She’s cycling fast, her daughter, and I mustn’t give myself away, I shall take her like I took the others, it will be quick.
She mustn’t see me and she’s stopped at the gate of the park and she looks scared.
But I’m nothing to be scared of.
I’m just going to see to it that you start living again. I’m an angel-maker. That’s what I am.
But she disappears.
Cycles into the park. She must have seen me. I drive past, pulling my cap down over my face. Time, my time, our time, will soon be here. Hands firm on the wheel now.
What time?
Tinnis, over there. That’ll do.
Shall I call Mum?
No.
The van goes past, it doesn’t stop, and the person inside it wearing a cap drives on.
I’m just twitchy.
There must be hundreds of white vans in Linkoping.
Hardly anyone in the park. She cycles back to the gate by the hotel.
No van in sight.
She cycles straight to Markus’s house, determined, focused, just like Mum. Just like Mum, she thinks.
57
Zeke is sitting in the shade of a sickly yellow Festis umbrella in the outdoor cafe at Tinnis. He’s just peeled the plastic from a meatball sandwich. Malin wanted to take a swim at lunchtime, and he protested at first, didn’t they have more important things to think about than swimming?
But she insisted.
Said she couldn’t deal with the gym in this heat.
Wanted to go swimming, and she insisted in a way that was almost manic, in a way that only Malin can be: controlled, but still intense and relentless. He has learned to listen to her when she’s like this, knows she’s trying to find meanings and signifiers that can lead them on.
The sun has free rein over the clear sky.
The trees on the far side are shading the outdoor pool, and the indoor pools are shut off, empty while work is being done on them.
He doesn’t feel like swimming.
Too many people. And even more at lunchtime.
Pools like this never feel clean, no matter how much chlorine they have in them. They met a woman on the way out when they arrived at the pool. She was dressed in white and carrying a black bag in one hand and a test- tube holder in the other. Presumably something to do with pool maintenance.
But it doesn’t matter, Zeke thinks, taking a bite of the sandwich. Even if they have the strictest hygiene standards, I still don’t want to go swimming here.
Malin doesn’t care.
She’s standing in her red costume on what looks like a sugar lump, ready to dive in.
The water of the pool rinsing her body.
Cool, take long strokes, feel the chlorine cleaning her skin, lungs, another stroke, it’s supposed to hurt or it isn’t doing any good. The red balls of the lane marker become a red line as she speeds up.
She breathes and her muscles lurch and she takes another stroke, and little by little she fights her way to the edge, maybe thirty metres away now.
The clag in her head has disappeared.
Nothing but clarity and the sting of lactic acid.
Made it.
She puts a hand up on the tiles, breathes out, sees Zeke sitting under the parasol up at the cafe.
She pulls herself up, sits on the edge with her feet in the water, breathing, feeling strangely clean, as if the sweat and the dust had gone for ever, as if she has become something new, better. She feels reborn, and the surface of the water sparkles in a thousand shades of blue, and all of a sudden it hits her with shattering clarity.
The Eckeveds’ pool.
The water at the beach.
The Glyttinge pool.
Sofia Freden’s summer job last year here at Tinnis.
Josefin Davidsson’s summer job, and the article in the
Drops like a thread, purity like a mantra.
Violence as a tragic rosary.
Zeke stands up as she comes over to his table.
‘Can I borrow your mobile? I need to make a call, right away.’
Zeke takes out his mobile, his movements slow in the heat, and a group of children in rubber rings are shrieking from the edge of the pool, too scared to jump and shouting to their parents for encouragement, for reassurance that jumping in isn’t dangerous.
Three rings before the call’s answered.
‘Sigvard Eckeved.’
‘Hello, this is Malin Fors. There’s something I forgot to ask. Do you have someone who looks after the pool for you? You mentioned that someone came last spring?’
‘You mean the one who comes out here?’
‘Yes.’
Zeke looks at her, his eyes fixed, expectant, as Malin squeezes the water from her hair with her free hand. There’s a delay before she gets an answer.
‘Well, a woman used to come each spring to check the water purifier. Your phone rang yesterday while I was telling you about it. But I didn’t really think it was important. You’re looking for a man anyway, aren’t you?’
‘You said it was a woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Her name’s Elisabeth.’
‘Surname?’
‘No idea. To be honest, I’m afraid I always paid her in cash. The first time I gave my number to a neighbour and she called me. The way it works is that she calls to ask when she should come. I never got a number for her. Pretty much the way it works with Polish cleaners. But, like I said, this spring I took care of it myself.’
‘OK. Thanks. Can I have your neighbour’s name and number?’
Silence.
‘I’m afraid not. He died of a heart attack a year ago.’
‘His wife, would she have the number?’
‘He was single. But the new neighbours may have kept her on. Maybe they’ve got her number?’
Sigvard disappears from the line. A minute later he’s back, and rattles off a number. Malin memorises it.
‘Thanks.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘I don’t know,’ Malin says. ‘We’ll have to see.’
She ends the call and turns towards Zeke.
