What do you call that?
Failed motherhood. Nothing more, nothing less.
‘Didn’t they speak to her on the phone while they were in Paris?’
Zeke sounds tired again, sluggish hoarseness audible in his voice.
They must be regretting their trip, Malin thinks.
‘Apparently not,’ Sven says. ‘The girl didn’t answer her mobile, and she didn’t answer the landline at home, but they didn’t think that was particularly odd.’
‘No?’
‘A bit stroppy, evidently. Often lost her mobile.’
‘And how long were they in Paris?’ Zeke asks.
‘They set off six days ago.’
‘So she could have been missing almost a week now?’
‘And the parents don’t have any idea where she could be?’
‘Not when I spoke to them.’
Sven Sjöman adjusts his shirt before going on.
‘We’ll prioritise the girl in the park, but you’d still better start by going out to Sturefors. Talk to the parents, calm them down, refer to the statistics, tell them she’s likely to turn up soon.’
Sven gives them the address.
Only a block away from the house in which Malin grew up.
The same district.
The same early 1970s dream. Pools in some gardens. Generously proportioned houses with wood and brick façades, mature fruit trees in neat, precious lawns.
She hasn’t been out there since her parents sold the house and bought the flat by the old Infection Park. They’re still in Tenerife, even though they usually come home for the summer. But, as her father explained over the phone: ‘This year we’re staying on. Your mum’s just started playing golf and is going on a course this summer. It’s cheaper to do it then than in high-season in the winter.’
‘I’ll water the plants, Dad. They’re in safe hands.’
In actual fact there were very few plants still alive in her parents’ flat now, and it was far from certain that even those would survive the summer. But what could they expect? It’s been a year since they were last home. What are they really keeping the flat on for? Suddenly Malin wants to be there, longing for the chill she always feels there. It would actually be quite pleasant right now.
‘And the media,’ Malin says. ‘What are we going to do about them? We can probably expect them to leap on the cases of Theresa and Josefin like bloodthirsty gnats.’
‘No doubt,’ Sven says. ‘But we’ll lie low. So far we don’t know that a rape has been committed, and it could be a while before they find out about the report of the missing girl, couldn’t it? Maybe we’ll get twenty-four hours’ grace. And we might actually need the help of the public, maybe with both cases. We’ll have to see how things develop. Refer any inquiries to me. I’ll take care of the jackals while Karim is away.’
‘He’s bound to come in,’ Zeke says. ‘If things really heat up.’
‘No question,’ Malin says, then her phone rings.
Her mobile is in front of her on the grey tabletop, and the signal coming from it is angry, intrusive, as if it wants to remind them that their conversation is nothing but theories, that it is time for a bit of harsh reality.
Malin looks at the number on the display.
Answers.
Listens.
‘You’ll have to take that up with Sven Sjöman. He’s looking after press inquiries over the summer.’
She passes the phone to Sven, raising her eyebrows with a sardonic smile.
‘It’s Daniel . . . Daniel Högfeldt from the Correspondent,’ she says. ‘He wants to know about the girl who was raped in the park and the missing girl from Sturefors, and if we suspect any connection.’
6
A connection?
One girl is missing.
One girl has been attacked, possibly raped, in the Horticultural Society Park. A long shot? Hardly. It’s not impossible. Time, and their work, will turn up any connections if they exist.
But for now they’re keeping an open mind, as the cliché has it. For now they’re staring out at the tarmac of Brokindsleden through the windscreen, the cycle path alongside the main road empty and the heat snakelike, scentless. The air seems to be utterly still, shimmering, low in oxygen. The wheat-fields have been flattened by the heat, as if an immense hot fist had pressed the plants back into the ground and said to them: Don’t think that your lives are possible, not this summer, this year will be a year of burning.
Zeke’s hands at the wheel of the Volvo.
Steady.
Like his son Martin’s hands on his hockey stick.
At the end of the season Martin received an offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he turned it down. His girlfriend is expecting a child and wants it to be born in Linköping. And the team’s main sponsors, Cloetta and Saab, joined forces and came up with a multi-million-kronor offer to persuade Martin to stay.
‘Now the lad’s rich,’ had been Zeke’s comment. ‘And he’ll get even richer if he moves to the States.’
And it had sounded as if Zeke wanted Martin to move, as if he’d had it up to here with ice hockey and glory and praise and money.
‘Ice hockey. What a fucking useless game.’
Malin had asked him what he thought about becoming a grandfather.
‘You must be excited, and proud.’ But Zeke had just muttered in reply. She had let the matter drop, once the baby was born he’d be beaming with joy, she was sure of that. The child would stroke his shaved head and say ‘prickle, prickle,’ and Zeke would love it.
Sturefors.
They are driving in silence, now approaching the edge of the small community.
Malin closes her eyes.
If the heat is scentless out there, what does the inside of the car smell like?
Air freshener and Aramis aftershave.
What do the gardens smell like now? What did they used to smell of?
Freshly mown grass.
A little girl’s feet moving over the blades of grass, drifting forward. Alone in the garden. It smells of Dad. Mum. I hear her shouting, following me through the house, complaining, and how Dad backs down and I want him to stand up for me, contradict her, let me know that I’m good enough.
And how he stands there limply next to Mum, his mouth open as she shouts at me, how his own hesitant protests disappear back into his mouth as she stubbornly carries on.
The wind in my hair as I cycle past the houses, along the streets on my way to school. My feet beneath me, feet pounding the jogging track.
This is a competition, everything is a competition.
And one night when you thought I was asleep, when I was lying outside your door, I remember it now, only now, in this air-conditioned car, I remember what you said, you said: She must never find out. This must stay a secret.
Mum’s sharp voice. The tone of someone who has never found her place in the world.
Dad, what is it that I must never know?
The boys’ football matches in the pitch behind the red-painted school-building. The red shirts of the home team.
Bodies, warm. The floodlights on. Bankeberg SK, Ljungsbro IF, LFF, Saab. All the teams, the boys, the girls alongside, under the covers down in the cellar, what if someone comes?
Lilac hedges. Wooden fences, stained green. Families trying to be families. Children who are children. Who go swimming, and who know that they will eventually follow in their parents’ footsteps.