Too much standing still. Too much driving, and too much of a taste for his own products.
‘I was going to ring you,’ Niklas Nyren says, and his voice is oddly dark to belong to someone with a weight problem; his voice ought to be higher, hoarser.
Malin doesn’t answer, and sits down on an imitation Myran chair at the little dining table by the window facing the Cloetta factory.
‘You had some questions?’ Niklas Nyren says, sitting down on the sofa.
‘As you know, Joakim Svensson’s name has cropped up in connection with the investigation into the murder of Bengt Andersson.’
Niklas Nyren nods. ‘I find it hard to imagine that the boy could be involved. He just needs to learn a few manners, get a few male role-models too.’
‘You get on well with him?’
‘I try,’ Niklas Nyren says. ‘I try. I had a pretty crap childhood myself, and I wanted to help the lad. He’s got keys to this flat. I want to show him I’ve got faith in him.’
‘Crap in what way?’
‘Nothing I want to talk about. But Dad was a hard drinker, if I can put it like that. And Mum wasn’t exactly affectionate.’
Malin nods.
‘And the night between Wednesday and Thursday last week, what were you doing then?’
‘Margaretha was here, and I’m pretty sure Jocke was watching that film with Jimmy. Like they said.’
‘Jimmy? You know Jimmy Kalmvik?’
Niklas Nyren gets up, goes over to the window and looks out at the factory.
‘They’re joined at the hip, those two. If you want a decent relationship with one of them, you have to build bridges in various directions. I usually try to come up with things I think they’ll like.’
‘And what do they like?’
‘What do boys like? I took them to a skateboarding show in Norrkoping. We went to Mantorp Park. I let them drive my car on the gravel track out by the old I4. Hell, I even took them to the rifle range once last summer.’
You probably don’t have to be too careful, Malin. Niklas Nyren exudes thoughtlessness, unless he’s just playing naive?
‘Do you hunt?’
‘No, but I used to shoot as a sport. Small-bore rifle. Why?’
‘I’m not going to get into trouble now, am I?’ Niklas Nyren is hunting through a wardrobe in his white-painted bedroom. ‘You don’t have to have a gun cabinet for a small-bore rifle, do you?’
‘I think you probably should.’
‘Here it is.’ Niklas Nyren holds a narrow, almost spindly, black rifle out to Malin, who loses her train of thought when she sees the weapon. No one is going to touch it until forensics have taken a look.
‘Just put it on the bed,’ she says, and Niklas Nyren looks perplexed and lays the gun on his bed.
‘Do you have any freezer-bags?’ Malin says.
‘Yes, in the kitchen. That’s where I keep the ammunition as well.’
‘Good,’ Malin says. ‘Go and get both of them. I’ll wait here.’
Malin sits down on the bed beside the gun. Breathes in the sour, stale air and looks at the pictures on the walls: Ikea prints of different sorts of fish, in cheap frames.
Malin shuts her eyes and sighs.
Joakim Svensson has a key to the flat.
He and Jimmy Kalmvik must have taken the rifle some time when Niklas Nyren was off on one of his sales trips, and gone up to Bengt Andersson’s flat and fired a few shots just to scare him, to tease him. The little sods, Malin thinks, then stops herself. Testosterone and circumstances can cause a great deal of trouble for teenage boys, and someone who sees themselves as abandoned and downtrodden often ends up treading on others.
Malin opens her eyes to see Niklas Nyren coming back from the kitchen.
In one hand he has a packet of freezer-bags, and in the other a box of ammunition.
‘I usually use rubber bullets,’ he says. ‘Damn. I was sure this box hadn’t been opened. But someone must have opened it. There are three bullets missing.’
Disappointment transforms Niklas Nyren’s face into a grimacing mask.
Put pressure on the Ljungsbro bullies and get them to confess that they fired shots at the window of Bengt Andersson’s flat? Put a bit more pressure on them and get them to say even more?
If there is anything more to tell?
However much I want to go in one direction, it’s too early yet, Malin thinks.
She presses harder on the accelerator pedal, on her way right across the snow-covered plain towards Maspelosa. She’s already decided to wait, see what fingerprints Karin finds on the rifle, which is in the boot, wrapped up in a blanket. But Malin can’t help playing with the idea. Shouldn’t I turn round and go and put some pressure on Jimmy Kalmvik? I can do that on my own, child’s play compared to the Murvalls. No, better to let Karin
