Midwinter Sacrifice

Zeke can’t help it, but when she leans forward like that, seen from the back, she looks quite acceptable, not to say desirable. Well proportioned. No question.

They drove out in silence. With his whole body he left her in no doubt that he would prefer not to have any small talk. And Karin concentrated on the road, but still seemed to want to talk, as if she had been waiting for a chance to be alone with him.

The hole that Karin is digging in is in a direct line from the window. But the hole could have been made by anything.

Then Karin twists and pulls her hand, saying, ‘That’s it, that’s it,’ and then triumphantly pulls out the tweezers.

She turns round, holding the tweezers towards him, and says, ‘If I look a bit longer, I promise I’m going to find a couple more of these little beauties.’

Malin is standing in the kitchen of her flat. She tries to shake off the image of Maria Murvall on her bed in that gloomy room.

‘You and Zeke carry on looking into the Murvall angle. But if the ?sir line suddenly needs more work, we’ll shift our focus on to that.’

Karim Akbar’s voice earlier at the run-through, sounding like the whole chain leading to Maria Murvall had been his idea. Nice to be able to concentrate on one thing, though.

Sven Sjoman: ‘We’ll have to pull out the Murvall brothers’ police records. And you and Borje, Johan, you carry on with the ?sir angle. Don’t leave any rune-stone unturned. And we’ll have to talk to Bengt Andersson’s neighbours again, check if they saw or heard anything unusual, now that we know the window was fired at.’

Rubber bullets.

Karin and Zeke had found three green bullets in the sofa. Presumably one for each hole. The right size to fit a small-calibre weapon, most likely a small-bore rifle.

Rubber bullets.

Too serious to be lads messing around. But maybe not completely serious either. Probably meant to cause pain. Torment. Just as you were tormented, Bengt.

Rubber bullets.

Impossible to say what sort of weapon the bullets were fired from, according to Karin: ‘You don’t get enough of an imprint from the barrel. Rubber’s more flexible than metal.’

Malin pours a splash of red wine into the stew bubbling in front of her.

Johan Jakobsson: ‘We questioned a few ?sir fanatics in the Kinda area today. As far as we could make out, they were just harmless, shall we say historically minded individuals. That professor at the university, he must be one of the biggest media-tarts I’ve ever come across. And he looks pretty clean. His boyfriend, a Magnus Djupholm, confirms the story about the cat.’

Media-tart.

The words made Karim prick up his ears, as if he had suddenly become aware of an ailment.

And they made Malin laugh to herself.

Johan had brought copies of the national evening tabloids, Aftonbladet and Expressen, to the meeting. Nothing on the front. But whole pages devoted to the professor, big pictures, ‘authority on Old Norse rituals’, describing how a midwinter sacrifice would take place, and implying that he thought it could happen again.

Sven was silent for almost the whole meeting.

Malin stirs the stew on the stove, inhaling the smell of white pepper and bay leaves.

Their murder is disappearing from the public consciousness. New murders, new scandals involving people on television, political manoeuvres.

What’s a hanging body in a tree worth when it’s no longer ‘new’? Ball-Bengt, you’re not news any more.

The front door opening into the hall.

Tove.

‘Mum, are you home?’

‘I’m in the kitchen.’

‘You’ve made dinner? I’m starving.’

‘Beef stew.’

Tove’s cheeks rosy, beautiful, the most beautiful cheeks in the world.

‘I saw Markus. We had coffee round his.’

A big white doctors’ villa in Ramshall. Dad a surgeon, one of the ones in white and green, his mum a doctor in the ENT clinic. Two doctors: a common combination in this city.

The phone rings.

‘Can you get that?’ Malin says.

‘No, you get it.’

Malin picks up the phone from the wall where it’s attached.