Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“You’re asking me now?” They’d hardly spoken about it at all since it happened. It was like that sometimes. He hadn’t said anything. Bartram had stayed outside on the landing. “What do you want to know?”

“What did it look like?”

“What do you mean, look like?” He glanced toward Bartram on his right, but Bartram didn’t turn to look at him. They’d gone as far as the Scandinavium. No calls were coming over the radio. A gang of ice-hockey supporters were parading around with banners before that night’s match. “What did they look like, do you mean?”

Bartram nodded without looking at him. Morelius didn’t say any more. They were negotiating the roundabout at Korsvägen. I’ve been around this thing eighteen million times, he thought. Over there I was in another squad car once. I lugged teenage drunks from the Liseberg pleasure gardens, and then their friends hauled them back again. I’ve bought newspapers and Snickers bars at the newsstand over there. Now we’re driving up Eklandabacken. I’m at the wheel. The car’s going straight ahead like it’s on rails.

“What’s the matter, Simon?” Bartram had turned to look at him, then looked ahead again. “Look out, for CHRIST’S SAKE!” They were about to ram a taxi outside Panorama. Morelius stamped on the brakes. They stopped a few inches short. The cabdriver stared at them. His passenger, who’d been getting out, did the same. “Did you fall asleep?”

Morelius reversed, overtook the taxi, and continued. Everything was the same as before. The street was still there. The car was going straight ahead. Bartram looked at him. Morelius turned down toward Mossen. The radio crackled into life, but the call was not for them.

“The heads had been exchanged,” said Morelius.

“What?”

“Their heads had been exchanged. Didn’t you know that? It’s not public knowledge, but surely every cop in town knows about it.”

“Not me. Nobody’s told me.”

“He had her head, and she, his.”

“Jesus.”

“They were holding hands.”

Morelius came to another roundabout. He checked carefully this time before proceeding.

Patrik acknowledged that he would have to do something. He’d phoned the police and been put through to somebody called Möller, or something. He’d been asked for his own name.

“It’s about that… murder,” he said.

“I thought we’d spoken to all the newspaper boys,” Möller said when he’d explained who he was.

Now Patrik was sitting in front of a large, short-haired police officer who didn’t seem all that old, and another who did. He felt a bit like a celebrity. Important. But it wasn’t fun. When he’d arrived, the younger man had looked at him as if he were made of glass, all the way through.

This was the guy Ria had been going on about. The one he’d seen on the tram. The skirt he was with was a babe. He seemed to be a hard case. Expensive shirt. He looked like somebody from a gangster film. They’d rented L.A. Confidential because Ria liked the cover, and he could easily have been in that. The right style.

“So you saw somebody leaving the elevator?” Winter asked.

“Yes.”

“A man?”

“Definitely”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I caught a glimpse of him from the side as he left the building. His profile.”

“How much of the profile?”

“Er… at an angle from behind. But enough to see that it was a guy.”

“How old, would you say?” Ringmar asked.

“Well, about your age,” said Patrik, looking at Winter.

“All right. What happened? Start from when you entered the building.”

Patrik told them his story. It was the same as he’d told Maria.

They asked about dates, days, times.

“What about his clothes?” asked Winter. “The overcoat. Long, short?”

“Longer than short. Er…”

“Below the knee?”

“I think so.”

“What else?”

“Eh?”

“What else did you see besides the overcoat?”

“That’s just it. There was something else… but I can’t remember. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Something else.”

“What do you mean, something else?”

“Not connected with the overcoat.”

“His hair?”

“I can’t say anything about his hair, as I said before. When I sort of got to his hair he was, like, in the shadow in the entrance hall. I can’t say anything about his hair. Not the color or anything.”

“Would you have noticed if it had been long?” Winter asked.

“Hmm… maybe.” He scratched his cheek. “Yes, I think I would.”

“Was he tall?”

“Normal.”

“Normal?”

“Like, he wasn’t a dwarf. Not a seven-footer either. But I was a few steps up, and the light was bad.” He looked up at the ceiling. It had been a different ceiling. He could see the lamp in front of him. It was weak… “That’s a point! The light wasn’t as bright as usual. I noticed it at the time, and I remember now. There must be several bulbs in it and one must have been a dud, because when I came the next day it was good again.”

“Good again? You mean the light was brighter?”

“Yes. The caretaker guy must have replaced the bulb. Fixed it.”

“When can he have done that?” Ringmar asked.

“That day. The same day. I’m quite sure that the light was crappy on only one morning.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Yes. Quite sure. Sort of sure.”

“Okay.”

“You’d better talk with the caretaker guy,” Patrik said.

“We’ll do that,” Winter said. He could see a trace of a smile on Ringmar’s face. “Thank you. But let’s get back to the clothes. If it wasn’t the overcoat, was it his trousers? Was there something about his trousers that you recognized?”

“I can’t remember what it was now. It was, sort of, something I reacted to. I don’t really know how to put it.”

“Take your time, Patrik.”

“I don’t think I’m going to remember right now.”

“You can keep on thinking about it when you get home as well, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Where do you live, Patrik?” Winter asked.

“Eh?”

“If you deliver newspapers in the Vasaplatsen area, you must live near there as well.”

“Kastellgatan. I live with my dad in Kastellgatan. That’s on the other side of Haga.”

‘All right. Do you think you’d recognize this man if you saw him again?“

Patrik shrugged. “I mean, the light was a bit odd. And I saw him from behind. I’m not sure.”

“But it wasn’t somebody you’d seen before?”

“What do you mean? Somebody I’d seen before. On the stairs?”

“We can start with that. Somebody you’ve seen on the stairs when you’ve been delivering papers.”

“Not that I can remember. Thing is, I hardly ever see anyone there.”

“Hmm. Maybe we’ll ask you to help us to check everybody who lives there. So that we’ll know if it was one of them.”

‘All right…“

“Then there is the question of whether you might have seen him before,” Winter said. “Somewhere else, that is. Not in the building or on the stairs. Some other place, some other occasion.”

“Yes, I’m with you.”

“Think about that.”

Patrik was already thinking. Thinking, thinking. He looked at the police officers who were asking all the questions. The older one seemed as if he were asleep, but he’d suddenly turn his head and look out of the window at the bare branches and blue sky outside. The guy had a profile… holy… was it the pro-

“It might be the profile,” Patrik said.

“What do you mean?”

“The profile. That business about something being familiar. It might have been the profile that I might have recognized. That I’d seen before. The head.”