Mons Kallentoft - Autumn Killing

‘Is there anything you think I should know? About your business dealings? About Jerry?’

‘No. Surely you should do some of the work for yourselves?’

Goldman smiles.

‘So you didn’t decide to get your revenge in retrospect, you didn’t send a hitman?’

Goldman grins at Malin as if she herself were a hired killer, but a welcome, anticipated one.

He puts on his sunglasses and tilts his head so that the sharp sparkle of the jewels’ reflections hits Malin’s eyes and she has to squint.

‘Don’t bore me, Malin. You’re better than that. Anyway, if I did do that, I’m hardly likely to tell you.’

Malin turns her face to the sea.

Thinks about Tove.

Wonders what she’s doing now.

Thinks about Mum.

About Dad.

About the fact that he’s probably looking forward to her visit later that evening.

‘Take a walk with me,’ Goldman says. ‘Let me show you the grounds.’

She follows him down a steep flight of steps that winds down towards the beach.

He’s still wearing his swimming trunks, and his brown body shines in the sun as he tells her about the Spanish architect who designed the house, that he has also designed a house for Pedro Almodovar in the mountains outside Madrid.

Malin says nothing.

She lets Goldman talk, thinks that they’re out of sight of the gorillas now and that Gomez is probably still sitting up on the terrace talking into his mobile.

Goldman asks if she’s read his books, and she says no, then realises that she probably should have.

‘You haven’t missed anything,’ he says.

He jumps down onto the black sand of the beach, rushes down to the edge of the water so as not to burn his feet on the hot sand, and Malin sits down on the bottom step, takes off her canvas shoes, then runs down to the water as well.

‘Take your clothes off. Have a swim. I can get a swimming costume for you. You have no idea how wonderful it is to lie on this beach and feel the salt crystallise on your skin.’

‘I can imagine,’ Malin says, and against her will she wants to lie on this sand with him beside her, looking at him, at the misdirected energy that forms him.

Goldman throws a stone into the water. It bounces across the surface.

‘That stone,’ he says, ‘that’s what I felt like for ten years.’

‘Self-inflicted,’ Malin says. ‘And you were richly rewarded for it.’

‘You’re harsh,’ Goldman says.

‘A realist,’ Malin replies. ‘Did Jerry Petersson ever mention a car accident he was in once?’ she goes on.

Warm water between her toes, a little bubbling, frothing wave rolling over the black sand.

‘It was when he was in his late teens, people died.’

Goldman stops.

Looks at her, and she can’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but she realises that he is about to tell her what they came down to the beach for him to say, what she has unconsciously been expecting him to say if she treated him like an ordinary person.

‘He bragged about it once. One New Year’s Eve in Punta del Este. That he was the one driving the car, that he was drunk, but managed to persuade someone else who was sober to say he had been driving. Jerry was proud as punch about it.’

You’re babbling, Jochen .

What you told her about the accident, I have no memory of any New Year’s Eve in Punta del Este. Do I?

I see you standing on the terrace of your newly built castle looking out across the sea.

Of course I wanted to give you up.

Like a cowboy film, John Wayne on the run, escaping from the Apaches through a canyon on the border between Texas and Mexico.

I’m drifting away from you now, Jochen, leaving you there with your restlessness; you haven’t managed to escape that yet.

Swim a few more lengths of your shimmering black moat.

You should know that where I am now there’s no restlessness, only curiosity and fear and a thousand other feelings that I don’t know the names of. I don’t have to keep other people at a distance, I don’t need a moat.

I’m finally free from angst and shame.

But you aren’t, are you, Malin?

Malin looks at the hotel room.

It’s hot now, the air conditioning shut off automatically when she left, and the smell of mould is more noticeable. She’s taken all her clothes off and is lying on the bed wishing she’d been booked into a hotel with a pool, would love to feel cold water embrace her body.

Instead she looks at the grey-green patches of damp on the ceiling and waits for Zeke to answer his mobile.

It’s four o’clock, he ought to answer now.

And there comes Zeke’s hoarse voice in her ear.

‘Malin. What are you up to? How are you?’

‘I’m lying in the shabbiest hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.’

‘How’s the weather?’

‘Sun. Hot.’

‘Have you seen Goldman?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

Suddenly there’s agitated shouting from one of the bars, then disco music pumping out at full volume.

‘A disco?’

‘A bar full of prostitutes,’ Malin says.

‘Exotic,’ Zeke says.

‘I was about to say that Goldman claims Jerry Petersson was driving the car that New Year’s Eve, not Jonas Karlsson. According to Goldman, Jerry Petersson was drunk and persuaded Jonas Karlsson to say he was driving to avoid prosecution.’

Silence over the line.

‘Bloody hell,’ Zeke finally says. ‘Do you believe him? Or is he playing with us?’

‘Impossible to say. But we can use it. Put Jonas Karlsson under a bit of pressure.’

More screaming from the prostitutes.

‘Have you spoken to him yet?’

‘Yes. Jakobsson and Ekenberg went to see him. Now they can go and do it all over again.’

‘The Fagelsjo family?’

‘They claim they hardly remember the accident.’

‘They remember,’ Malin says. ‘No doubt about that.’

Zeke is silent for a moment, and Malin thinks about Gomez’s offer of a beer just now, and how she said no even though her body was shrieking for a cold beer, or preferably something even stronger.

But she resisted.

Then Zeke goes on: ‘Waldemar and Johan will have to talk to Jonas Karlsson again in the light of this new information. And we need to talk to the relatives of the others in the car. That’s still a possibility. Jonas Karlsson may have been trying to get money out of Petersson. One of the relatives might have found out the truth, and God knows what that could have stirred up. Stabbed forty bloody times.’

‘Talk to the Fagelsjos,’ Malin says.

‘Will do,’ Zeke says. ‘Fuck knows where this shit’s going to take us. Have you called home, to Tove?’

None of your business, Malin thinks. I haven’t wanted to call because Tove’s at school, isn’t she?

‘Never mind that now,’ Malin says. And hears how it sounds. ‘Sorry,’ she adds.

‘No problem, Malin,’ Zeke says. ‘But you have to realise that this case isn’t more important than your own daughter.’

Shut up, Zeke.

‘Someone’s knocking at the door,’ Malin says. ‘Probably housekeeping. I’ve got to go.’

Zeke hangs up.

No knock at the door, she just wanted to end the call.

Jerry, Malin thinks. Jerry. If it was you driving that night, you locked it away in a little black safe and threw away the key, didn’t you? Only took it out when you were having a pissing contest with Jochen.

I never take my secrets out, Malin thinks, because I don’t know what they are. And you, Jochen, you don’t want to know what your real secret is, do you? You think everything can be controlled, that you can make the world do whatever you want.