Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

Winter recognized his own train of thought.

“Good thinking, Fredrik,” he said.

“Now that you mention it,” Beier said, “we did find a few pornographic things at the Martells‘. Magazines.”

“Which magazines?”

“I can’t remember. Just a minute.” Beier went to the telephone on a table in the corner, and dialed the direct number to his team at the scene of the crime. He asked his question, listened for a moment, then replaced the receiver. “Right. They were Aktuell Rapport.”

“Bingo,” shouted Halders, who was still standing. “Bingo.”

“Would you mind explaining?” asked Winter.

“I noticed a few copies of Aktuell Rapport hidden away at the Elfvegrens’ place. Under the table.” Halders looked at Aneta Djanali. “Isn’t that right, Aneta. I mentioned it to you at the time.”

“Yes.”

“Aktuell Rapport,” Halders said. “And the good news is that the Elfvegrens are still alive and kicking.” He turned to Beier. “When do we get the DNA results?”

Is that the lowest common denominator? Winter thought, sex contacts?

“You’re saying that they run ads for sex contacts?” he said. “In those magazines?”

Halders looked at him as if he were a child.

“Just a few little ones,” he said.

Ads for sex contacts, Winter thought again. It could well be that the Valkers and the Martells met in that way and got to know each other. Or are we jumping to conclusions? They’d have to come down hard on the Elfvegrens again. And if that really is how the couples met…

“That could be how the murderer came into contact with his victims,” Ringmar said, thus voicing Winter’s thoughts.

He had no memory of any words, no screams. Everything had been an enormous weight bearing down on him like a mountain.

Over the threshold and into the room and then he’d gotten him.

There was a noise… and the light outside had become stronger and stronger and he could no longer see. It seemed like hours. Somebody was waiting.

Somebody was running up or down the stairs, shouting. The light was still as strong as ever.

Was it the light that put a stop to it?

It had been like the last time. They’d eyed him up and down. This time she didn’t laugh. He was the one who’d laughed. Laughed away any chance of mercy.

There was a whistling noise in his eardrums.

In the elevator on the way down he kept his face averted. The light outside had become normal. He slipped as he walked over the street. There wasn’t far to go.

He had saved something. He knew now. It grew lighter again, looked different.

Ringmar was loitering by the window. His face was marked by lack of sleep. He looked out. The afternoon emitted an air of calm. It had never been as quiet as this.

“A happy New Year, Erik.”

“And to you.”

Winter rubbed his face, over his eyes. He’d phoned home. Angela sounded worried. His world had become hers in a much more straightforward way now. Maybe that was a good thing, for their future together. His absence wasn’t only his. It wasn’t just him who shot off into the night like a lost soul. A year or so ago Angela had said that he seemed to prefer living among the dead than the living. That was at the end of a discussion that had grown more and more desultory as the night wore on, and they hadn’t referred to it the next morning. But he’d never forgotten her phrase: a life among the dead.

She’d witnessed his life at close quarters now, the brutality it involved. The cruel telephone call in the early hours. Rarely did they come at any other time. Fumbling for his underpants as the adrenaline started to flow.

“Börjesson hadn’t found anything called Manhattan here in Gothenburg when I visited him.”

Winter scraped his hand over his chin and reached for his cigarillos. He rubbed his eyes again. He had a burning sensation in his eyes.

“Our man could well be wearing a uniform,” he said. “I was sitting here before you came, thinking about that.”

“Really?”

“Two neighbors said they thought they saw somebody in uniform not long after midnight. A bit vague about when. And a bit vague about how sober they were by that time.”

“Was there any trouble in the area?”

“A bit of a disturbance. The Mölndal police had sent a car to somewhere just a few blocks away.”

“Could they be the ones the neighbors saw?”

“I don’t know. As I said, they were a few blocks away. Why should they leave their car and go there? I don’t know. I haven’t had time to talk to the guys yet.”

Winter stood up without lighting his Corps and started pacing up and down.

“Where can you get hold of a uniform? We’ll assume that we’re talking about police uniforms.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just assume that, Bertil.”

Winter struck a match.

“But you’re not assuming that it’s a police officer?”

“If it is, I’ll resign on the spot.”

“Hmm.”

“Do we have to start investigating two thousand police officers?”

“No, no. The whole business is diffuse enough already.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uniforms. The boy’s just making assumptions.”

“A bit more than that. It’s a bit more than that. Patrik had spent ages thinking about this. Waiting for insight to strike him.” Winter drew on his cigarillo and looked at Ringmar. ‘And we spoke a moment ago about the neighbors in Mölndal.“

“Okay. Uniforms. Some idiot or other could have thrown his old one in the trash can instead of sending it off to be burned.”

“Hmm. Or somebody could have had one made. Police uniforms are not copyrighted.”

“Had one made? Privately, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“But they’re not made in Sweden anymore, surely?”

Winter didn’t answer. He had an idea.

“Doesn’t the City Theatre keep uniforms? For the plays they put on?”

“If they’re police plays,” Ringmar said.

‘And films. Police films certainly exist, no doubt about that.“ The smoke from his cigarillo was invisible in the thin winter light coming in through the window. ”Didn’t I read something about some film or other being shot in Gothenburg? A thriller? I seem to remember reading that. In GP.“

“I’ve no idea what you read,” Ringmar said.

“Haven’t you seen anything about that?”

“Certainly not.” He turned to look at Winter. “But if you think we might have loaned police uniforms to some film company, you can forget it. Our madam police chief has said no to anything of the sort.”

“I know.”

“A good thing, too, I think,” Ringmar said.

“I’ll follow up all this, but first there’s something else I need to see to,” Winter said, putting his cigarillo in the ashtray and going to get his overcoat.

Not many people were out and about. He drove past Ullevi Stadium, which cast a shadow over the canal covered in gray-black ice. The sun glinted on Lunden Hill.

He parked in the quiet street. A dog started barking in the distance. It sounded as if somebody was shoveling snow, and when he walked around to the back of the house he saw it was Benny Vennerhag.

The gangster was wearing a red woolly hat and a black suit. He was shoveling away some icy lumps of snow with considerable skill.

“You’re always working when I come to see you,” Winter said. “If it’s not pruning roses, it’s shoveling snow.”

Vennerhag was panting heavily and leaned on his shovel.

“I thought I’d make the place look good, ready for your arrival.” Vennerhag stood the shovel against the wall, took off his woolly hat, and slicked back his thin blond hair with the aid of some sweat from his brow. “It was a big surprise when you called.”