Midwinter Sacrifice (36 page)

And now Malin is heading towards her car over in the car park, when her mobile rings.

She jogs back to the lobby, and, inside the chemical-scented warmth once more, pulls out her phone.

‘We were right. The Shipping Federation had it on its database.’ Johan Jakobsson sounds very pleased with himself.

‘So an M/S
Dorian
sank, and there was a Palmkvist on board who drowned?’

‘Exactly. He wasn’t among the men rescued in lifeboats.’

‘So some of them did survive?’

‘Yes, it looks like it.’

‘Thanks, Johan. Now I really do owe you one.’

Ruins.

And a lake where the ice seems to have settled for good. Malin takes her eyes off the road for a few seconds to glance at Lake Roxen. Cars driving along a ploughed path over the metre-thick ice slip across in relative safety, and on the other side of the lake, far off in the distance, smoke is streaming from the chimneys of postage-stamp-sized cottages.

Stjärnorp Castle.

It burned down in the 1700s, was rebuilt, and to this day is still the residence of the Douglas family, and it still reeks of money.

The castle could hardly be more gloomy. It’s a grey-stucco two-storey stone building with shrunken windows, facing a practically featureless courtyard flanked by unadorned outhouses. The ruins of the old castle slumber alongside, like a permanent reminder of how badly things can turn out.

The old people’s home is on the edge of the estate, just beyond the bend where the road finally disentangles itself from the forest and opens up to the view of the lake.

The three-storey building is whitewashed, and Malin estimates that there can’t be more than thirty old people living here, and how quiet it must be, only a few random cars driving past.

She parks in front of the entrance.

What sort of Hermansson figure am I going to run into here?

Then she thinks of that evening, how Tove has invited Markus to dinner; she hopes she makes it back okay. She looks up at the building, thinking, Weine Andersson, there’s a chance there may be a problem with dinner.

Weine Andersson is sitting in a wheelchair by a window with a view straight out over Lake Roxen.

When Malin reported at reception the elderly nurse seemed pleased at her visit. The nurse didn’t seem bothered, and certainly not annoyed, by the fact that Malin was a police officer on duty. Instead she said, ‘That’ll cheer Weine up. He doesn’t get many visitors.’ Then a pause: ‘And he likes young people.’

Young people? Malin thought. Do I still qualify as that? Tove’s a young person. Not me.

‘His right side is paralysed. A stroke. It hasn’t affected his speech, but he gets upset a lot.’

Malin nodded and went in.

The bald man in front of her has sailor’s tattoos on both hands. On the lame hand, supported by a sling, someone has etched an anchor, and filled in the rough outline with ink.

His face is wrinkled and the skin covered with liver-spots, one eye is blind, but the good one seems to make up for it in brightness.

‘Yes,’ he says, his eye firmly fixed on Malin. ‘I was on board that ship. I shared a cabin with Palmkvist. It would be going a bit far to say we were friends, but we came from the same parts so it was natural that we spent a lot of time together.’

‘He drowned?’

‘Off Cape Verde we got caught up in a storm. No worse than many others, but the ship was hit by a huge wave. We started to list and in just half an hour we had sunk. I swam for it and got into a lifeboat. We spent four days out in that storm before we were picked up by the M/S
Francisca
. We survived by drinking rainwater.’

‘Weren’t you frozen?’

‘It was never cold. Just dark. Not even the water was cold.’

‘And Palmkvist?’

‘I never saw him. I think he was caught in the galley when the first wave hit. It probably filled up with water straight away. I was on watch up on the bridge.’

Malin can see it all in front of her.

The ship lurches.

A young man wakes up with a jolt, then everything is black and the water rises, comes closer in the darkness, like a mass of octopus tentacles; she sees how the cabin door is shut tight from the pressure on the other side, how his mouth, nose, head are covered, and how he finally gives up. Inhales the water and lets himself sink into a soft mist where there is nothing but peace and a warmer darkness than the one he has just left.

‘Did Palmkvist know he was going to be a father?’

