‘He never said. When he called yesterday it was the first time in a long while.’
‘You didn’t see anything odd when you got here?’ Malin says, even though she had asked the same thing when they had first arrived at the castle. Wants to twist the truth out of Ingmar Johansson with the force of repetition.
‘No. I came with Lindman, and the Range Rover was parked in front of the castle. I assumed Petersson was inside the castle and would be out shortly, and when he didn’t come out we went inside to look for him.’
‘You didn’t see any other cars?’
‘No.’
‘Were the doors to the castle open?’
‘You’ve already asked me that. Yes. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get in, would we? Those doors wouldn’t be too easy to force.’
‘You weren’t here earlier today?’ Zeke asks. ‘Or last night?’
‘No, why on earth would I have been?’
Ingmar Johansson’s face seems to crumple, his lips tighten and he looks at them suspiciously.
‘Ask my wife at home if you don’t believe me. We spent all evening watching television before we went to bed. She made me breakfast this morning.’
‘Do you know anything else about Jerry Petersson that you think might be of interest to us?’ Malin asks.
‘No, not a damn thing.’
‘Nothing about his business affairs?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Did he live here alone?’
‘I think so. He didn’t have any staff. They say he just called people when he needed them.’
Johansson pulls a face that says: That’s enough questions. I’ve said my piece.
‘You can go now,’ Malin says tiredly. ‘But we might need to talk to you again.’
‘You’ve got my mobile number,’ Johansson says, standing up.
Gote Lindman is a lonely man, Malin thinks as she sees his face against the white tiles of the kitchen.
A lonely farmer who’s probably at his happiest when he’s working a thresher or looking after his livestock, if he has any. The woman he’s mentioned, Svetlana, sounded more like a piece of furniture than a life partner.
Lindman has just told them the same things they heard from Johansson. That they were summoned to go hunting, that they’d entered into an informal agreement with the castle’s new owner, and that it didn’t bother Lindman, because hunting was what you did in the autumn and that was when there was least work to do on the farm anyway.
‘Petersson seemed like an honest man.’
Lindman says the words with emphasis before going on: ‘It’s a bugger that we had to find him in the moat like that, things could have gone all right. I’m sure of that. Fagelsjo was an unpleasant bastard.’
‘Which one?’ Zeke asks.
‘I used to deal with the old man, Axel.’
‘Unpleasant, how?’ Malin asks.
‘His manner, well, it was. . he really let you know who was in charge, let’s put it that way.’
Lindman falls silent, shakes his head, then a sudden rush of fear crosses his face.
‘How did he let you know?’ Malin asks.
‘By raising the rent all of a sudden, for instance,’ Lindman said quickly.
Malin nods.
Modern castle owners. The same power relationships as always, the same oppressed tenant farmers as always, the same inferiority as always. But at the same time some people are predisposed to dislike any figure of authority.
‘Do you know anything about Petersson?’
‘Only that he grew up around here and made a killing in the capital.’
‘Do you know how he made his money?’ Zeke asks.
Lindman shakes his head.
‘No idea.’
‘Did he live here alone?’
‘Only with the dog, as far as I know. What’s going to happen to it now?’
‘We’ll take care of it,’ Malin says, realising that she has no idea what they’re going to do with the dog, which is still barking outside in the car.
Then more questions and answers, if they saw anything unusual on the way here, any cars, if the Range Rover was parked in front of the castle when they arrived, if he had any idea about who could have done it, and what he was doing last night and first thing this morning.
‘I’ve got no idea who could have done it. . I was at home on the farm. Ask Svetlana. . You don’t think I did it? Then I wouldn’t have called you, would I?’
‘We don’t think you were involved in the suspected murder of Jerry Petersson,’ Malin says. ‘But we have to ask, we have to keep all possible lines of inquiry open, at the same time as we rule out some of the less likely scenarios.’
Malin and Zeke alone in the kitchen.
The white-tiled walls make Malin think of a slaughterhouse, then a mortuary, then she imagines that the fog outside in the forest and over the fields is gunpowder smoke from a seventeenth-century battlefield.
Blood and screaming.
Amputated limbs.
Rotting vegetation and slimy mushrooms underfoot.
Men without arms screaming in sulphurous smoke from burning straw. Legless creatures, children with their ears cut off.
All the things Janne had seen in Rwanda.
‘Why do you think the doors were open?’ Malin asks. ‘The art he’s got in here must be worth millions.’
‘Maybe he was inside when he saw someone coming up the drive, and he went out and didn’t lock up behind him? That would be entirely natural, wouldn’t it?’
‘Or he went out for a walk or a drive, and forgot to lock up?’
‘Or else he was the type who doesn’t like routine chores and didn’t bother to lock up, just for the thrill of it,’ Zeke says.
‘Or else he didn’t live alone. There might have been someone else in the castle when he went out.’
‘A woman?’
‘Maybe. It’s pretty unlikely, don’t you think? Living in a huge castle like this out in the middle of nowhere all on his own?’
‘But everyone says he lived on his own. Maybe he liked being alone?’
‘Can you hear the dog?’ Zeke went on.
‘No. But we should give it some water.’
Zeke nods.
‘What are we going to do with it?’ Malin asks.
‘Take it to the dogs’ home in Slaka.’
‘Or to Borje Svard. He’s got kennels, hasn’t he?’
‘Do you think he’s up to it?’
His wife. Anna. On a respirator in the most tastefully furnished house Malin has ever seen. A good person in a bad body.
She thinks of her own flat. This kitchen alone is three times the size of the whole thing.
‘We need to know more about Petersson,’ Malin says, thinking: we’re fumbling through the autumn fog right now. But one thing is certain, he managed to do what I failed to do, getting away from fucking Linkoping. So why, why on earth did he come back? What sort of voices were calling him back here?
‘Who do you think he was?’ Malin asks.
Zeke shrugs his shoulders, and Malin wonders what dreams and desires a man like Jerry Petersson might have had. What joy and pain might he have felt?
