Paul Boglov puts his glass down on the draining board.
Outside the Lord of Rain is in full command, the day dark even though it is only just midday.
They walk quickly around the castle. The chapel is located alone and abandoned on the edge of a dense forest of fir trees.
A key in the philistine’s hand.
Icons, Paul Boglov thinks. I wonder if Jerry Petersson had as much taste when it came to them?
‘Looks like it’s unlocked,’ the philistine says.
And they open the doors to the chapel.
They glide open slowly, creaking.
A dull light through glassless openings.
And they both let out an endless scream when they see what’s lying there naked, almost draped across the raised slabs marking the site of the Fagelsjo family vault.
50
Death has no smell here. The stench of decay that meets Malin doesn’t come from the corpse, but from the forest surrounding the chapel.
The ground is waterlogged, but doesn’t seem able to flood.
Fredrik Fagelsjo’s body is naked.
Malin knows it is, even though it’s already lying on a trolley in a black bag designed for the purpose: transporting and concealing corpses.
She’s standing at the entrance to the Skogsa chapel, trying to escape the rain that the wind is driving towards her, looking at the gilded pictures of Christ on the walls, the haloes around the head of the Son of God, a halo that no one yet living seems to possess this autumn.
The vultures are being kept at a distance. She could see the expectation in their eyes as she walked past them. Their little Blackberries ready for notes, the starved cameras, their instincts aroused, finally something has happened again. Daniel isn’t there. Perhaps he’s on his way.
Sven Sjoman and Zeke beside her, silent and focused, thoughtful.
Fredrik Fagelsjo.
Murdered. Like a sacrifice on the family vault.
An autumn sacrifice.
But for what? And by whom?
The three detectives want to take the connection to Jerry Petersson’s murder for granted, but know that they can’t. No stab wounds this time, but a clear message nonetheless: a naked body on a grave.
They have to keep all their options open in the investigation, there’s no guarantee that the two murders are linked just because they almost share a crime scene, or because the victims have a shared history. Who knows what meandering pathways violence takes? Malin thinks. Dead ends, dark and lonely. The methods are clearly different, but it’s a myth that a murderer always kills in the same way.
The solicitor and the art expert.
They were in quite a state when Malin, Sven and Zeke arrived an hour or so ago, but they had had the sense not to go too far inside the chapel, before pulling back cautiously from the immediate vicinity.
The reason why they were there was obvious. And they hadn’t seen or heard anything.
No reason to detain them.
Karin Johannison and her two male colleagues from the National Forensics Lab are searching the scene, looking for fingerprints, picking up things invisible to the naked eye and putting them in plastic bags.
Karin, on the subject of Fredrik Fagelsjo once his body had been put inside its black plastic bag: ‘He appears to have died from a blow to the head. The wound looks like it could have been inflicted by a hammer. It struck him cleanly, so it isn’t possible to say if the perpetrator is right- or left-handed. No other obvious signs on the body, no violence against the genitals as far as I could see from a quick look.’
‘Was he murdered here or moved here?’ Malin asked.
‘In all likelihood he was moved here. There are definite signs of blood by the entrance. Even if his clothes are missing, I think he was undressed here. The fibres we’ve just found on the floor look like the ones I found on the body when I first checked it.’
‘So murdered somewhere else, but undressed here?’
‘Probably, yes.’
‘What about why he was brought here to the chapel, to this grave?’
‘Memorial stone.’
‘Same thing. What do you think about that?’
‘That’s not my area, Malin. I don’t think anything.’
‘And the way he was killed?’
‘It must have been a very hard blow.’
‘In anger?’
‘Maybe. But the murderer didn’t lose control, because then you’d expect more than one blow.’
And now Karin Johannison makes a sign to her colleagues.
The two men carry Fredrik Fagelsjo’s body out of the chapel.
What are you trying to say? Malin thinks as they pass her.
What do you want to tell us?
The family vault in front of her.
Fredrik Fagelsjo gambling away the fortune, the family estate. Is this your father Axel and your sister Katarina getting revenge? But why would they do it now, when the family has just inherited a lot of money and in all likelihood will be able to buy back the estate from Jerry Petersson’s father? Or was it the family that got rid of Petersson and now had to get rid of Fredrik because for some reason he can’t keep quiet or knows too much?
Or is this something else entirely? Does Fredrik have any connection to Goldman? It feels like a hell of a long shot. Or did Fredrik play a bigger part in the tragedy of that New Year’s Eve, did he do more than just arrange the party? Or has Fredrik been murdered because he murdered Jerry Petersson?
Why is all this happening now? If Jochen Goldman is somehow behind it all, it may simply be because he hadn’t got around to it before now. Who knows how much someone like that might have to tidy up from his past? Maybe he’s sent a lot of people to the bottom? Sent a lot of photographs?
Unless these murders aren’t connected at all? What enemies did Fredrik have? The tenant farmers?
Jerry, Fredrik. Did anyone have a reason to hate both of you?
The icons on the walls seem to glow, as if encouraging her to carry on.
In spite of the cold and rain, in spite of all the crap, Malin feels her brain starting to work again, trying to make sense of the possibilities presented by a double murder.
Her detective’s soul kicks in again.
There are no doubts, no grief any more. Just focusing on a mystery that needs to be solved.
‘Shall we go inside the house and run through what we’ve got?’
Sven’s voice doesn’t sound tired, but expectant, as if his police officer’s soul has come to life.
‘Good idea,’ Zeke says, turning away from the scene of violent death.
Malin, Zeke and Sven are standing in the castle kitchen going through the options, everything that Malin thought out in the chapel, and a few more possibilities besides.
‘Different methods,’ Sven says. ‘But I still think we’re dealing with the same murderer.’
Malin nods.
‘There are too many connections between the murders. The location, the victims’ histories. I’d be astonished if it weren’t the same perpetrator.’
‘Maybe the first murder was committed out of rage, and the second planned?’ Zeke ponders.
‘Unless Fredrik committed the first murder and was himself murdered in revenge,’ Sven says. ‘We simply don’t know. But the chances are that we’re dealing with one and the same murderer.’
