‘No, just thinking about it gives me nightmares.’
‘Do you want to go out to see Niklas Nyren?’
‘Malin, we must have called him at least ten times. He’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Go home and rest. Go home to Tove.’
45
The train moves forward slowly.
Goran Kalmvik is lying on the bunk in his compartment. Letting his thoughts come and go.
When won’t there be anything to come home to? he thinks. You can be away so much that away becomes home. And I, at least, pick up things along the way.
It’s still dark outside the windows of the train, but he can’t sleep, in spite of the carriage’s regular dunking against the joints of the rails, in spite of the fact that he is alone in a first-class compartment, and in spite of the fact that the sheets are crisp, yet warm and soft and smell soporific and freshly laundered.
Statoil is paying the fare.
He wonders how much longer he can do this.
It’s time to pick a life. He’s forty-eight and has been living a double life for almost ten years now, lying right in Henrietta’s face every time he comes home.
But she never seems to suspect anything. She seems happy with the money, pleased at not having to work, just buying things.
It’s worse with the lad. He gets more distant every time he goes away.
And the stories from school. Can it really be him acting up like that?
Little sod, Goran Kalmvik thinks, as he rolls over. Is it really so hard to behave properly? He’s fifteen now, and has always had everything he wanted.
Maybe it would be better to pack up and leave? Move to Oslo. Give it a try.
Work is terrible at this time of year. So cold that something freezes deep inside you even if you’re just moving back and forth in the icy wind on the drilling platform at the top of the rig, and your body never has time to warm up between shifts, and no one can be bothered to talk as they work.
But the pay is good.
It’s worth having experienced people out on the rigs considering how much it costs every time production grinds to a halt. Pipes like cold snakes full of black dreams.
Soon Norrkoping. Then Linkoping.
Then home.
Quarter to six.
Henrietta won’t meet him from the train. She stopped doing that a long time ago.
Home.
Unless it has now become away.
46
Sleeping-cars from Oslo sent on from Stockholm down towards Copenhagen, a slow, steady train full of people dreaming or about to wake up.
It is 6.15. The train is due at sixteen minutes past, and the morning has only just started to make itself felt. It is almost even colder than last night. But she managed to get up, wanted to check if Goran Kalmvik was actually on the train as they had been told, and, if he was, find out exactly what his secrets were.
She has called the security guards at Collins. They checked their logs and confirmed that Karl Murvall was in the factory from 19.15 on Wednesday evening until 7.30 the following morning. He had worked all night on a big update which had gone according to plan. She had asked if there was any other exit, or if there was any way he could have got out, and the guard had sounded certain: ‘He was here all night. The main gate is the only way out. And the fence has sensors connected to our office. We would have noticed if anyone was messing about with it right away. And where. And he was up in the server room when we made our rounds.’
Dinner with Tove yesterday. They talked about Markus. Then they watched ten minutes of a Pink Panther film before Malin fell asleep on the sofa.
Now she can just make out the train coming over the Stangan bridge.
The Cloetta Centre like a UFO off to the left on the other side, and the chimney of Tekniska Verken obstinately struggling against the smoke, the lettering of the logo glowing red like eyes on an unsuccessful photograph.
The train appears to increase in size as it approaches, the engine now at the end of the platform, a grandiose projectile fashioned by engineers.
Malin is alone at the station. She wraps her arms round her padded jacket and adjusts her hat.
No Henrietta Kalmvik, Malin thinks. I’m the only one here to meet someone. And I’m hunting a murderer.
Only one train door opens, two carriages away, and Malin hurries over, feeling the frozen air tug at her lungs.
