Mons Kallentoft - Autumn Killing

‘So Jerry Petersson was being blackmailed,’ Sven says. ‘But who by?’

‘Jonas Karlsson?’ Waldemar says.

‘Maybe,’ Zeke says. ‘But he has an alibi for the night and morning when Petersson was murdered. We’ll check the handwriting, and see if there are any fingerprints on the letter. But who else could have known that Petersson was driving that New Year’s Eve? He was the only one who knew, and according to him he hasn’t told anyone.’

‘But Jonas Karlsson has admitted that he likes a drink. Maybe he told someone when he was drunk?’ Waldemar says, grinning pointedly at Malin.

‘Jochen Goldman,’ Malin says. ‘He knew. And he seems to like sending letters. Maybe he needed money. What do we know about his finances? Really? We’re just assuming he’s absurdly rich.’

‘What about the Fagelsjo family,’ Lovisa says. ‘Maybe they were trying to blackmail Petersson into moving out?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Sven says. ‘I’ve the call-logs for the Fagelsjos’ various phones. Nothing odd there. No calls to Jerry Petersson. I don’t think they’re behind this letter, it doesn’t feel like their style.’

‘Do you remember that Petersson got a couple of calls from a telephone box out at Ikea?’ Malin says. ‘Maybe those calls are connected with this?’

She thinks about Daniel Hogfeldt’s informant, calling from an unknown number. A telephone box? Difficult to prove without requesting Daniel’s call-log. And, because he’s a journalist, practically impossible.

‘We’ll get Forensics to look at the letter,’ Sven says. ‘Maybe they’ll find something. We’ll hold back on talking to anyone about this until they’ve finished, then we’ll have something concrete to go on if they find anything.’

‘I’d like to talk to Anders Dalstrom again, if that’s OK?’ Malin asks.

‘Why?’ Johan asks.

‘Just a hunch.’

Malin accelerates and changes gear, thinking that maybe she should have brought Zeke with her, but she wants to explore this hunch herself, follow it wherever it leads her.

Zeke didn’t protest, but she knows that Sven was assuming that they’d go together. If she’s getting close to something, she might be exposing herself to danger, but what the hell does that matter?

If you investigate murders, you’re always close to violence, but some things, some voices, can only be heard when you’re alone.

The rain that’s been falling on the way out stops when she arrives. The house in the forest looks abandoned, no light from the windows in the clearing containing the main building and workshop. The little clearing is actually a meadow, surrounded by dense mixed forest, and the whole site is reminiscent of a miniature Skogsa, but with the pomp and power replaced by subordination and a palpable fear of the horrors that could be lurking in the darkness of the forest.

Anders Dalstrom isn’t home, Malin thinks. Probably at work, in the old people’s home. But doesn’t he work nights?

She gets out of the car. Does up her black GORE-TEX jacket.

Anders Dalstrom’s red Golf is missing from the drive.

Malin goes over the gravel and up the steps to the porch, where she peers inside the house and looks at the posters on the walls.

Quiet out here in the forest.

He probably wishes he had a girlfriend, or a family. The failed folk singer, what must it have been like, having to watch Lars Winnerback’s success? Forty years old and working in an old people’s home. Not much of a career. Does composing music out here in the forest give you peace? Was that why you moved here? Or are you bitter about other people?

But where are you now? Malin thinks. I only want to ask you some simple questions.

She knocks on the front door, rings the bell, but there’s no sign of him.

She tries to look in through the other windows, but the curtains are drawn.

Oh well. The car’s not there, after all.

She turns around and looks out at the forest, wondering where Anders Dalstrom might be. In the workshop? She walks over, but the doors are closed. Open them? No. Or should I? No, that would be too intrusive.

She looks over at the forest again.

He’s watching her from the edge of the forest. The woman, the female detective. She’s on her own. Why? He thought they always travelled in pairs, for security. Why did she go over to the workshop? Does she think the Golf’s in there? It’s at the garage. Is she looking for another vehicle?

Should I rush over to her?

What’s she doing here, now? She ought to be looking elsewhere. But she’s probably just here to ask some questions?

Now she’s looking towards the forest, in his direction, and he ducks down, feels the wet fir needles and fallen twigs embrace him as long locks of hair fall over his eyes.

Did she see me? She can’t have seen me. And what’s she doing now? She seems to be taking a photograph of the sign on my door with her mobile.

Was that someone over there at the edge of the forest?

Malin isn’t sure, as she puts her mobile away. Anders Dalstrom could have been out in the forest hunting or picking mushrooms or something like that, and might now be on his way home. But he’s seen me and doesn’t want to talk to me.

Her pistol.

She’s got it with her. She showed it at the talk that morning, aware that the sight of a real gun always arouses the interest of teenagers.

Something green amidst all that grey.

She sets off towards the edge of the forest, crossing the waterlogged meadow, feeling her boots getting wet, but she wants to know what it was she saw.

Then a movement, something sliding away through the forest.

A person. A fox?

Impossible to tell. Malin pulls her pistol from its holster under her shoulder. Heads towards the forest, towards the darkness among the trees.

