spring, Jimmy Kalmvik and Joakim Svensson, Jimmy and Jocke; they’ve only got a couple of months left and it’ll be a relief to be rid of them. Every year we have a few rotten eggs, and we get to send a few of them away. Joakim and Jimmy are craftier than that. But we do what we can with them.’
Malin and Zeke must have succeeded in looking curious, because Britta Svedlund goes on: ‘They never do anything illegal, or if they have, they’ve never been caught. They come from stable backgrounds, which is more than you can say about a lot of pupils at this school. No, what they do is bully people, students and staff alike. And they’re competitive. I swear that every lamp that gets broken in this school has been kicked in by them.’
‘We’ll need their parents’ phone numbers,’ Zeke says. ‘Home addresses.’
Britta Svedlund taps on her keyboard, then writes down their names, addresses and numbers on a piece of paper.
‘Here you are,’ she says, handing the note to Malin.
‘Thanks.’
‘And Bengt Andersson?’ Zeke asks. ‘Do you know about anything they may have done to him?’
Britta Svedlund is suddenly defensive. ‘How did you hear about this? I don’t doubt that it’s correct. But how do you know?’
‘I’m afraid we can’t tell you that,’ Malin replies.
‘To be honest, I don’t care what they get up to outside these walls. If I cared about what the students get up to in their own time, I’d go mad.’
‘So you don’t know,’ Zeke says.
‘Precisely. But what I do know is that they don’t play truant more than the exact amount that means they still get their grades, which are actually surprisingly good.’
‘Are they at school at the moment?’
Britta Svedlund taps at her keyboard.
‘You’re in luck. They’ve just started their woodwork class. They don’t usually miss that one.’
Inside the woodwork room there is a smell of fresh sawdust and scorched wood, with a background note of varnish and solvent.
When they walk into the room the teacher, a man in his sixties with a grey cardigan and matching grey beard, leaves one pupil at a lathe and comes over to meet them.
He holds out a hand covered in shavings and sawdust, then pulls it back with a smile, and Malin notices his warm blue eyes, which have evidently not lost their sparkle with age. Instead he raises his hand in a welcoming wave.
‘Well,’ he says, and Malin picks up a strong smell of coffee and nicotine on his breath, classic teacher’s breath. ‘We’ll have to greet each other like Indians. Mats Bergman, woodwork teacher. And behind me we have class 9B. I take it you’re from the police? Britta called and said you were on your way.’
‘That’s right,’ Malin says.
‘So you know who we’re looking for. Are they here?’ Zeke says.
Mats Bergman nods. ‘They’re right at the back, in the paint room. They’re working on a design for the petrol tank on a moped.’
Behind the teacher Malin can see the paint room. Squeezed into a corner, grey-green tins of paint on shelves behind shabby glass walls, two boys inside. They’re sitting down, so Malin can only see their blond hair.
‘Are they likely to be a problem?’ she wonders.
‘Not in here,’ Mats Bergman says, smiling again. ‘I know they can be rowdy outside, but they behave themselves in here.’
Malin pulls open the door to the glass-box paint room. The boys look up from their stools, their eyes dull at first, then watchful, tense and anxious, and she looks down at them with all the authority she can muster. A red skull painted on a black petrol tank.
Bullies?
Yes.
Shooters?
Possibly.
Murderers?
Who knows? She’ll have to leave that question open.
Then the boys get up; they’re both well-built, a head taller than her, both dressed in saggy hip-hop-style jeans and hooded jackets with designer logos.
Spotty teenage faces, they’re oddly similar in their puppyish look, bony cheeks, noses a bit too big, suggesting nascent lust and an excess of testosterone.
‘Who are you?’ one of them asks as he gets up.
‘Sit down,’ Zeke snarls behind her. ‘NOW!’
As if hit by a collapsing ceiling he is pressed back down on to the paint-spattered stool again. Zeke shuts the door and they leave a dramatic pause before Malin says, ‘I’m Malin Fors, from the police, and this is my colleague Zacharias.’
Malin pulls her ID from the back pocket of her jeans.