Weine Andersson can’t suppress a chuckle. ‘I heard those rumours when I got home. But I can tell you for a fact that Palmkvist wasn’t the father of Rakel Karlsson’s boy. He wasn’t interested in women in that way.’

‘He didn’t want children?’

‘Sailors, Inspector Fors. What sort of men used to become sailors in the old days?’

Malin nods, pauses for a moment before going on. ‘So who was the boy’s father if it wasn’t Palmkvist?’

‘I made it ashore afterwards. The third night in the storm, just when we thought it was easing, it started up again. I tried to hold on to Juan but he slid out of my grasp. It was night and it was dark and the wind was blowing like the worst night of winter. The sea was opening up for us, roaring out its hunger, it had us in its grip, it wanted to devour us, and even though . . .’

Weine Andersson’s voice cracks. He raises his healthy arm to his face, bows his head and sobs.

‘. . . even though I was holding on as hard as I could, he slid out of my arms. I could see the terror in his eyes, as he vanished down into the blackness . . . there was nothing I could do . . .’

Malin waits.

Lets Weine Andersson collect himself, but just when she thinks he’s ready for the next question, the old man in front of her starts to cry again.

‘I lived on,’ he says, ‘. . . alone after that, there was no other choice for me . . . I don’t think.’

Malin waits.

She watches the sadness draining out of Weine Andersson.

Then, without her having to ask, he says, ‘Palmkvist was concerned about the rumour about Rakel Karlsson. It started before we even set off. But I knew, and a lot of other people knew who fathered the child she was expecting.’

‘Who? Who was it?’

‘Have you ever heard of a man called Cornerhouse-Kalle? He was the father of her boy, and they say he was the one who beat Blackie so he ended up in the wheelchair.’

Malin feels a warm glow course through her body. A warmth that is icy cold.

55

Ljungsbro People’s Park, early summer 1958

See the way he moves.

Tense muscles, dark eyes.

How the others shy away, how they steer their bodies aside instinctively when he comes with her, her and her or her.

How unending he is, Kalle.

How the sweet smells of the summer evening mingle with the sweat of the dancers’ bodies, weekly toil being driven out, the expectations of the flesh, the blood coursing through the body, making it tender with longing.

He’s seen me.

But he’s waiting.

Warming up his dancing so that he’s ready. Stand up straight, Rakel, stand up straight.

The band on the stage, the smell of sausages and vodka and lust. One, two, three . . . most of the others fat with the chocolate they eat from the conveyor belt, but not you, Rakel, not you. You’re plump in all the right places, so stand up straight, stick out your breasts just for him as he dances past with her or her.

He’s the beast.

Raw lust.

He’s violence. The directionless, original blow, the one who doesn’t know what flight is, the one who stands firm, obstinate, the one who has no voice or place in chocolate-land.

And tonight Kalle will dance with you, Rakel. Imagine, dancing with Kalle . . . Tonight it will be Rakel dancing the last dance with Kalle, the one who gets to smell the sweat on his shirt.

Then there is a break. The human mice stream into the evening; coloured lanterns and queues for sausages, quarter-bottles emptied, motorcycles over near the entrance, the almost tough guys and their broads, and Kalle walking past the queue, licking the mustard from the sausage and swallowing; the chocolate-fat girl by his side sways and now he sees me, breaks free from her and walks towards me but not yet, not yet. I turn round, head for the toilets, force my way into the Ladies and all the while I feel his steps, his eager, dark breathing behind me.

Not yet, Kalle.

I strut for no man.

‘Democratic dance’, says the sign. Men asking women to dance, women asking men.

And the women are at him, the man. The only one in the room who deserves the title.

But he denies them.

Looks over at me.

Shall I? I strut for no man. Then he is dancing again, it is someone else’s body in his arms but it is me he is leading across the dance floor.

Now it is the gentlemen’s turn to ask.

I turn down him, him, him and him.

Then Kalle comes.

I am pressed up against the wooden panelling.

He takes my hand. He doesn’t ask, takes it, and I shake my head.

He pulls me out.

But no.

‘Dancing, Kalle,’ I say, ‘is something you’ll have to do with all those common chocolate girls.’

