money is needed for other things than replacing the cladding. They take a short cut over a traffic island, knowing that they really shouldn’t, that they’re supposed to drive round, a long way round, but today there just isn’t time.
And they’re in front of the entrance to the A&E department, braking as they swing round the turning circle. They park and run towards the entrance.
A nurse meets them, a short, stocky woman with close-set eyes that make her thin nose stick out from her head.
‘The doctor wants to talk to you,’ she says as she leads them down a corridor, past several empty treatment rooms.
‘Dr who?’ Zeke asks.
‘Dr Stenvinkel, he’s the surgeon who’s going to be operating on her.’
Hasse, Malin thinks, and at first she feels a resistance to meeting Markus’s dad on duty, then realises that it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
‘I know him,’ Malin whispers to Zeke as they follow in the nurse’s wake.
‘Who?’
‘The doctor. Just so you know. He’s Tove’s boyfriend’s dad.’
‘It’ll be fine, Malin.’
The nurse stops in front of a closed door. ‘You can go in. No need to knock.’
Hans Stenvinkel is a different man now compared to last night. Gone is the easy-going social individual, and instead there is a strict, sombre and focused person sitting before them. The whole of his green-clad body exudes competence, and the way he greeted her was personal but formal; subtext: we know each other, but we’ve both got important work to do.
Zeke is squirming on his chair, evidently wound up by the authority of the room. How the person in the green jacket bestows a sort of worthiness to the whitewashed textured walls, the oak-veneer bookcase and the worn wooden top of the simple desk.
This is what it used to be like, Malin thinks, when people had respect for doctors, before the Internet made it possible for everyone to be an expert in their own ailments.
‘You can see her in a moment,’ Hans says. ‘She’s conscious, but she’ll have to be anaesthetised soon so that we can take care of her injuries. She needs a skin transplant. But at least we can do that here. We’re the best place in the country for dealing with burns.’
‘Frostbite?’ Zeke asks.
‘That too. But from a medicinal point of view, they’re more like actual burns. So I dare say that she couldn’t be in better hands.’
‘Who is she?’
‘We don’t know. She just keeps saying that she wants to see you, Malin, so I expect you know who she is.’
Malin nods in agreement. ‘Then it’s probably best that she gets to see me. If she’s up to it. We really need to find out who she is.’
‘I think she could handle a short conversation.’
‘Is her condition very serious?’
‘Yes,’ Hans says. ‘She couldn’t possibly have caused those injuries herself. She’s lost a lot of blood. But we’re giving her transfusions at the moment. We’ve relieved the shock with adrenalin. Burns and frost damage, like I said, knife wounds, cuts, compression injuries, and her vagina has been seriously wounded. It’s astonishing that she didn’t lose consciousness. You can’t help but wonder what sort of monster is running loose on the plain.’
‘How long could she have been out there?’
‘I’d say all night. The frost damage is severe. But we should be able to save most of her toes and fingers.’
‘Have you documented the injuries?’
‘Yes, exactly as you want them.’
It’s obvious from Hans’s voice that he’s done this before. With Maria Murvall?
‘Good,’ Zeke says.
‘And the man who came in with her?’
‘He left his number. He works at Ikea. We tried to get him to wait but he said, “The spirit of Ingvar, old IK himself, isn’t happy if you get to work late.” We couldn’t persuade him to stay.’
Then Hans looks her in the eye. ‘I’m warning you, Malin. She looks like she’s been through the fires of hell. It’s terrifying. You have to have incredible willpower to get through what she must have suffered.’
‘People tend to have a ridiculous amount of willpower when their survival is at stake,’ Zeke says.
‘Not always, not always,’ Hans replies, in a voice that sounds heavy and sad.
Malin nods to him, to indicate that she knows that he means. But do I? she wonders.
Who is she? Malin thinks, opening the door to the hospital room. Zeke is waiting outside.
A single bed against a wall, thin strips of light filtering through Venetian blinds and spreading across the grey- brown floor. A monitor is bleeping quietly, and two little red points of light on its screen shine like a pair of badger’s eyes in the gloom. Drip-stands with blood-bags and fluids, a catheter-bag, and then the figure on the bed under thin
