Midwinter Sacrifice

Malin finishes her coffee and stands up. ‘I think that was everything,’ she says. ‘Yes, I think so.’

24

Have I forgiven you, sister?

It didn’t start with you, and it doesn’t end with you. So what is there to forgive, really?

Arrange your apples in rows, raise your child the way we never were. Give him love. Mark your flesh with it.

I can’t watch over you. But I can drift about and see you, wherever you choose to run.

I devoured Maria Murvall’s friendliness like sandwiches made from ready-sliced loaves, like smoked sausage, like unsalted butter. I washed the way she told me to, I ironed my trousers, I listened to what she said, believed in her theories about dignity. But how dignified was what happened in the forest?

How clean?

How pure?

You ought to be drifting with me, Maria, instead of sitting where you sit.

Shouldn’t you?

Shouldn’t we all drift and glide about, like that green Volvo down there on the motorway?

Huskqvarna.

Lawnmowers and hunting rifles. Shotguns for all manner of prey and a matchstick troll looking out over Lake Vattern. The artist, John Bauer, drowned in those waters when his boat capsized. No trolls saved him. Is he resting in one of his dense forests now?

No music in the car. Malin refused. And the coughing of the engine reminds her to turn on her mobile.

It rings at once.

‘You have one new message . . .’

‘This is Ebba Nilsson. Social worker. You tried to get hold of me last night. I’m home all morning, so feel free to call me back.’

Add number. Call.

One, two, three rings.

No answer again? Ah.

‘Yes, hello. Who is this?’

A shrill voice, like a larynx compressed by fat. Malin can see Ebba Nilsson before her: a short, round woman close to retirement.

‘This is Malin Fors from Linkoping Police. We keep missing each other.’

Silence.

‘And what do you want?’

‘Bengt Andersson. You were his social worker for a while.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’ve heard about what’s happened?’

‘I haven’t been able to avoid it.’

‘Can you tell me anything about Bengt?’

‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ Ebba Nilsson says. ‘I’m sorry. While I was working in Ljungsbro he only came to see me once. He was incredibly quiet, but that wasn’t so strange. He hadn’t had things easy . . . and of course looking the way he did.’

‘There’s nothing in particular that we should know?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but the girl who came after me got on well with him, or so I heard.’

‘Maria Murvall?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ve been trying to get hold of her. But the number we’ve got has been disconnected. Do you know where she is now?’

Silence on the line.

‘Oh, dear Lord,’ Ebba Nilsson eventually says.

‘Sorry?’

Zeke takes his eyes off the road, looks at Malin.

‘You were about to say something?’