here, as if it were starting to give way, both to the cold and to the person within. The path to the house has been cleared of snow, as if a red carpet were about to be unfurled.
She’s bound to be up, Malin thinks. Surprise her. Come when she least expects it.
Just like Tove she slams the car door behind her, but she knows why: it’s all about building up a feeling of determination, aggression, superiority that will make the mother obstinate, get her to open up, tell her stories, the ones Malin knows that she has to tell.
She knocks.
Pretends that Zeke is standing beside her.
Light yet oddly heavy steps behind the door, and the mother opens, her thin grey cheeks surrounding the sharpest eyes Malin has ever seen on a human being, eyes that somehow use her up, making her flat, apathetic and scared.
She’s over seventy, what can she do to me? Malin thinks, but knows that she’s wrong: she’s capable of doing absolutely anything.
‘Inspector Fors,’ Rakel Murvall says in a welcoming tone of voice. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You could let me in, it’s cold out here. I have a few more questions.’
‘But do you expect any more answers?’
Malin nods. ‘I think you’ve got all the answers in the world.’
Rakel Murvall steps aside and Malin goes in.
The coffee is hot and just strong enough.
‘Your boys aren’t exactly little lambs,’ Malin says, settling more comfortably on the rib-backed chair.
She sees first vanity, then anger flit across Rakel Murvall’s eyes.
‘What do you know about my boys?’
‘I’m really here to talk about your fourth boy.’
Malin pushes her coffee cup aside, looks at Rakel Murvall, fixing her with her gaze.
‘Karl,’ Malin says.
‘Who did you say?’
‘Karl.’
‘I don’t hear much from the boy.’
‘Who was his father? Not the same as the other boys. That much I do know.’
‘You’ve spoken to him, I see.’
‘I’ve spoken to him. He said his father was a sailor and that he drowned while you were pregnant.’
‘You’re right,’ Rakel Murvall says. ‘Off Cape Verde, the eighteenth of August, 1961. The M/S
‘I think you’re lying,’ Malin says.
But Rakel Murvall merely smiles, before going on: ‘Peder Palmkvist was his name, the sailor.’
Malin stands up.
‘That was all I wanted to know for the moment,’ Malin says, and the old woman stands up too and Malin sees her eyes take command of the whole room.
‘If you come here again I’ll have you for harassment.’
‘I’m only trying to do my job, Mrs Murvall, that’s all.’
‘Boats sink,’ Rakel Murvall says. ‘They sink like stones.’
Malin drives past the Murvall family’s petrol station. The Preem sign is switched off, the windows of the shop gape at her blackly, and the derelict foundry on the site is just begging to be torn down.
She passes Brunnby and Harna, doesn’t want to see the building housing Ball-Bengt’s flat. From the road only the roof can be seen, but she knows which building it is.
The landlord has probably cleared the flat by now; your things, the few that could be sold, have probably gone for auction and the money been sent on to the State Inheritance Fund. Rebecka Stenlundh, your sister by blood, if not legally, won’t inherit the little you had.
Has someone else taken over your flat, Ball-Bengt? Or are the rooms lying empty, waiting for you to come home? Maybe you’re home now, at last? Dust settling on the windowsills, taps rusting shut, slowly, slowly.
She drives under the aqueduct, past the school and picks up her mobile, thinking, I’ll have to skip the morning meeting.
‘Johan? It’s Malin.’
‘Malin?’
Johan Jakobsson’s voice over the mobile, still sleepy, probably only just arrived for the meeting.
‘Can you check something for me, before you get to work on Rickard Skoglof’s hard drive?’
Malin asks Johan to check the loss of the ship, the names of the sailors.
