Åke Edwardson - The Shadow Woman

“It takes you back to square one in that case, doesn’t it?”

“Appreciate the insight.”

Winter stared down at his desktop. It had been polished till it shone, as if the office cleaner had made an emergency visit when it was clear he was coming back early. His hair looked, in the veneer, like a thick circle of thorns around his face. He grasped at the packet of cigarillos in his breast pocket and lit up a Corps; then he dropped the match and it singed him on the thigh. Ringmar had noticed his shorts but not said anything.

“If they’re from around here, we’ll find them,” Ringmar continued.

“You believe in the good guys? Our informants?”

“I believe that the good guys among the bad guys are going to lead us to the bad guys.”

“The worse guys,” Winter said, “to the worst guys.”

“Aneta’s friend thinks she would recognize one of those three scumbags,” Ringmar said.

“Did they brandish any Nazi symbols or other fascist crap?”

“Nope. Just good ol’ regular guys.”

Winter tapped his cigarillo into the palm of his hand. The ashtray had apparently been stolen while he was away.

“Other witnesses?”

“A thousand or more, but only a few of them have gotten in touch since we issued our request for information. And they’re not sure what the guys looked like.”

“Somebody will call, just when you least expect it,” Winter said, and then the telephone rang. He lifted the receiver from its usual spot on the right side of the desk and mumbled his name to the desk sergeant.

Ringmar saw how he listened, brow furrowed and shoulders hunched forward, as he said a few short words and hung up.

“A guy who followed them is on his way over,” Winter said.

“No shit. Why hasn’t he been in touch before?”

“Something about having to take his kid to the ER in the middle of the night.”

“Where is he?”

“Like I said, on his way. Speaking of which, I was up at Sahlgrenska Hospital to look in on Aneta. I met Fredrik on his way out of her room. His eyes were all red.”

“Good,” Ringmar said.

THE BACK OF THE CHAIR HAD LEFT A DAMP IMPRESSION ON Winter’s back, and he gave a shiver as he stood beneath the air conditioner at the window. The patches of cold inside made the summer look cold and gray through the windows that couldn’t be opened. Since the sky seemed undecided, the grass at Old Ullevi Stadium was under fire from water cannons.

He thought about Aneta Djanali and clenched his right hand. Whenever he considered what had happened to her, he felt… violent. The violence became part of him, a sudden sensation. A primitive urge for revenge, perhaps, and a little beyond that. He had returned to his violent world abruptly.

Ringmar was still seated, looking at him without speaking. He’s fifteen years older than I am, and he’s started waiting for a better world, Winter thought. When his last day here is finished, he may take the boat out to his cabin on Vrångö, never to return.

“What’s that supposed to mean, the thing on your shirt?” Ringmar asked. “ ‘London Calling.’ ”

“It’s the name of a record by a rock band. Macdonald sent it to me.”

“Rock? You don’t know anything about rock, do you?”

“I’ve listened to one rock band. The Clash. Macdonald sent me the album together with the T-shirt.”

“The Clash? What is that?”

“It’s an English word meaning violent confrontation.”

“I mean the band. Can you tell the difference between hard rock and pop?”

“No. But I like this.”

“I don’t think so. Coltrane is your man.”

“I like it,” Winter repeated. “It was recorded back when I was nineteen or something, and yet it’s timeless.”

“Hard rock, you mean,” Ringmar said.

The witness arrived.

The man gave his account. The skin of his face was taut and looked brittle after a night without sleep. His little girl had suffered a severe allergic reaction that had nearly ended tragically.

Winter said something.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. My mind blanked out there for a second.”

“You said that you were walking behind the men.”

“Yes.”

“How many were there?”

“Three, like I said.”

“Are you sure they were together?”

“Two of them waited while the third-the guy who hit her-they waited for him before moving on together.” The witness ran his hand across his eyes. “I remember that the guy doing the hitting was smaller.”

“He was shorter?”

“It looked that way.”

“And you followed them?”

“As far as I could. Everything happened so damn fast-afterward. I sort of went into shock, couldn’t move. Then I thought, ‘This is heinous. ’ And I followed after them to see where they went, but there were so many people on the square, and then my cell phone rang and my wife started screaming that Astrid couldn’t breathe. That’s our little girl.”

“Yes,” Winter said, and looked at Ringmar, who had children. Winter didn’t have children, but he had a woman who said she didn’t want to wait any longer for him to become mature enough to take responsibility for a child. Angela said that yesterday, before going home to her mother’s to fine-tune her biological clock. When she gets back, Winter had mused as she was leaving, I guess she’ll tell me what time it is.

“It all turned out all right,” the man said, mostly to himself. “Astrid’s going to be okay.”

Winter and Ringmar waited. The air in the room flowed back and forth, past a man dressed in the same shorts and tennis shirt he’d worn the night before. His chin had a thin shading of stubble and his eyes were craters sunken into his skull.

“We appreciate you coming by right after the accident,” Winter said. “From the hospital.”

The witness shrugged his shoulders. “There are so many people who do nothing,” he said. “Going around beating people up. It really makes me angry.”

Winter and Ringmar waited for him to continue.

“It’s like at work, with all that damn talk about immigrants, as if it’s become politically correct to talk about how there are too many immigrants and refugees and blacks in the country.”

“Where exactly did you lose sight of these three men?” Ringmar asked.

“What?”

“The ones who assaulted our colleague. Where exactly did they disappear?”

“When we reached the indoor market, the one sort of facing Kungsportsplatsen. Before you enter the square.”

“Did you hear them say anything?”

“Not a word.”

“You didn’t get any sense of where they were from?”

“Somewhere south of hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“Nothing more precise.”

“No. But they were Swedes, real Swedes you might say.”

They asked him to describe the men’s appearance, which he did.

Once the witness left the office, Winter lit up another cigarillo and dropped ash onto his naked thighs. “Did you notice that Aneta was a refugee in this guy’s eyes?” he said.

“How do you mean?” asked Ringmar.

“People are always going to be looked upon differently for one reason or another, generation after generation. Regardless of where they were born.”

“Yeah.”

“Space refugees.”

“What?”

“There’s an expression for those who journey from country to country without ever being allowed into any of the paradises. They’re known as space refugees.”

“That’s a nice expression,” Ringmar said. “Sort of romantic. But that’s not true of Aneta.”

“No, but once you’ve made it into paradise? What happens then?” He killed his cigarillo in the ashtray he’d suddenly spied behind the curtain.