Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

His car felt cold, and there was a smell of damp.

He took the letter out of his inside pocket and opened it for the first time. The letter paper bore the logo of the Spanish police, just like the envelope.

The letter was handwritten and in English, straightforward and purposeful. Just a few sentences greeting him, and thanking him for his hospitality. He read it several times. It was a part of the dream. There was no need to reply to this letter. Not even to read it. He could close his eyes and then look, and the letter would have disappeared, just like the dream.

Why do I think about it? he asked himself, and then he thought of Angela.

Angela, there’s something I have to tell you.

No. There was nothing he had to tell her because nothing had happened. Angela: I had a very strange dream last night. You don’t say? Do you want to tell me about it? I’ve forgotten it. Almost completely. Was I in it?

She’d been in it. And only a few hours later he’d picked her up at the terminal in Málaga. Not long afterward they’d stood side by side in the cemetery by the mountain. His father.

Winter rolled down the window, felt the wind blowing into his face, and now his thoughts were filled by his father.

He closed the window again and got out of the car. There was a minimarket only a few yards ahead, and he wanted to buy some throat lozenges. There was a sign over the entrance. It looked new. Krokens Livs was its name.

The wind was making the posters at the entrance to the shop sway back and forth. City of Angels, one of them said, the other was advertising The Avengers.

A local bus shuddered to a halt a few yards away and disgorged a couple of elderly people. Winter went into Krokens Livs, which seemed to have the usual assortment of dairy products, chips, confectionery, videos, dish-washing brushes, and newspapers. He bought a pack of Fisherman’s Friend from a woman who looked Arabic or Turkish.

When he came out, the wind was blowing even stronger. Winter felt a few drops of rain. The yellow buildings on the other side of Hagåkersgatan lost their color in the rainy wind.

Morelius was eating the usual deep-fried prawns from Ming. Why could they never think of anything else to order?

Somebody from the Gothenburg council was on television, explaining what the millennium celebrations would entail. If you believed him, they would be more impressive than anything on offer in London and Sydney and New York.

In fact Gothenburg would be subjected to the same old uproar, the same old crowds of staggering revelers. Tears, shrieks, guffaws, fireworks projected at eye height by lunatic antiaircraft gunners in the center of town. The same old uproar as usual.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Bartram said.

“Eh?” said Morelius, getting up to throw away half of the prawns and the sickly salad. As usual.

“I’m going to work on New Year’s Eve after all. In the thick of the revelry.”

“Welcome to the club,” Morelius said. “But you’d already changed your mind. First you were going to work, but you decided not to.”

“Yes. But just like you”-Bartram scraped the last bit of sauce from the foil container-“I’ve decided to work after all.”

“Why not do a good deed,” Morelius said. “Others need time off more than we do.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“What’s your reason, then?”

“I have nothing better to do,” said Bartram, going to switch off the television that was now showing the weather forecast for western Sweden. It was going to be fine but cold again. ‘And I’ll get time off later instead.“

“When?”

“In summer, maybe. How the hell should I know now?”

“What will you do?”

“In summer? No idea. It’s a long way off.”

“We have the revelry to cope with first,” said Morelius.

He went to his locker and opened it. His overcoat smelled of the cold that hadn’t completely gone away when the rain came.

Tomorrow he would see Hanne again, and it would be the last time. She couldn’t help him anymore, and he didn’t need any help. It had happened, but now it was more like a dream. He couldn’t say any more than that. Maybe he wouldn’t know what he’d said when he said it. He’d forgotten all the questions he’d asked himself during the night with the videos playing on the TV screen, and he never did know what they were about anyway.

He put on the earphones of his Walkman and pressed PLAY. Just a few minutes. He saw Bartram moving his lips and switched the music off again.

“What?”

“I can hear it plain as day.”

“Really.”

“Sounds awful.”

Patrik had asked to speak to the short-haired younger policeman, and Winter took the call immediately after he had come back to his office from Mölndal.

“Hello?”

“Er… hello… Patrik Strömblad here…”

Winter hadn’t recognized his voice. There was something gravelly about it.

“Hello, Patrik.”

“Well… that CD. Sacrament.”

“Yes?”

“Jimmo has it. My friend Jimmo…”

Bergenhem had searched the attic at Desdemona in vain. But in the end they were receiving help from another quarter.

“He has that exact disc? Daughter of Habu… whatever.”

“That exact one, yes,” Patrik said. “He could go straight to it. You can buy it chea… There are bett…”

His voice had become inaudible.

“What?”

“You can buy it cheap.”

Winter couldn’t help giving a little laugh.

“Okay! Where is it?”

“I have it here.” Patrik seemed to snort into the receiver. “An ugly cover.” His voice was unclear again, as if he were chewing something.

“Can you come here with it?” Winter asked. “Now?”

“Just the cover?”

“Don’t joke with me, Patrik.”

“I wasn’t joking.” It didn’t sound as if he was joking.

“Can you be here in half an hour?” Winter checked the time. ‘Aren’t you at school?“

“No…”

“Can you come here to the police station? Or we can meet in town.”

“Can’t we do it tomorrow?”

“Why?”

“I’m… I don’t know if I…”

“What’s the matter, Patrik?”

“Er… all right, I’ll come.”

Winter put down the phone and looked at the anonymous cassette in one of the pigeonholes on his desk. He put it into the stereo and played the first tune at high volume, took out the photographs again but only looked at the first two. He picked up the phone and rang Beier, but his colleague in forensics was out. Winter examined one of the photographs again, and made a note.

It was Halders, of all people, who found the connection. He hadn’t said anything at the meeting. He found it later, during the afternoon, and marched in to Winter without even knocking on the door. He was carrying a black book.

“About that Habakkuk,” he said. “The guy who’s the father of the daughter.”

“Yes, I know who you mean,” Winter said, looking up from his latest notes.

“He was a prophet. He has his own book in the Bible.” Halders held up the Bible. “A short one.”

The Old Testament, Winter thought. The canonical books. Of course. They ought to have thought of that sooner. They were too profane.

“Well done, Fredrik.”

“There was something in the back of my mind. When I realized what it was, I dashed down to the library, and there was his name. The prophet Habakkuk, in between Nahum and Zephaniah.” Halders held up the Bible again. “I know what made me think of it. I haven’t managed to dig out the old Bible I got when I was confirmed, but I’m sure the vicar wrote some reference or other on the flyleaf to Habakkuk.”

“How could you remember that?”