Åke Edwardson - The Shadow Woman

“Thanks for your help.”

“If this solves the case, then we want credit.”

“Of course.”

“Chief Walter Kronvall of the traffic department provided the crucial assist. Something like that.”

“Here at homicide we don’t forget our friends,” Winter said, then hung up and lingered next to the timetable.

He thought once again about the woman who just a short time ago lay so close by and had been carried there like a slaughtered animal. A victim-and perhaps quarry. Her nameless body was itself a message about what happened. Why? He thought of her half-open mouth and exposed teeth. Like a silent plea. A distant cry.

Winter drove back to the area where the woman was discovered. The grass in the ditch still looked flattened from the weight of her body. He turned around and followed his own tracks with his gaze. It was a long way to carry someone, dead or alive. A dead body was heavy but offered no resistance.

Whoever carried her need not have been a giant. Fear of discovery could make a murderer strong, assuming that he even cared, that is. Or had several people walked there in the sparse light of dawn? More people filled with madness, rage, adrenaline.

She could have been carried over the rough fields, through the fog. Why not?

The police tried to work their way through the terrain within a reasonable radius, but they couldn’t go stomping around haphazardly. If there were too many of them, everything became haphazard.

A shot made Winter start. Another shot shattered the early afternoon silence of the forest and disturbed the low drone of the cars driving alongside. The hard sounds sent echoes above the birch trees and across the water beyond. The shooting ranges were back in use.

“And the sun also rises,” Ringmar said, knocking on the open door before Winter had had a chance to wring his shirt dry.

“I like the sun.”

“When you’re ready, the gentlemen of the press are waiting.”

“It’ll have to be quick. I want to look at these tapes as soon as I’m done.”

Winter explained the videocassettes to Ringmar as they walked down the corridors. The representatives of the media looked like they were on their way to the beach: shorts, thin shirts, someone in sunglasses. Cool guy, Winter thought, and took his place in front of a lectern at the far end of the room.

“We don’t know who she is yet,” he answered to the first question. “And we may need your help to find that out.”

“Do you have a photo?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hans Bülow from the Göteborgs-Tidningen was one of the few journalists Winter knew by name.

“We’ve taken photos of the victim’s body. We don’t usually release pictures like that to the public, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“But if you have to?”

“We’ll get back to you on that.”

“But she was murdered?”

“I can’t answer that yet. It could be suicide.”

“So she took her own life and then drove out to Delsjö Lake and lay down in a ditch?” said a woman from the local radio news.

“Who said anything about her dying anywhere else?” he said.

The woman looked at Hans Bülow out of the corner of her eye. The latest issue of GT had an article that speculated about what might have happened.

“We have not yet been able to determine the exact sequence of events leading up to the… death,” Winter said.

“When will we know whether she’s been murdered?”

“Later this afternoon I will be getting a report from the medical examiner.”

“Are there any witnesses?”

“I can’t comment on that.”

“How was the body found?”

“We received a call.”

“From a witness, you mean?”

Winter made a gesture with his arms that was open to interpretation.

“Is she Swedish?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you know what she looks like, right? Does she appear to be of Swedish or Nordic origin? Or does she look like she comes from somewhere else?”

“I can’t speculate on that yet.”

“If she doesn’t look Nordic, then it’s gotta make it easier to speculate where in Gothenburg she may have lived,” said a young journalist that Winter hadn’t seen before, as far as he could remember.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you know where all the immigrants live?”

Winter didn’t answer. He thought of the northern suburbs and thought that that was an oversimplification.

“Any more questions?”

“How old would you say she is?”

“Obviously, we’re not sure about that either. But maybe around thirty.”

The journalists wrote, held microphones. A summer murder in Gothenburg.

“What are you doing now?”

“An extensive investigation was launched early this morning. We are securing evidence at the site where the body was found and focusing our efforts on identifying the victim,” Winter said.

“When did it take place?”

“What?”

“The murder. Or the death. When did it happen?”

“It’s hard to say right now. But sometime late last night. I can’t be any more precise than that.”

“When was she found?”

“Early this morning.”

“When?”

“At around four.”

“Have you spoken to people who were in the vicinity at that time?”

“We are seeking to question anyone who may have seen anything. Anyone who thinks they may have seen something is invited to contact the police.”

“How about motive?”

“Impossible to answer that right now.”

“Was she raped?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Are there any similarities here?” asked Hans Bülow.

“How do you mean?”

“Are you looking into any other cases, either here or elsewhere, that bear a resemblance to this one?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that, due to the ongoing investigation.”

“So the victim was not already known to the police?”

“I think I just said that we don’t know her identity.”

“Is that usual?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is it usual for the identity to be unknown? I mean, after this long.”

“It’s been,” Winter looked at his watch, “less than twelve hours since we found her. That’s not a long time.”

“Sure it’s a long time,” the journalist in the sunglasses said.

“Any more questions?” Winter asked, knowing that the cool guy was right.

IT RAINED ALL DAY AND SHE SAT AT ANOTHER WINDOW. THE MEN weren’t there. She was scared but she was more scared when the men were there. She had cried out once in the car, and one of them had looked like he was about to hit her. He hadn’t done anything, but he looked like somebody who hits.

This house was somewhere else; she could see that the trees outside were different. There were no other houses and nobody walking along the road. She couldn’t hear the sound of any cars or trains. Once she heard a rumbling overhead that could have been an airplane.

If there were a phone, she could lift the receiver, press the buttons, and speak to Mommy. She knew how.

Maybe the men were out looking for Mommy. They had driven off and come back and driven off and come back again. Now one of them was gone, and the other was also gone, only he hadn’t left in the car. She thought that he was in another room, but then she saw him outside the house. It was just a short distance between the house and the forest, and he came out of the forest and looked right at her through the window, and she crawled down from the chair and went in toward the room because she thought it was scary.

She was lying on the floor the next time she thought about anything. She felt sort of sleepy in her head, and there was a strange smell in the room. She looked around, and there was steam rising from a dish on the floor.