The phone in her hand shaking. The living room of the flat dark, as if darkness could subdue her nerves.
I’m scared, nervous about calling my own daughter. I’ve spent two days being scared to talk to her. Is that really true?
The third ring cuts off. Crackling. Fragments of a voice.
‘Tove? Is that you?’
‘Mum!’
‘I can hardly hear you, the line’s really bad for some reason.’
‘I can hear you.’
‘Hang on, I’ll go over to the living-room window, you know reception’s a bit better there.’
‘OK, Mum, go to the window.’
‘There, can you hear me any better now?’
‘I can hear you better now.’
‘Are you coming over this evening?’
‘It’s already evening, Mum. I’m out at Dad’s.’
‘So you’re not coming?’
‘It’s a bit late.’
‘Maybe tomorrow, then.’
‘I’ve arranged to meet Filippa tomorrow. We’re going to the cinema. Maybe I could stay over afterwards?’
‘I think I’ll be at home. But you’ve probably read in the paper about the man who was found out at Skogsa. So I might have to work. But you’d be OK here on your own, wouldn’t you? I might have to come out to the house and pick up a few clothes and things.’
‘Let’s talk tomorrow, Mum.’
Then Tove hangs up, and Malin looks out of the living-room window, at the rain that seems to be trying to whip God out of the church over there.
Tove.
It’s as if there’s a great chasm between what I ought to do and what I’m actually doing. She wants to call Tove again, just to hear her voice, try to explain why she is the way she is, does what she does, but she doesn’t even know why herself.
And Tove wanted to end the call quickly, she didn’t pick up Malin’s remark about maybe picking some clothes up tomorrow.
Why?
Does Tove think I’m going to go back?
Could that be it?
Maybe she’s had enough of me? Is she holding back to protect herself?
In the gushing water in the gutter outside, bloated bodies float past. Shiny, covered in silvery drops, with teeth that glow white in the darkness.
Where do all these rats come from? Malin thinks. From the underground caves where we try to conceal all our human shortcomings?
Then she thinks about her conversation with Tove, how people can avoid talking about the things that matter to each other, even though the world they share is collapsing. How a mother and daughter can do this. How she herself has never even spoken to her own mother like that.
The rest of the day had been fairly hopeless for her and Zeke. There had been another press conference, in which Karim hadn’t given the vultures anything at all.
But Lovisa Segerberg, Johan Jakobsson and Waldemar Ekenberg had had a good day in their stinking strategy room.
In a way that struck Malin as miraculous, Lovisa had managed to dig out information that proved that the Fagelsjo family had indeed fallen upon hard times, and that was why they had had to sell Skogsa to Jerry Petersson.
They met up inside the windowless room full of documents and files. The entire investigating team, including Sven Sjoman and Karim Akbar.
It was almost four o’clock, and during the course of the day Waldemar had managed to injure his face in a way that none of them wanted to ask about. One eye was swollen shut and dark blue, and his cheek was vivid shades of blue and lilac.
‘I walked into a fucking lamp post when I was going to get cigarettes,’ Waldemar said, but everyone in the room knew that wasn’t true, and Malin thought that he’d finally been given a taste of his own medicine.
Waldemar looked considerably more worn out than usual when he declared: ‘Only two days into this investigation, and I’m already sick of this paperwork Hades.’
They had all laughed at the expression.
Paperwork Hades.
A kingdom of death for paper, and a hell on earth for police officers.
Malin had told them about her conversation with Jochen Goldman, how he had seemed almost amused by her call, then they had talked about Petersson’s father.
Then sudden seriousness when Lovisa started talking.
‘I’ve got hold of the records of transactions Fredrik Fagelsjo conducted at the Ostgota Bank during the year before last. Evidently he picked up a lot of stock options, risked a lot of money, and most of them went against him.’
‘And?’ Zeke asked, and Malin was glad he asked the question.
‘He lost a great deal of money. Far more than he invested. But the day after Skogsa was sold, the debts were all written off.’
‘So you’re saying that Skogsa was sold to cover up the mistakes?’ Karim said.
Lovisa nodded.
‘Probably, yes.’
‘So old Axel Fagelsjo can’t be very happy with his son,’ Malin said.
‘I doubt it,’ Lovisa said. ‘I can’t find any definite proof of it, but he might have had power of attorney to do what he wanted with the family’s money.’
‘He does work at the bank, after all,’ Sven said. ‘He’d have had plenty of opportunities to conduct his own affairs.’
‘Doesn’t that go against good banking ethics?’ Waldemar asked.
‘Only if you’re a broker yourself,’ Lovisa replied.
‘He’s an advisor,’ Zeke said. ‘It said so in the annual report.’
‘Well, now we know that it isn’t just a rumour that the Fagelsjos were in financial difficulties,’ Sven said. ‘That backs up our suspicions against Fredrik. Now we know for certain that he could have been angry, possibly even furious, that the family lost Skogsa, and maybe he took that anger out on Petersson. We also know that in all likelihood he was the reason the family lost the estate. Of course we’ll have to interview him about it tomorrow morning. But there’s not really any reason to question the other members of the family about this, is there? They’ve just been withholding the truth to protect the family name, and they’d probably just close ranks, so we’ll wait until we’ve got something more concrete. I know we all think they’re hiding a lot from us, but for the time being we’re just going to have to try to uncover their deepest secrets without actually talking to them. If we do find anything, then any future interviews will be all the more effective. And maybe Fredrik himself will reveal something. He might be softening up down there in his cell.’
And Malin thought of Fredrik Fagelsjo, maybe lying curled up on his bunk, alone, in the way that only a murderer can be alone.
But she has trouble believing that.
Then Sven again: ‘Have we dug out anything else?’
‘No,’ Waldemar said, and Lovisa and Johan agreed.
‘We’ll keep going with the tenancy agreements and the IT company. Petersson doesn’t seem to have had a will.’
