‘The ?sir faith,’ Zeke says. ‘Has Joakim ever shown any interest in that sort of thing?’
‘I can promise you he hasn’t a clue what it is. Taekwondo and skateboarding, on the other hand, he knows all there is to know about those.’
‘Can he drive?’ Malin asks.
Margaretha Svensson takes a deep breath and runs a hand through her wet hair.
‘He’s fifteen. Those two could be up to anything.’
‘They told us they were watching films here last Thursday, but that you weren’t at home?’
‘When I left at about seven they were here, and when I got home Jocke had fallen asleep. The film had finished, but the television was still on. That skateboarding film they always watch.’
‘Where had—’
‘I do aqua-aerobics in the local pool. Then I went back to my friend’s. You can have his number if you like. I was back by eleven thirty or so.’
‘Friend?’
‘My lover. His name’s Niklas Nyren. I’ll give you his number.’
‘Good,’ Zeke says. ‘Does he have any contact with your son?’
‘He tries. Probably thinks the lad could do with a male role-model.’
‘Joakim’s father is dead, isn’t he?’ Malin asks.
‘He died in a road accident when Joakim was three.’
Then Margaretha Svensson straightens her back. ‘I’ve done my best to bring him up on my own, working full- time as an accounts assistant at a god-awful construction company, trying to make a decent person out of him.’
But you haven’t succeeded, Malin thinks. He seems largely to be a semi-criminalised, cruel bully.
And, as if she can read Malin’s thoughts, Margaretha Svensson says, ‘I know he isn’t the best-behaved kid on the planet, and he can be pretty impossible sometimes. But he’s tough, and I’ve encouraged that; he won’t let anyone try to put him down, and he stands up for himself. And that means he’s pretty well-prepared for all the battles he’s got ahead of him, doesn’t it?’
‘Can we see his room?’
‘Upstairs, straight ahead.’
Zeke stays at the table while Malin goes up.
The room smells musty. Lonely. Skateboarding posters. Hip-hop stars. Tupac, Outkast.
A bed, made, on a light blue fitted carpet, light blue walls. A desk. Malin checks the drawers, a few pens, some paper, an empty notebook.
She looks under the bed, but it’s empty, just a few dustballs over in the corner where the walls meet.
Only for sleeping, Malin thinks.
Then she thinks how good it is that Tove hasn’t met a boy like Joakim Svensson, that her doctor’s son is a dream compared to these tough boys out on the plain.
The next house is another world.
Even though it’s only five hundred metres from Margaretha Svensson’s flat.
A large breezeblock house from the seventies with a double garage, located right on a slope leading up to the Gota Canal, one of maybe ten outsized houses in a square around a well-maintained playground, a black Subaru jeep parked out on the street by the bushes.
Malin’s finger on the doorbell, the standard black and white model, their name written in shaky handwriting on a piece of paper behind the little plastic rectangle just beneath the button.
Kalmvik.
It’s dark and cold now; evening has arrived in Ljungsbro, and, as time passes, night creeps in with its even fiercer cold.
Joakim Svensson and Jimmy Kalmvik were alone in the flat from seven to half past eleven. How can they be sure that the boys really were in the flat then? That they didn’t sneak out and get up to anything? Could they have harmed Bengt Andersson in that time? Got him out to the tree? Or might Joakim Svensson have snuck out after his mum got home?
Nothing’s impossible, Malin thinks. And who knows how many films they may have seen for inspiration? Could the whole thing have been a boyish prank that got out of control?
Henrietta Kalmvik opens the door wide.
No hesitant little crack.
‘You’re from the police? Aren’t you?’
Big red hair, green eyes, sharp features. An elegant white blouse over stylish dark blue trousers: a woman in her mid-forties who knows what she looks good in.
‘Is that your car?’ Malin asks. ‘Out on the street?’
‘Yes. Nice, isn’t it?’
