Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“And then forget it?”

“Remember, I said.”

“I suppose it was the name, because it was so unusual. A friend said it was a misprint for ‘Haveacock,’” Halders looked at the book in his hand. “That was pretty irreverent.” He looked at Winter again. “I must have looked up the text because I was curious. The same as now.”

Winter took the book from Halders. It was the 1995 version. Winter looked up the Book of Habakkuk and started reading. The clergyman who prepared Halders for confirmation must have been a bit of a prophet himself. The text was about the work of the crime squad. The first chapter went:

“I am Habakkuk the prophet. And this is the message that the LORD gave me.

“Our LORD, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence?

“Why do you make me watch such terrible injustice? Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime, and cruelty to spread everywhere?

“Laws cannot be enforced; justice is always the loser; criminals crowd out honest people and twist the laws around.”

“Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

“‘Criminals twist the laws around.’ ‘Why do you make me watch such terrible injustice?”’ Winter read the beginning of the first chapter again. He had spent a lot of time dealing with injustice and evil, but he had started to think differently-or perhaps he’d thought this way from the very beginning: evil was not some kind of creature in the underworld. Evil was people, actions. Evil was injustice. It arose from cruelty. It was caused by violence.

“‘Laws cannot be enforced.’”

Like hell they can‘t! He closed the holy book with a bang and put it on his desk. It could be a coincidence, but he didn’t believe in coincidences. If the murderer chose that particular music and a CD with that particular title, there was a reason. They would soon have the disc with its cover, and the Bible, and they would read it all.

Why? Did the murderer want to tell us that the world is evil? That he had seen the writing on the wall? Did he want to tell us that his world was evil? The murderer’s world? Or Winter’s world? The human world. Were they the same?

The text. He was waiting for Patrik. More reading to come. The men in black at Desdemona had said that black metal was meaningless without the words, but they were words that nobody could pick up just by listening.

Halders had left the door open, and Winter saw Patrik outside accompanied by Möllerström, who ushered him into Winter’s office and left. Winter stood up. Patrik came to his desk.

“What’s happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Patrik said. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s very nasty bruising you’ve got.”

Patrik felt his cheekbone with his right hand, under his right ear.

“It’s nothing. I slipped as I was getting off the bus.”

“Slipped when you were getting off the bus? Don’t talk such crap,” said Winter, walking around his desk and peering at Patrik’s face. “Have you been to the hospital with that?”

“No.”

“You might have broken your zygomatic bone.” Winter resisted a temptation to touch the boy’s cheek. “Will you let me feel it?”

“Are you a doctor as well?”

“Let me feel it.” He had hardly touched it before Patrik flinched in pain. “Does it hurt as much as that?”

Patrik said something he couldn’t understand. The boy was hanging his head.

“What did you say? I couldn’t hear.

“It was… the bus.”

“No,” Winter said. “Somebody’s been hitting you.” Patrik looked up at him. The bruise was beginning to look like an irregular birth-mark. His face seemed to be lopsided. “This happened recently.”

Patrik didn’t respond. He looked as if he wanted to leave. He had a bag in his left hand.

“Who was it?” Winter asked. “Somebody at school?”

Patrik shook his head. Winter could see his shoulders starting to twitch. I shouldn’t scare him. He has tears in his eyes. Now he’s crying. He’s only a kid.

Patrik looked down and sobbed silently. Winter held his shoulders, which had started to shake. Patrik was standing with his back to the open door and Ringmar appeared in the doorway. Winter signaled with his head and Ringmar backed out.

“It’s all right, Patrik, all right.”

The boy sniffled, then pulled himself away. He looked vulnerable, as if on the run.

“Sit down, Patrik.”

He flopped down onto the chair. Winter squatted down a couple of feet away.

“It happened at home, didn’t it?”

Patrik didn’t answer, didn’t nod, sniffed, looked anywhere but at Winter.

“We won’t worry about that now, but you should have this looked at,” Winter said. He went to Ringmar’s office. “Can you arrange for a squad car to get the kid to the hospital?”

“When?”

‘As soon as you can.“

When Winter went back Patrik was just a little head barely visible over the chair back. Winter sat down at his desk. Patrik’s face was twitching, and Winter could see that it hurt to cry. Winter fetched him a glass of water and Patrik took a sip. He sniffled again, put down the glass, and gestured to the bag he’d put on Winter’s desk.

“Don’t you want it?”

“Of course,” Winter said, pulling it toward him and taking out the CD. “You’ve done a great job, Patrik.”

“Sacrament,” Patrik said, his voice steadier now. He ran his hand over his eyes. “There you have it. The Daughter disc.”

“What’s the name of your friend?”

“Jimmo.”

“How did he get ahold of it?”

“Secondhand in Haga, I think it was. I can’t remember which shop it was. He-”

“Never mind, we’ll look into that later. Now let’s…”

Winter’s desk phone rang.

“There are a couple of officers waiting outside,” Ringmar said.

“Okay, thanks.” Winter looked at Patrik. “I want you to get this looked at. It’s very important, as I think you realize. We’ll give you a lift to the hospital, then we can chat a bit more. All right?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t need to say who hit you. I just want you to have it seen to.” Winter stood up. “We need the people working on this case to be in top condition, and you’re one of them. All right?” He held out his hand to Patrik, as if to give him support. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said Patrik, getting to his feet.

“I’ll take good care of the disc,” said Winter, putting it in the inside pocket of his jacket. It was wide, Italian. The Italians made voluminous inside pockets in some of their jackets.

They took the elevator down. It was snowing again by the time they came to the entrance, and the squad car that had been waiting for them drove up. The driver got out and walked around the car. Winter raised his hand in greeting.

“Hello, Simon.”

“Hi, Erik.”

“Haven’t seen you. How are things at Lorensberg?”

“The usual. We keep an eye on where you live.”

“I think I saw you there the other day. In Vasagatan.”

“That’s on our patrol route.”

Winter looked down. Morelius’s colleague rolled down his window and introduced himself: “Bartram.” Winter nodded.

“Bartram hasn’t been in Gothenburg long,” Morelius said.

“I’ve seen him around,” Winter said. “With you, in fact.” He turned to Morelius. “I’d be grateful if you could take this kid to the ER.”

“Bertil Ringmar told us about it,” said Morelius. He turned to Patrik, who looked as if he were ready to run.

“Hi, Patrik.”

“Do you know each other?” Winter asked.