Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

Morelius thought he saw Bartram struggling to suppress a giggle.

“It’s true,” the man said. “It’s in Fräntorp,” he said, as if that confirmed everything. “I can call them,” he said, pointing to his mobile phone in its holder on the dashboard.

“That won’t be necessary,” Morelius said. “But make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The man took his driver’s license and stared at it, as if expecting it to turn into an arrest warrant any moment.

“Er… you mean there won’t be anything?”

“What do you mean, anything?”

“Fine, or points docked, or whatever.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Er… no.”

“Be more careful in future,” Morelius said, and walked back to the patrol car. Bartram was already inside. Morelius heard the man start his engine and drive off.

“He was lucky to get stopped by officers who weren’t on traffic duty,” said Bartram. “They have to think about their success rates.”

The law and order boys had to think about everything, Morelius thought. Drugs, traffic offenses, robbery and burglary, violent assault. All-arounders. Double murders.

“We drive around town and see that bastard who mugged that woman and beat her up so badly that she was off work for three years, and he was in prison for a month. Does anybody expect us to take twelve hundred kronor off a guy who’s rushing to pick up his kids from nursery school?”

“Not today, in any case,” Morelius said.

“I let a shoplifter go the other day,” Bartram said.

“Eh?”

“I took it upon myself to let a shoplifter go, without reporting him.”

“You don’t say.”

“You can’t always throw your weight around. Show who’s boss.”

There was a crackling from the radio: “Eleven-ten. Come in eleven-ten.”

“We’re at the roundabout just north of Central Station,” Bartram said.

“We’ve just had a call from a mobile phone at Kungsportsplatsen. They’re holding somebody who’s stabbed a passenger in a tram, and they’re trying to restrain him, over.”

“Roger,” said Bartram, and Morelius switched on the lights and siren.

“They’re at the stop for northbound traffic. Did you get that? Over.”

“Yep, roger,” Bartram said, and they raced past Brunnsparken and turned left.

Winter wrote down the message: W ALL. Drew a circle around the first letter. What was the point of sitting here, doing this? Riddles like this took time that could be spent on other riddles, but he was fascinated by the message, gave it a higher priority than it might have deserved. No obvious answer. One word? Several? Or was the murderer just being facetious, pointing out that there was a wall there? Did “wall” have a symbolic significance? Was it something to do with the music? Was “wall” a frequent symbol in this kind of music? Setter had come up with a new suggestion regarding the genre: black metal. Not death metal. Black metal. Even worse.

He looked at the word once more, wrote it again, drew another circle. All? Had he killed all? Were all going to die? He’d already been thinking about that. Why was there a circle round the W? Is that what we should be thinking about? What begins with W?

He got up and went to the mirror over the sink. The slight tan he’d brought back from the Costa del Sol had gone, replaced by the usual bluish hue typical of winter. Winter. Winter started with W. He pressed his right hand lightly against his cheek. Winter. A bit early for paranoid thoughts.

The investigation had only just begun, but it didn’t seem like that. He felt as if it had started the moment he’d boarded the plane for Málaga. That’s when the tale started.

W. Double-U. Double murder.

The telephone rang, and he thought about the phone ringing at home with nobody speaking at the other end. He’d answered last night just before Angela made him his Paris sandwich, but there was nobody there. Not even any breathing this time, just the tone signaling an open line. Maybe he should change his number and go unlisted.

He went to his desk and answered.

“Hello, it’s Lotta. I bet I’m disturbing something important, but I wondered whether you and Angela would like to come around for dinner tomorrow evening? It’s Friday tomorrow.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“What about you yourself?”

“Well, I suppose I can come.”

“I’m overwhelmed by your enthusiasm.”

“Assuming nothing more happens, nothing new.”

“I read about it. A couple in Vasastan.”

“That’s where they lived, yes.”

“Only a few doors away from you, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Don’t remind me. And, above all, don’t remind Angela.”

“I’ll try not to. Mom has just called, by the way.”

“How is she?”

“She seems to be coping okay. Better than I’d expected, to be honest.”

“What’s she doing?”

“She seems to have become a bit more sociable. She’s meeting some of their friends down there more often than she used to.”

“That’s good.”

“She’s coming home for Christmas.”

“Is that what she said?”

“As good as.”

“I’d better buy some Tanqueray.”

He noted the ensuing pause and knew what was coming next. He’d also wondered when he should mention it.

“I dreamed about Dad last night,” she said. “He was emerging from a clump of trees. It was summer. Bright sunshine, you know.”

“On his own?”

“I don’t know. I woke up then, I think. Incidentally, he was younger… more or less like we are now. I remember noting that from his face. Isn’t that odd?”

“I don’t know. It’s not so odd to have been dreaming about him. I… I think about him as well. I’ve had that kind of dream.”

The madman with the knife had calmed down by the time they got there. So much, in fact, that he was lying on the ground. Morelius bent down to examine him.

“He’s not dead, is he?”

Morelius looked up at Bartram.

“Coma, I think. He’s on GHB.”

“Here comes the ambulance.”

“I said they should send an ambulance too,” said a young man with a mobile in his hand.

“Was it you who reported the incident? Okay, what happened?”

“He started stabbing at random, then focused on one person when we stopped here. I ran after him and tackled him.”

“And then?”

“He tried to get up, but there were several of us holding him down.”

“Where’s the knife?”

“He dropped it. It’s over there,” he said, pointing toward the pavement. Morelius could see the knife on the road midway between where they were and the pavement.

“Was anybody hurt? In the tram or out here in the street?”

“No. Apart from him.”

“Who was he after?”

They moved out of the way when the ambulance team arrived with a stretcher and gave the man a quick examination. He was still lying there with no signs of life.

“GHB, probably,” Morelius said.

The man was lifted onto the stretcher and carried to the ambulance. Morelius turned to the hero and repeated his question.

“He was after somebody in particular, is that right?”

“I don’t know. It looked that way, but he‘s, well, he’s as high as a kite, so…”

“So he wasn’t after anybody in particular?”

“I really don’t know.”

Winter had gone to get a cup of coffee, and returned. It was snowing again. It wasn’t December yet, but winter had set in. Several inches of snow, and he had no doubt they would still be there over the holiday period. The new era. He breathed deeply in, then out, then in again.

This was something new. He lost concentration, regained it, then lost it again. He thought about his father, about Angela, about their child, about his mother, about his sister, about the case again, about the telephone that kept ringing, about Angela again. About Alicia.