And he lets go of my hand, catches her beside me and then round, round, until the music falls silent and I am standing by the entrance to the park and see him walking, see him pass arm in arm with her, her or her.

Kalle, I whisper, quietly so no one hears.

I linger, the sound of disappearing motorcycle engines, of drink fading into dreams and headaches. Lanterns are extinguished, the band pack their things in the bus.

I know you’re coming back, Kalle.

The canal is rippling quietly, it’s black now, night, and not starlit; high above veils of cloud have swept in across the sky and are hiding the light of the stars, the moon.

How much time has passed?

An hour?

You’ll come.

Are you finished with her, Kalle?

Because there you come, rounding the bend and you look so slight as you leave the yellow wooden façade of the bridge-keeper’s cottage behind you.

But you’re no boy.

That’s not why I’m waiting here in the damp, gentle cool of a June night, that isn’t why I feel so warm, so warm as you grow larger before my eyes.

Your shirt is unbuttoned.

The hair on your chest, your black eyes, all the power in your body directed at me.

‘So you’re still here.’

‘I’m still here.’

And you take my hand, lead me along the road, past the newly built villas and lead me off to the left along the forest track.

What do I think will happen?

What am I expecting?

Your hand.

Suddenly it is unfamiliar. Your smell, your shadow are unfamiliar. I don’t want to be here, in the forest. I want you to let go of my hand.

Let go.

But you squeeze even tighter and I follow you into the darkness, Kalle, even though I no longer know if I want to.

You’re panting.

Talking about drink, muttering words and your smells mingle with the forest’s; it’s full of life but also of decay, of things that disappear.

Let go, let go.

I say the words now. But you pull me on, you tug and you drag and you are strong, you are just as raw as I expected.

Are you a lion? A leopard? A crocodile? A bear?

I want to get away.

I am Rakel.

Over-confident.

Panting.

Then you stop, black bands around us, and you turn round and I try to pull away but you catch my arm, pick me up, and there is no humanity in what you are. Gone is the light, gone is the dream.

Quiet, whore. Quiet.

And I am down on the ground now, no, no, no, not now, not like this and you hit me on the mouth and I scream but all I can feel is the taste of iron and something hard and powerful and long forcing its way upwards.

There, lie still now, here comes Kalle.

The ground cuts into me, burning.

Was this what I wanted so badly? Longed for?

I am still Rakel, and I strut for no man.

Kalle.

I can be like you, only sly.

You are breaking me, but I no longer protest, I lie nicely and it’s odd how I can shrink this moment to nothing.

I break, I was broken and your weight means I can’t breathe, but even so, you don’t exist.

Then you’re done.

You get up. I see you fasten your trousers, hear you mutter, Whore, whore, they’re all whores.

Branches snap, you stumble, mumble, then the silence tells me you are gone.

But the night has just begun.

The darkness condenses around my midriff, two hands stretch up into the air, break through the clear, shimmering film and decide that here, here there will be life.

I feel it even then.

That in me is growing all the pain and torment of what it means to be human.

I crawl on the wet ground.

The branches writhe, the tree trunks mock, the twigs, leaves, moss eat me.

I huddle down. But then I get up.

Stand up.

And my back is straight.

56

Monday evening; Tuesday, 14 February

‘Let’s shake hands.’

Markus holds out his hand and Malin takes it. His grip is firm and decisive, has direction but is still not painfully hard.

Well-drilled, Malin thinks, and sees a man in a doctor’s white coat standing and practising handshakes with what is to be the perfect son.

‘Welcome.’

‘Thanks for inviting me.’

‘I don’t suppose we have as much space as your family,’ Malin says, throwing out her arm in the little hallway and wondering why she feels the need almost instinctively to make excuses in the company of Tove’s boyfriend.

‘This is lovely,’ he says. ‘I’d love to live so close to the centre.’

‘You’ll have to excuse . . .’

Malin wants to bite her lip, and then falls silent, but realises that she has to finish the sentence.

‘. . . the fact that I got a bit cross last time we met.’

‘I would have done as well,’ Markus says with a smile.