Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“I hate this kind of thing,” Ringmar said. “Riddles.”

“Isn’t that what we’re always dealing with?”

“Riddles within riddles, then. I hate it. It makes me upset. It makes me angry. So angry that I can feel my infection dissipating.”

Winter was alone in the apartment in Aschebergsgatan. He had gone back.

The smell was still there in the room. The pictures he recalled from that morning, the real thing he’d seen first, then the photographs. I saw it live, he thought. I saw death live and I heard the sound track. What am I thinking about? The sound track?

The sofa was empty now, stained. The roar from the music seemed still to be there. The text on the wall was lit up by the sun coming in through the window. The clouds had cleared as Winter walked across the street, and now the bright light was streaming in through the window and the shaky letters seemed to be starker, more powerful. Winter stared at the circle around the W. What did it mean?

How can you classify degrees of lunacy?

Is it as simple as that?

Or is this a sick act by a sane man?

I’ve only seen one thing before that comes anywhere near matching this. But I never thought I’d have to encounter such human brutality again.

He could see the bodies in his mind’s eye, each on a chair of its own. Was that three years ago now?

But it’s continuing.

Water was running along a pipe somewhere in the building. It was a noise he recognized. This building was similar to the one he lived in: a stone block built in the old-fashioned way. He might have been standing in his own apartment. He suddenly thought of Angela.

Angela and her stomach, which had now become a part of him as well. That’s how it was.

This apartment even had the same layout as his own. He hadn’t thought of that when he first entered it yesterday evening, he’d been concentrating on other things. But he could see it now. The rooms radiated from the hall and kitchen, the big living room, where he was standing, the bedroom next to it, another room. A toilet and a separate bathroom.

The forensic officers were working their way through every little thing, but he wanted some time in the apartment to himself. Go and get yourselves a cup of coffee, boys. Give me half an hour.

There were clothes everywhere. It had started in the kitchen and finished on the sofa. When had they started getting undressed? In the kitchen? Why? Had the clothes been put where they were afterward? It should be possible to establish that. Was there a pattern to it? Was there another accursed message? Another riddle? He thought of Ringmar, and his sudden cure.

All the blood was in the living room. Nothing in the hall, or in the kitchen. There didn’t seem to have been any blood left in the bodies. Christian and Louise Valker. At least her eyes had been closed.

They had been sitting in the kitchen. Winter couldn’t know, but he was sure the dried-up drops of wine in the glasses and the dregs in the bottle were from then. He vaguely recognized the label, from the glass-covered shelves at the System liquor store on the Avenue. One of the cheaper Spanish brands.

Angela came home late to an apartment in darkness. She switched on the hall light and took off her coat and boots. She could hear music coming from the living room. Guitars. Somebody singing in a loud voice, almost shouting.

‘Anybody there?!“

No answer. She tried again.

I’m in here.”

She went to the living room and found Winter in the leather easy chair next to the window. The room was in shadow. He was only an outline.

“You’re sitting in the dark.”

“I like it like this.”

The guitars became more hectic, faster. The song was a screech.

“Are you thinking about… your dad?”

“Yes. Among other things.”

“Does the music help?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. I bought the disc in a shop in Marbella.”

“It’s… interesting.” She listened to the singer, who was now completely drowning out the acoustic guitars. “There seems to be a lot of hurt in flamenco.”

“Hurt and heart. Romero. He’s called Rafael Romero. An old man.”

“You can hear that he’s had a life.”

Winter stood up and crossed the room to embrace her. He stroked her cheeks and kissed the tip of her nose and her mouth.

“What sort of a day have you had?”

“I haven’t felt sick so much as the day wore on. It was worst at the beginning. Apart from that it was the usual running around from patient to patient, ward to ward. I apologize when I get to the patients later than I should, but I suspect I’m the only one who does.” She caressed his arm. “What about you? How was work?”

“We have our double murder to keep us occupied,” he said, going to the CD player and turning down the volume. “But don’t ask me about details.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The phone rang. Winter automatically checked his watch. Eleven-fifteen. He picked up the receiver.

“Winter.” No reply. “Hello?” He could hear a crackling noise on the line. He gestured to Angela that she should turn off the music. “Hello? Who is it?” He could hear distant voices flitting through space. Thought he could pick up a few words of Spanish. There was a click, and the line went dead. Winter held the receiver at arm’s length, looked hard at it, then replaced it.

“Who was it?”

“Nobody,” Winter said. “At least, nobody prepared to say anything.” He looked at Angela, who was still standing by the CD player. “Didn’t you say that somebody rang once before but didn’t say anything?”

“Was it him again?”

Winter shrugged and held his arms out wide.

“It was him,” she said. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Sit down,” Winter said, pulling the other easy chair to the window. He switched on a desk lamp. That felt better. “Sit here, Angela.”

“This is scary,” she said, sitting down. “Can’t the call be traced?”

“That’s not as easy as a lot of people think. But nine times out of ten it’s somebody dialing a wrong number and being too shy to admit it. Or they are surprised when somebody they don’t know answers. Then the shock passes and they hang up.”

“You’re used to receiving calls like this, are you?”

“It happens now and then.”

“And you’re trying to convince me that it has nothing to do with… your work?”

“Meaning what?”

“You come up against God only knows what strange people. Maybe they’re trying to frighten you. Get their own back.”

“Stop exaggerating.”

“But that could be it, couldn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Angela. There have been a few calls like this, but I don’t know who made them because he never says a word.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“Now that I think about it, I wonder if it was a mistake moving in here,” she said.

“Stop exaggerating. I think everybody’s had calls like this.”

“Not me. And I certainly haven’t brought Mr. Creep here with me, if that’s what you think.”

“No, no.”

“What kind of haunted house is this that you live in, Erik?” She thought of the neighbors, could see the stairwell in her mind’s eye. The stark, unpleasant light when she emerged from the lift. When she came home tonight she’d had a momentary urge to creep up to Mrs. Malmer’s door and listen. The memory almost made her smile. Was it something to do with her pregnancy? Anonymous phone calls. Mrs. Malmer’s midnight masses. She was smiling now. She could see that Erik had noticed. She felt silly, embarrassed. A wrong number. Nothing to worry about. Even so…

Winter was still in the easy chair. The lower part of his face was illuminated by the desk lamp. His chin was covered with a day’s growth of stubble. He hadn’t changed since coming home from work, although he had taken off his jacket and tie. The shirt from Harvey & Hudson was unbuttoned at the neck, its discreet stripes almost invisible in the gloom.