says curtly, and Malin can sense the end of the love-story in the dull tone of the word.
A shame, Malin thinks, because I really do like Biggan and Hasse, Markus’s parents, I appreciate their dinners and their relaxed, cheerful company.
‘Did you miss him while you were in Bali?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. Can we talk about something else? Do you have to go on about Markus?’
From inside the living room they can hear the start of the nine o’clock news on television.
‘I might be on it,’ Malin says, and Tove lights up.
‘This I have to see!’
It’s the third item and they make a big deal of the profile in the absence of anything else. A close-up of Malin as she answers questions, and she thinks how old she looks, tired and washed out, wishes she’d put some make-up on or at least brushed her hair, but she did none of that in spite of Karim’s encouragement.
‘You look lovely, Mum,’ Tove says with a wry grin.
‘Thanks Tove, that warms the cockles of my heart.’
‘Are you cold?’
‘I wish!’
Then another clip of Malin as they ask for an interview, as she brushes the camera aside with the words: ‘I’m heading home to my daughter.’
‘Damn it! Why didn’t they edit that comment out?’
Tove gives her a curious look.
‘Why did you say that, Mum?’
‘I was careless.’
Then the weather.
The heatwave is going to continue. No end in sight.
The policewoman.
Malin Fors.
In front of me on the television screen in my secret room. The storeroom shelves are stuffed and the stench doesn’t exist for me, just the heat, a hell that I have sought out and must find my way through.
I’ve seen her swim.
At Tinnis.
Cooling herself down in this inferno.
Does she think she knows who I am? That she can call some psychoanalyst and find out who I am?
And on television? Where anyone can see?
If anything in life was that fucking easy I’d have completed my one single task long ago.
We’d be together again.
None of us would need to be alone or scared any more.
I shall be like fire. Destroying, creating the possibility of new life.
This violation stops here, you’ve violated me, like everyone has always violated me.
You’re moving inside me.
