legislation covering the subject in Sweden. A lot of men who pay for sex could actually get almost any woman they wanted. But they’re still drawn to undemanding, simple sex, free from any romantic entanglement.
‘The people we’ve spoken to only knew him professionally. He seems to have been careful to keep his private life private,’ Johan says.
A loner, Malin thinks. An eccentric loner in the biggest fucking castle in Ostergotland. But no one, no one wants to be alone. Do they?
‘He wasn’t married,’ Sven says. ‘Could he have been homosexual?’
‘We don’t know,’ Malin says. ‘Have we spoken to Petersson’s father?’ she goes on. ‘He might know something. About Petersson’s sexuality, and a lot of other things besides.’
‘No,’ Sven says. ‘He’s only been informed of what’s happened so far. Malin, you and Zeke get on with that once you’ve tried calling Jochen Goldman.’
‘So soon?’ Zeke says. ‘His son only died yesterday.’
‘We can’t afford to wait.’
Malin nods in agreement.
Thinks with distaste about the coming visit. If there’s anything that’s hard to stomach when you’ve got a hangover, it’s the smell of incontinence pads and catheters.
Aleryd Care Home.
The last stop on the line. Maybe he’s even in one of the dementia wards?
‘What else?’
Sven’s voice, alert.
‘Malin, anything?’
He’s looking at her with an expression that says he knows how hungover she is, but that he’s not going to let it affect her work.
She shakes her head.
‘We spoke to a Linnea Sjostedt,’ Zeke goes on. ‘An old lady who lives in a cottage on the Skogsa estate. She threatened us with a shotgun when we stopped to talk to her.’
‘She did what?’ Sven says, and Malin sees Waldemar grinning.
‘Yes, she seemed scared,’ Zeke says. ‘She said you never know what you’re going to get out there. Well, she’s right about that.’
‘She soon calmed down,’ Malin says. ‘She saw a dark vehicle leave the estate sometime late at night. Well, she thinks she did. She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or not.’
‘Dreaming?’
‘Yes, she says she has a bit of trouble distinguishing between dream and reality.’
Sven shakes his head.
‘What sort?’
‘She didn’t know.’
‘We’ll have to make a note of it. What does Axel Fagelsjo drive?’
‘A black Mercedes,’ Malin replies.
A dark car.
She could have seen Axel Fagelsjo. Or Johansson and Lindman as they arrived, Malin thinks. Or someone else. One of the children? Maybe Katarina Fagelsjo has another car? Someone from Petersson’s past? Goldman?
‘Have we had any tip-offs from the public?’
Waldemar sounds hopeful.
But Sven shakes his head.
‘We’ll have to keep working on what we’ve got for now. And hope the general public comes up with something now it’s out in the media and Karim has put out an appeal.’
‘The
‘Anything we don’t already know?’ Sven asks.
Johan shakes his head.
‘We’re bound to get something about his business dealings,’ Lovisa says. ‘Even if it’s anonymous. That’s if there’s anything there.’
‘If he was a bit shady, then he could have had contacts in the underworld here in the city,’ Waldemar says. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to ask around among my contacts?’
‘You just want to avoid the paperwork,’ Sven says with a laugh. Then he’s serious again. ‘For the time being, you prioritise the paperwork, understood?’
Waldemar nods in response.
‘Malin,’ Sven goes on. ‘Call Goldman. See what he has to say, if that really is his number.’
Malin closes her eyes.
Fredrik Fagelsjo trying to run.
A body dumped in a moat. By Fredrik? Maybe, maybe not.
In some ways Petersson’s going to be left in the black water for ever.
Together with the dozens, maybe hundreds of other ancient souls, shackled in stone and time, Malin thinks. Caught in their own misfortune, their fate impossible to escape or come to terms with.
Loneliness runs like a red thread through human history, Malin thinks. It’s the underlying note of our stories.
22
Tenerife.
Like a poem, a sketch within Malin.
Scorched mountains, slumbering volcanoes, an eternally shining sun above a muddle of houses. Swaying palm trees, sunloungers in long rows along the beaches, pools casting glittering reflections on mutated liverspots, cancer forcing its way through the skin and on into the bloodstream, and in a few months the dreams are over, those dreams of eternal life in the sun.
Fraying pictures from her parents’ paradise.
The flat she knows her mother thinks is far too small, maybe that’s why she and Tove have only ever been invited out of politeness, because Mum thinks the place she’s found for herself in the sun is too meagre?
Maybe Mum just wants to be left in peace. Ever since I first learned the word I’ve had the feeling that you’re avoiding me, that you’re pulling away. Are you ashamed of something, Mum, but don’t want to admit it? Are you trying to avoid me so you don’t have to see yourself in the mirror? Maybe it’s OK to do that with grown-up children, but not the way you did with me when I was four, when I somehow worked out that that was what was going on.
And what would we say to each other, Mum? Malin thinks as she sits at her desk, surfing between various articles about Jochen Goldman.
On several sites he’s described as the worst conman in Swedish history. It still isn’t clear how many millions he got away with when they emptied the Finera Finance company of all its assets. And by the time it was uncovered, Jochen Goldman had fled the country and his bourgeois roots on the island of Lidingo, the wealthy enclave on the edge of Stockholm.
He managed to elude the police, and Interpol.
Jochen Goldman, seen in Punta del Este in Uruguay.
In Switzerland.
In Vietnam.
Jakarta. Surabaya.
But always one step ahead of the police, as if they didn’t want to catch him, or else he had his own sources inside the force.