Anders Dalstrom is snaking through the forest, his long hair wet with rain.

She mustn’t see me. What’s she doing here? How could I explain why I’m trying to hide?

But he knows where he can go. There’s a fallen tree just twenty metres in, and its exposed roots have left a hole, invisible if you don’t know it’s there.

I’m slithering like the young snakes inside me now.

Soaking wet. And cold, but none of that matters. Down into the hole. Hope the roots don’t rock back into it. Into the hole, pull fallen branches over it. Stop breathing.

Where is he? Or whatever that was?

Malin checks the floor of the forest for tracks, but can’t make out anything; the rain has beaten all the vegetation on the ground into a pulp.

The forest is silent and empty, except for the sound of her own breathing and the wind blowing through the treetops.

A fallen tree ahead of her.

She walks towards it.

Has someone been there? Is someone there? Then some heavy raindrops hit the back of her neck. She looks up. An owl is flying between the fir trees high above.

I must have been wrong.

No one here.

When Anders Dalstrom hears Malin’s car start up and drive off, he carefully crawls out of his hiding place, hurries over to the edge of the forest and reassures himself that he’s alone again.

Then he runs over to the house.

He’s weighed up his options, trying to understand what’s happening, wishing it could still all be stopped, but at the same time wanting it all to be over, once and for all, for the snakes to be forced from his blood, to feel the calm that follows a raised hand.

The key in the lock.

Trembling hands.

It creaks and he thinks about oiling the lock, ought to have done so long ago.

The door opens and he runs into the living room and over to the gun cabinet.

He looks at the shotgun that he’s keeping here for Dad, the one Dad hasn’t been able to use for years, but which it would never occur to him to let his son use.

Malin is holding the wheel with one hand, and with the other she sends the photograph of the handwritten sign on Anders Dalstrom’s door to Karin Johannison.

‘Compare handwriting with blackmail letter. Asap. Call me when you know. MF.’

The rain fills the windscreen in front of her.

Soon she sees the silhouette of Linkoping ahead of her. The city seems to be sinking into its own sewers, a place that even the rats have abandoned.

Zeke is at his desk. His head slightly stubbly, black bristles sticking out in all directions like sharp quills.

‘Did you get anywhere?’ he asks as Malin sits down in her chair.

‘I don’t know,’ Malin replies. ‘Can you bear to hear what I’m thinking?’

‘I think so.’

Malin’s mobile buzzes. Karin? So soon.

The message on the screen glows up at Malin: ‘I’ll check at once. Karin.’

Zeke smiles.

‘From Karin?’

Malin smiles back.

‘How could you know that?’

‘Mysterious ways, Malin.’

‘Let’s get some coffee.’

They settle down at a corner table in the staffroom.

‘Well, let me start by saying that Christina Fagelsjo hasn’t managed to find Fredrik’s keys,’ Zeke says. ‘So it looks like he had them on him, and the murderer used his keys to open the chapel.’

Malin nods.

‘Anders Dalstrom,’ she goes on. ‘Andreas Ekstrom who died in the car accident was his only friend. He looked out for him, as Andreas’s mum put it. Think about it. It’s like his life stopped when Andreas died in the crash. What if he found out somehow that Jerry Petersson was driving? Maybe he met up with Jonas Karlsson in the pub and Karlsson told him the truth about that New Year’s Eve but couldn’t remember doing so afterwards? Unless he found out some other way. He might have accepted that it was an accident, but that would all have changed when he found out that Petersson was driving. Petersson was drunk, after all, which makes it a serious offence.’

‘So Dalstrom decided he wanted revenge?’

‘Well, possibly. Maybe he was bullied before Andreas turned up in his class. Maybe there’s a load of pent-up violence inside him that started to leak out? But he’d probably have preferred to blackmail Jerry Petersson for money. Maybe he went out to Skogsa that morning to put pressure on Petersson, and something went wrong and it got out of hand. And he ended up killing Petersson. What if Dalstrom felt that the violence made him feel stronger? That it gave him some sort of pleasure and he found he couldn’t stop once he’d started? That the aggression. .’

Zeke is looking sceptical, and says: ‘But why wait until now? Petersson had been living at Skogsa for eighteen months. And even if Karlsson only let the cat out of the bag fairly recently, Dalstrom doesn’t look like the vengeful type, Malin. He doesn’t seem energetic or courageous enough to blackmail anyone for money. Besides, I thought he seemed pretty good-natured.’

‘Maybe,’ Malin says. ‘But the victims of bullying, if that’s what he was, are often said to have a propensity for violence when they grow up. And what do we really know about him?’

Zeke nods.

‘That might be true,’ he says. ‘But what about Fredrik Fagelsjo? How do you explain that? Or was someone else responsible for his murder?’

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ Malin says. ‘What if Anders Dalstrom murdered Fredrik for the simple reason that he wanted to divert attention away from himself and towards the family instead? After all, they had good reason to be pretty upset with Fredrik. That might explain the call Daniel got from an insistent informant.’

‘So it’s Daniel now, is it?’

‘Shut up.’

‘OK. But what call?’