It’s still quiet inside the flat. No mobile number on the net to call, not even an answer-phone on his home line.
Sven Sjoman on his questioning: ‘It’s like they’re denying his existence. Whatever’s at the bottom of it, it brings out the very worst in the Murvalls. I mean, it takes a lot for a mother to deny her son. It goes against nature, doesn’t it?’
‘He could be anywhere,’ Zeke says, as they stand in the stairwell facing the door.
‘On holiday?’
Zeke throws out his arms.
They turn and are just about to go down the stairs when they hear a car slow up and stop outside the front door.
Malin leans over and peers down at the car through one of the windows in the stairwell: a dark green Volvo estate, with a roof-box for skis that looks improbably pink in the light of the streetlamp. A thin-haired man in a black jacket opens the door, gets out and hurries into the building.
‘Karl Murvall,’ Zeke says, holding up his ID. ‘We’re from the police, and we’d like a word with you if that’s all right.’
The man stops. Smiles.
‘Yes, I’m Karl Murvall,’ he repeats. ‘Sure, come on in.’
Karl Murvall has the same strong nose as his half-brothers, only his is sharper.
He is short, with the beginnings of a pot-belly, and his whole appearance gives the impression that he’d like to sink through the floor, yet at the same time he exudes a peculiar, primitive power.
Karl Murvall puts his key in the lock, opens the door. ‘I read in the paper about my brothers,’ he says. ‘I realised that you’d want to talk to me sooner or later.’
‘You didn’t think of contacting us yourself?’ Zeke says, but Karl Murvall doesn’t seem bothered by his words.
‘Hang on, and I’ll let you in,’ he says instead, with a smile.
44
Karl Murvall’s flat.
Two rooms.
Improbably tidy. Sparsely furnished.
It looks like Bengt Andersson’s home, Malin thinks. Just as functional, with a bookcase, sofa, a desk by the window.
No ornaments, no plants, no decoration, nothing to disturb the simplicity, or rather the emptiness, apart from a bowl of fragrant yellow and red winter apples on the desk.
Books about computer programming, maths, Stephen King. An engineer’s bookcase.
‘Coffee?’ Karl Murvall asks, and it strikes Malin that his voice is lighter than his brothers’, and that he makes a milder, but nonetheless harder impression somehow. Like someone who has been through a lot, who has seen and heard a great deal. A bit like Janne, the way he looks when someone talks about the hardships they’ve endured on their walking holiday in the mountains, that mixture of derision and sympathy, and a hint of ‘just be glad you don’t know what you’re talking about’.
‘Too late in the day for me,’ Zeke says. ‘But Detective Inspector Fors here would probably like a cup.’
‘Please.’
‘Sit yourselves down in the meantime.’
Karl Murvall gestures towards the sofa and they sit down, hear him busying himself in the kitchen, and after five minutes or so he’s back with a tray of steaming cups.
‘I brought a third anyway, just in case,’ Karl Murvall says, putting the tray on the coffee table before sitting down on the office chair by the desk.
‘Nice flat,’ Malin says.
‘Well, how can I help you?’
‘Have you been at work all day?’
Karl Murvall nods. ‘Did you try to get me earlier?’
‘Yes,’ Malin says.
‘I work a lot. I’m IT manager out at the Collins factory in Vikingstad. Three hundred and fifty employees, and increasing amounts of computerisation.’
‘A good job.’
‘Yes. I did computer engineering at university, and it’s paid off.’
‘You could afford something bigger,’ Malin says.
‘Material things don’t really interest me. Property just means responsibilities. I don’t need anything bigger than this.’
Karl Murvall takes a sip of coffee before going on: ‘But that’s not why you’re here.’
