They’re past Hjulsbro now.
The suffocating, petit bourgeois enclave left behind.
Zeke accelerates and the car responds. They turn off.
Ahead of them she can see Landeryd Golf Club. The huge balloon-like building, home to the city’s driving range.
A golfer’s paradise in this autumn hell.
Where golf balls rain through the air.
19
The golf balls are whining through the air under the metal roof of the hangar-like building, several hundred metres long, bouncing high as they land.
Thirteen places.
The sound the clubs make when they strike the balls is like being hit over the ear.
A bucket of fifty balls costs two hundred kronor. An insignificant sum to anyone who belongs to any of the city’s golf clubs.
Putters.
Wooden clubs.
Jerry Petersson was struck on the back of the head with a blunt object, but hardly a golf club, Malin thinks as they approach the slender, tall figure of Katarina Fagelsjo.
‘I’m in thirteen. At the far end, next to the wall.’
No surprise when they called to say they wanted to talk to her, she knew what had happened, but could hardly be aware of what her brother has just done.
Aggressive swings, curses, balls hitting the walls and ceiling, and the noise is like the inside of a swimming pool, and there’s a similarly stale, damp smell, just without the chlorine.
People voluntarily spend the whole afternoon here, Malin thinks as she studies Katarina as she takes an apparently light and elegant swing. Her body is strong, and it’s clear that she possesses the self-confidence about herself and her life that everyone with her background has, imprinted on them from the day they open their eyes and see the world for the first time.
Katarina raises a metal club, takes aim and drops her shoulder, and the club makes a fine arc down towards the ball on the tee in the astroturf.
She must have a low handicap, Malin thinks. And she’s right-handed.
Katarina must have seen them from the corner of her eye.
She stops, turns around, looks at them, and steps down from the low platform she’s standing on. She holds out her hand, and Malin thinks that she must have been beautiful once, that she almost is now, with the same sharp nose as her brother, fine cheekbones, but there are too many wrinkles in her forehead, too much grey in her shoulder-length blonde hair.
Bitter wrinkles. Evidence of discontent around her mouth. Sad eyes, full of a peculiar longing.
She says hello to Malin first, then Zeke.
They show their ID.
Katarina runs a hand over her forehead and Malin thinks that she’s probably only five years older than me, she could have been in the same school as me, ahead of me, the same school as Jerry Petersson. If she didn’t go to a private school like Sigtuna or Lundsberg.
‘Can we do this here?’ Katarina asks, leaning her club on the ground. ‘Or shall we go to the restaurant?’
‘We can do it here,’ Malin says. ‘You know why we want to talk to you? We didn’t have time to say over the phone.’
‘Jerry Petersson. I can put two and two together.’
‘And the fact that your brother tried to drive away from us today.’
Katarina’s mouth drops open, her eyebrows rise briefly, but just a few seconds later she’s collected herself again.
‘My brother did what?’
Malin tells her about the car chase, how he tried to escape when they attempted to talk to him, and that he is now being questioned at the police station.
‘So he was leaving the Ekoxen?’ Katarina said. ‘He was probably worried you were going to get him for drink-driving. He’s been caught before, after a friend’s party three years ago, so this time he’d have ended up in prison.’
Drink-driving. Driving under the influence of alcohol. I did that yesterday, Malin thinks, batting the thought aside like a golf ball.
‘We caught him,’ Zeke says. ‘And he was drunk.’
‘Maybe he tried to escape because he had something to do with Jerry Petersson’s murder?’ Malin asks, hoping the direct question will provoke a reaction.
‘What, my brother kill someone? Hardly.’ Katarina’s face is completely blank as she waits for the next question, and Malin feels tired just looking at it. It’s almost five o’clock already, and even though Malin knows they need to get further with the investigation, all she wants is to be at home, having a shower, and then what?
Feel sorry for myself.
Fucking sorry.
Liquidly sorry.
Her headache has faded, but her body is screaming for more, her anxiety is like a fist around her heart. Have to get a grip on a hell of a lot of different things. Can I handle that?
And now this woman in front of me, stuck-up and stroppy, yet still somehow open and pleasant. Is that what they call social competence?
‘So you don’t believe that?’ Zeke asks.
‘My brother’s harmless. Maybe not entirely, but he’s certainly not violent.’
‘Can you tell us anything about him?’ Zeke asks.
‘He can do that better himself.’
Katarina pulls another club from her bag. Looks it up and down.
‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Malin says, thinking: focus on Katarina herself instead.
‘What were you doing last night and this morning?’
‘My father was with me yesterday evening. We were drinking tea.’
‘He told us he left at ten o’clock. What did you do after he left?’
Katarina clears her throat.
‘I went to see my lover. Senior consultant Jan Andergren. He can confirm that I was there till this morning.’
She gives them a number, which Zeke taps straight into his mobile.
‘I like white coats,’ Katarina jokes. ‘But you should know that he’s only a lover, I’ve seen him a few times, and I’m not planning to see him many more.’
‘Why not?’ Malin says, and Katarina adopts an expression that seems to say: What business is that of yours?
‘Don’t you know? The golden rule for affairs. More than five times, and there’s a risk you start thinking it’s love.’
Don’t put on airs just because you’re fucking a doctor, Malin thinks. Don’t try acting the tease with me, Katarina Fagelsjo. I’m far too tired to put up with that.
‘Did you have any dealings with Petersson?’ Zeke asks.
‘None at all,’ she says hesitantly, before carrying on in a firm voice: ‘Fredrik and Father looked after all that. Why?’
‘The sale of the castle,’ Malin says. ‘You weren’t opposed to it?’
‘No. It was time. It was simply time to sell up. Time for the family to move on.’
