Summer Death: A Thriller by Mons Kallentoft

Author:Mons Kallentoft [Kallentoft, Mons]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9781451642544
Amazon: 1451642547
Goodreads: 16130425
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2008-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

32

The air-conditioning doesn’t reach all the way down here, not even the ventilation seems to be working, and the small windows out onto the yard may be open but the air they’re letting in is so hot that it doesn’t seem to contain any oxygen.

The gym in the basement of the police station.

One of Malin’s favorite places in the world.

Has to come down in spite of the heat.

Has to come down, even on a day like today when the gym is reminiscent of one of the outer circles of hell, and the freshly painted yellow walls are turning fiery orange because the salt of her sweat is clouding her sight.

Ten minutes on the treadmill just now.

Her white vest soaked through.

She thought she was going to faint.

Thinks about Nathalie Falck. Wants to talk to her again, but what could she say that wasn’t said last time? Time must be allowed to do its work. Time they don’t have.

One dumbbell in each hand, thirty-five pounds, up and down, up and down, fifteen reps, then rest.

The muscles in her upper arms are long and sinuous and stronger than they look.

I’m so exhausted in this heat that I feel like throwing up, almost. She’s done it before, thrown up in the vomit-green bin by the door of the gym.

Usually alone down here.

Most of the others use gyms down in the city.

But Malin likes the sense of being underground. Sometimes Johan Jakobsson keeps her company when he has time between school runs and feeling guilty about anything and everything. She can see how family life is draining him, how he’s starting to get wrinkles in his once so boyishly smooth forehead.

Tove.

I’m thirty-four.

I wouldn’t mind, I ought to have more wrinkles in my forehead. Even if I don’t like the ones I’ve got.

Shit.

I’m going to exercise away all the crap that this summer has brought with it.

Tove.

Home soon.

Janne. How can I miss you so, when it’s more than ten years since we last lived together?

I see you from a distance.

Your shortcomings pale, have paled over the years, haven’t they? Away from each other, we’ve grown together. Can love work like that?

* * *

Her lie about not being able to drive them to the airport. Skavsta, Ryanair to London, then a direct flight to Bali with some British charter airline.

Their farewell in the hall back home in the flat twelve days ago is like a scene in a film now, soundless, scentless. She and Janne reserved toward each other, all three of them oddly quiet, as if years of longing and loss suddenly became apparent there in the hall and the looming distance between them.

What could have been.

She hugged and kissed Tove, Janne, then the usual farewell phrases, the feeling that new ones were called for, a sort that people had never said before.

What do we do now?

That’s what she thought, and she noticed Janne’s clumsiness when he opened his mouth, saying:

“You should have come too.”

And at that moment she wanted to hit him, jump on him

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