The radio. Helen.
‘I’m here. Still a bit sleepy, that’s all.’
‘Then I’ll get straight to the point. Do you remember you called me about the Murvall brothers? There’s something I forgot to tell you, something you might want to know. I read in this morning’s paper that you’re holding the three brothers, but it’s not clear whether it’s in connection with the murder or not, but then I remembered: there’s a fourth brother, their half-brother. He was a bit older, a real loner; his dad was some sailor who drowned, I think. Whatever. I remember the others used to stick together, but not him.’
A fourth brother, a half-brother.
Silence like a wall.
‘Do you know what his name was?’
‘No idea. He was a little older. That’s probably why I never really think of him as belonging with the others. You never used to see him much. It was a long time ago. Maybe none of this is right. I might be mixing things up.’
‘That’s a great help,’ Malin says. ‘What would I do without you? Time to meet up over a beer soon?’
‘That would be great, but when? We both seem to work too much.’
They hang up. Malin can hear Tove out in the kitchen, and gets out of bed, feeling a sudden longing for her daughter.
Tove at the kitchen table, eating breakfast, reading the
‘Those brothers, Mum, they seem really weird,’ she says with a frown. ‘Did they do it?’
Black or white, Malin thinks.
Done or not done.
In a way Tove’s right, it’s simple, yet still so incredibly more complicated, unclear and ambiguous.
‘We don’t know.’
‘Oh well. I suppose they’ll be locked up for the guns and poaching? And the blood, was it just animal blood, as that woman doctor says here?’
‘We don’t know yet. They’re working on it in the lab.’
‘And it says you’ve questioned two teenage boys. Who are they?’
‘I can’t say, Tove. Did you have a good time at Dad’s the other night, by the way?’
‘Yes, I said I did over the phone, don’t you remember?’
‘What did you do?’
‘Markus and Dad and I had something to eat, then we watched television until we went to bed.’
Malin feels her stomach clench.
‘Markus was there?’
‘Yes, he stayed the night.’
‘STAYED THE NIGHT?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t like we slept in the same bed or anything. You didn’t think that, did you?’
Both Tove and Janne spoke to her that afternoon. Neither of them mentioned Markus. Not that he would be staying over, not that he would be eating with them, not even that Janne was aware of his existence.
‘I didn’t even know your dad knew about Markus.’
‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘You said he didn’t know anything.’
‘But he does now.’
‘Why hasn’t anyone told me any of this? Why didn’t you say?’
Malin can hear how ridiculous her words sound.
‘You only had to ask,’ Tove says.
Malin shakes her head.
‘Mum,’ Tove says. ‘Sometimes you’re incredibly childish.’
42
‘There’s another brother.’
From his desk, Johan Jakobsson waves a sheet of paper when he sees Malin walk into the open-plan office in Police Headquarters. Her mobile conversation with Janne is still running through her head.
‘You could have said he was going to stay over.’
Janne had only just woken up, late getting to sleep after working the nightshift. But still clear and focused.
‘What happens in my home, Malin, is my business, and if you if aren’t keeping a close enough eye on Tove that
