She goes into Anders Dalstrom’s bedroom. The blinds are closed and the room is dark and cold, damp.
A film projector has been set up on a bench, reels of film scattered across the floor, unrolled.
A film is sitting in the projector. Without thinking, Malin switches it on, and on the white wall she sees a boy moving across a grass lawn, running, screaming soundlessly as if he’s running from something, as if there’s a monster holding the camera, ready to catch him if he trips or runs too slowly.
Then the boy stops. Turns towards the camera, trying to look beyond its lens, cowering as if preparing to be hit, the black pupils of his eyes like little planets of fear.
The reel comes to an end.
Zeke has crept in behind Malin, put a hand on her shoulder and says: ‘I could have done without seeing the look in his eyes.’
They leave the room. In the living room, the computer screen is showing the online telephone directory, and Zeke reads out loud: ‘Axel Fagelsjo. 18 Drottninggatan. What the hell is he up to?’
‘Axel Fagelsjo,’ Malin says. ‘Do you think he’s going straight to what he thinks is the source of the evil? The man who beat up his father and turned him into an abusive parent?’
Zeke’s face is half illuminated by the glow of the screen, raindrops glistening on his head.
‘So you’re sure now?’
‘Yes, aren’t you?’
Zeke nods.
‘Should we call for back-up at Fagelsjo’s apartment?’
‘Yes, we’d better,’ Malin says.
‘I’ll call,’ Zeke says, and Malin hears him talking to the duty-desk, then he gets put through to Sven Sjoman.
‘We think it checks out,’ Zeke says, and Malin can hear him trying to sound urgent and factual. ‘Things have been moving quickly, we haven’t had a chance to call. Karin’s comparing the handwriting.’
Silence.
Probably a mixture of praise and cursing from Sven. They should have called earlier, once they found out that Sixten Eriksson was Anders Dalstrom’s father.
‘Who knows what he’s thinking,’ Zeke says. ‘He’s probably pretty desperate by now.’
Once they get outside again Malin heads over to the workshop.
The door is ajar. Zeke is right behind her.
Is he in there? She pulls out her pistol. Carefully kicks the door open with her foot.
An old, black Mercedes.
She peers inside. Silent, empty.
‘That could be the black car Linnea Sjostedt saw,’ Zeke says.
Malin nods.
The next minute they’re back in the car again.
Their speed seems to blur the forest and the rain into one single element. Is Anders Dalstrom already inside Axel’s apartment with him? Or is he somewhere else entirely?
Jerry Petersson.
Fredrik Fagelsjo.
Was it your arrogance that finally caught up with you? Your actions? Your vanity? Your fear? Or something else?
Sven Sjoman and four uniformed officers are inside the apartment on Drottninggatan. They picked the lock. The apartment is empty, no sign of Axel Fagelsjo, and no signs of a struggle.
Malin and Zeke arrive fifteen minutes later.
‘Good work,’ Sven says to Malin as they stand in the middle of the sitting room looking at the portraits on the walls. ‘Bloody good work.’
‘Now we just have to find Anders Dalstrom,’ Malin says. ‘And some concrete, conclusive evidence.’
‘We’ll find it,’ Sven says. ‘Everything points towards him.’
‘But where the hell is he?’ Zeke says. ‘And where the hell is Axel Fagelsjo?’
‘They’re together,’ Malin says. ‘I think they’ve been together much longer than either of them realises,’ she goes on. Thinks: if Axel Fagelsjo is in Anders Dalstrom’s hands, it’s my job to rescue him. But is it really worth me worrying about him? How can I have any sympathy for someone I find revolting in so many ways?
Then her mobile rings. Karin Johannison’s calm, assured voice at the other end: ‘The handwriting on the sign on the door and the blackmail letter are the same. The same person wrote the letter.’
67
There are no explanations.
They’re pointless, and no one can be bothered to listen to them.
But this is my story, listen to it if you want to.
Father.
Your one working eye behind the lens of the camera, you say the pictures will resemble the way you see the world, with no depth of perception, and without any real hope. Did I inherit your hopelessness, your diffidence about life?
You must have been the most bitter and frustrated person on the planet, and you took that anger out on me, and I learned to creep out of the way, to disappear from the flat in Linghem and stay away until you calmed down.
People would see me, and there was talk about how you beat me and Mum because of your bitterness about your lost eye, your agony.
I saw you, Father, behind the camera, and I would run to you in spite of your anger, but I hesitated, instinctively, and I took that hesitancy with me in my dealings with other people.
At school I was alone at first, then they started getting at me, and none of the teachers could be bothered to care. They hunted me, hit me, mocked me, and I would shrink into the corners. One day, in year 4, they pulled my clothes off and I ran across the playground naked through the snow, and they chased me in front of a thousand eyes, and they kicked me when I fell.
They pulled me into the school building.
They forced my head into a toilet full of excrement and urine.
They did this over and over again and in the end I didn’t even try to escape. They could do what they liked, and my subordination made them even angrier, wilder, more bloodthirsty.
What had I done? Why me?
Because of the slouched shoulders you gave me, Father? The ones we have in common?
Stop, someone shouted one day, and then a muscular, confident frame was attacking the hunters, hitting them, giving them nosebleeds, shouting: ‘You’re not going to attack him again. Ever.’
And they didn’t.
I had finally gained an ally.
Andreas. Recently moved in from Vreta Kloster.
On his very first day at school he made me his. I’ve never understood why he wanted to be my friend, but maybe that’s just what friendship is like; just like evil, it suddenly shows up where you least expect it.
I lived through Andreas during those years, and his family would sometimes open their home to me, I remember the smell of fresh-baked buns and raspberry syrup, and his mother who used to leave us alone. What we got up to? The things boys do. We turned our little world into a big one, and I never really came home any more. You couldn’t reach me, Father, thanks to Andreas.
Your bitterness didn’t get hold of me, unless it actually did after all? Yes, it had probably already taken root.
You hit me, and I tried to make my way to whatever I thought was beyond the beatings, to what had to exist
