‘Maybe. But it still doesn’t seem to have any smell, does it?’
A single light is shining on the second floor of F-block. Like an outsized star in a reluctant sky.
‘He said to press B 3267 at the door, and he’d buzz us in.’
‘You’ll have to take your gloves off,’ Zeke says.
And a minute later they are standing in a lift on the way up, Professor Soderkvist’s voice vague and difficult to pin down over the speaker a few moments ago.
‘Is that the police?’
‘Yes, Inspectors Fors and Martinsson.’
A buzz, then warmth.
What was I expecting? Malin thinks as she settles on to an uncomfortable chair in the professor’s office. A creaky old man in a cardigan? A history professor doesn’t count as one of the really posh ones, the ones who make her so uncertain. But what about this one?
He’s young, no more than forty, and he’s attractive; maybe his chin’s a bit weak, but there’s nothing wrong with his cheekbones and his cool blue eyes.
He is leaning back in an armchair on the other side of a pedantically tidy desk, apart from a messily opened packet of biscuits. The room is perhaps ten square metres in size, over-full bookshelves along the walls, and windows facing the golf course, silent and deserted on the far side of the road.
He smiles, but only with his mouth and cheeks, not with his eyes.
He is hiding one hand, the one he didn’t shake hands with, Malin thinks. He’s keeping it under the desk. Why are you doing that, Professor Soderkvist?
‘You had something you wanted to explain to us?’ Zeke says.
The room smells of disinfectant.
‘Midwinter sacrifice,’ the professor says, leaning even further back. ‘Have you heard of that?’
‘Vaguely,’ Malin says.
Zeke shakes his head and nods to the professor, who goes on.
‘A heathen ritual, something the people you would call Vikings used to do once a year round about this time of year. They made sacrifices to the gods for happiness and success. Or as a penance. To cleanse the blood. To be reconciled with the dead. We don’t know for sure. There’s very little reliable documentation about this ritual, but we can be sure that they made both animal and human sacrifices.’
‘Human sacrifices?’
‘Human sacrifices. And the sacrifices were hung in trees, often in open places so that the gods could get a good view of them. At least that’s what we believe.’
‘And you mean that the man in the tree on the Ostgota plain could be the victim of a modern midwinter sacrifice?’ Malin asks.
‘No, that’s not what I mean.’ The professor smiles. ‘But I do mean that there are undoubted similarities in the scenario. Let me explain something: there are residential courses and hotels in this country that organise harmless midwinter sacrifices at this time of year. With no connection to the darker sides of the sacrifice, they arrange lectures about Old Norse culture and serve food that they suppose would have been served in those days. Commercial mumbo-jumbo. But there are others who have a less healthy interest in those days, so to speak.’
‘A less healthy interest?’
‘I come across them occasionally during my lecture tours. The sort of people who evidently have difficulty living in our age, and who prefer to identify themselves with history instead.’
‘They live in the past?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Is this about the old ?sir beliefs?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. We’re talking about the pre-Norse period here.’
‘Do you know where they are, people like this?’
‘I don’t know that there are any specific societies. I’ve never been that interested in them. But they’re probably out there somewhere. I’m sure I’ve had nutters like that come and listen to me. If I were you I’d start by looking on the Internet. They may prefer to live in the past, but they’re extremely technologically literate.’
‘But you don’t actually know of any?’
‘Not in particular. There are never any records kept of who attends my open lectures. It’s like the cinema or a concert. You come, you watch and listen, then you go away again.’
‘But you know that they’re technologically literate?’
‘Isn’t everyone like that these days?’
‘What about on your courses here at the university?’
‘Oh, they never find their way here. And midwinter sacrifice gets little more than a mention in the greater scheme of things.’
Then the professor pulls out the hand he has been keeping hidden under the desk and strokes his cheek, and Malin can see angry scars criss-crossing the back of his hand.
The professor seems to lose his train of thought, and quickly lowers his hand.
