Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“What are you doing?” she asked when she came into the kitchen.

“Nothing.”

She put her shopping bag on the table. His father appeared and took down some new glasses.

Patrik went into the hall and put on his coat and shoes. It was dark outside now, but light everywhere. People were carrying Christmas trees wherever you looked. They cost 150 kronor, but he didn’t want one.

There was no sign of his mom’s things anyway. Some colorful baubles. They’d disappeared, just like her.

There was a police car parked at the newsstand when he passed. He thought he recognized the two officers. Then it drove off. The sign over the newsstand was reflected in the car’s polished side. He thought about something he’d seen on the stairs. That reflection made him think about it. Was there some connection?

“I’ve read the door-to-door reports and what is striking is that nobody pays any attention to anybody else,” Winter said. “‘Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.’”

“What’s it like in your building, then?” Ringmar was trying to straighten out a paper clip. “What kind of a check do you have on your neighbors?”

Winter thought of Mrs. Malmer. Angela had made insinuations about Mrs. Malmer’s midnight masses. But Angela didn’t make insinuations anymore. Angela wasn’t even there. No, it wasn’t as bad as that. Angela doesn’t live here anymore. It wasn’t as bad as that. He had told the truth and nothing but the truth that had any significance for them both and their future.

“Not much,” Winter said. “Not much at all.”

Ringmar held up the now straight paper clip.

“Well done, Bertil. You can start picking a few locks now.”

“Was that how he got in?”

“We haven’t found a single scratch. Either he had a key or they let him in. He was known to them.”

“We’ve interviewed all their friends and acquaintances that we know about.”

“He was a secret acquaintance.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Secrets. People’s secrets.”

“Hmm.”

“He was a part of the secret. Something was going to take place there and he was going to be involved. But they never got that far. It didn’t happen. Not that last time.”

“He had other intentions.”

“Yes.”

“Did he have other intentions from the moment he arrived?” asked Ringmar, now trying to restore the paper clip to its original shape.

“That’s an important question. Had he made up his mind when he went there, or did it… did something happen that led to the murders?”

“Or to what happened after the murders?”

“Yes. Was he a stranger when he was invited, or was he somebody who’d known them for a long time?” For a long time, Winter thought. His job had become a sort of criminal archaeology. He was digging backward in time in order to find answers. Climbing down into the shadows of the past. He was tired of it. He had enough to do with the present. “Had he known them for a long time,” he said again.

“Did he know her? Him? Both of them?”

“Hmm. Her. I think it has to do with the woman. Louise. I think so even more now, after my conversation with Lareda.”

“Lareda gets carried away sometimes,” Ringmar said.

“But it makes sense, even so,” Winter said.

“If we assume that he was let in, the next question is how they made contact,” Ringmar said. “If they were acquaintances from some time in the past, or not known to one another at all but had arranged to meet in the Valkers’ apartment, how did they get into contact?”

‘An advertisement.“

“Do you think so?”

“Lonely hearts.”

“Do you know how many lonely hearts ads appear in the daily papers every day? Or even just on the weekend?”

“No, I don’t. Do you?”

“No sir. But you only need to take one glance to know that there are lots of them. Lonely hearts.”

“Do you read them, Bertil?”

“They are very entertaining. But to start searching through them all would be like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Ringmar said, studying the paper clip that had turned into two steel needles.

“Pornographic contacts,” said Winter. “Contact ads in the porno magazines.”

“More needles, more haystacks.”

“Hmm.”

‘Are you thinking of the sperm? Are you wondering if it was that kind of acquaintance?“

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s one theory. They got in touch via an advertisement.”

“It’s not impossible. It evidently happens more and more often.”

“People need tenderness and affection,” Ringmar said. “It’s a growing need.”

“And they find new ways of getting it.”

“We haven’t found any pornography in the Valkers’ apartment,” Ringmar said.

“Films,” said Winter. “We could start there. Talk to the local video stores.”

“And then what? Even if they did rent a porn flick now and then, I don’t see how that would help us. I suspect we’d be surprised by the statistics on the renting of porno.”

“What do you mean?”

“Practically everybody rents one at some point. Chairmen of the local council. Clergymen. Sture Birgersson.” Winter couldn’t help smiling when he thought of the crime unit boss. Birgersson had performed his annual disappearing trick and Winter had no intention of talking to him.

“Or they buy one on the Net,” Ringmar said. “Nice and discreet.”

“Yes, no doubt.”

“Have you ever thought about doing it?”

“Renting a pornographic film? I haven‘t, in fact. It wouldn’t be… me.”

“Not your style?”

“No style at all.”

When Angela closed the door and he heard her boots dropping onto the floor, he opened the oven and took out the two small stuffed woodcocks that needed a short time to rest. It was nine-thirty.

“What’s that?” asked Angela, going straight to the kitchen, perhaps tempted by the smells. “Doves of peace?”

“Just a bit to eat.”

“Yeah, right.”

Winter was busy with the salad dressing, whipping a teaspoonful of French mustard into some olive oil and three drops of honey vinegar.

“I suspect there’s a hidden meaning here,” Angela said. ‘A subtext.“

“You could have a guess,” he said, tearing up salad leaves of various types; he nodded toward the woodcocks as if everything depended on them.

She went over to the work surface and sniffed. The birds certainly looked tasty.

“Guinea fowl?”

“No.”

“I give up.”

“Already?”

“I’m tired.”

She sat down and massaged the toes on her left foot. Her stomach was quite a mound now. There was a little hole in the heel of her tights. In the light from the stove lamp and the two candles on the table, he could see that she had dark circles under her eyes, but that her face was still flushed from the wintry climate outside. Her hair seemed to be flattened, as if dried out after an afternoon and evening at the clinic, where the air-conditioning left much to be desired.

She looked up, her hair fell away to the sides and the shadows had gone. Her face looked young again. “It’s nothing new. Tired. The nurses probably feel much worse.” She held her hand cautiously over the nearest candle flame. “We had a scandal at the clinic today. A king-size one.” She continued waving her hand to and fro over the flame, without looking at him. “The boss resigned. Made a hullabaloo about it.” She looked at him again. “Just left his desk and cleared off.” She smiled. “Our beloved chief executive was in with Olsén discussing the latest cutback proposals… no, decisions. I was with a patient and didn’t hear anything of it, but they said there was a sort of bellowing from inside Olsén’s room and then Olsén emerged without his coat and Boersma followed him, looking embarrassed.”