Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

He’d made a concession. He’d written down the boy’s name and address but that was mainly because the girl was watching. She didn’t want to report him. He could give the boy a second chance. Why not? The boy produced his ID card. That meant he’d been identified and could be arrested. Bartram let him sweat a bit, then allowed him to go. Don’t do it again. That kind of crap. The boy seemed a bit odd. You almost felt sorry for him. Stared at the uniform as if the man wearing it was a general, as if it were covered in glittering medals. Mumbled something.

He’d asked her if she knew the boy and she’d just shrugged. He didn’t ask her what that meant.

Outside, the wind was making the posters flap. Must be goddam terrific films to be popular for so long. He glanced at the apartment building a bit farther on.

He crossed the street and walked through the silence. The clifflike hill on the left shut out the noise from the city center, and the slope up toward the church muffled the traffic noise from the main road.

It was a long street, but he didn’t get tired. There were yellow buildings to look at after all. They were different from the building he lived in, which was red brick.

Two workmen came out of the building with advertisements on the gable end. They were carrying a bathtub that was long past its expiration date. Bartram never took a bath. Didn’t have time.

Three children were running around in the playground as he went past. The Dumpsters were blue like yesterday’s sky. The wind was making the birch trees sway. Now he could hear the traffic on Göteborgsvä gen. The entrance door lock still wasn’t working. The walls in the stairwell were the same blue as the sky the day before yesterday. The apartment door was the same brown as this morning’s shit. He unlocked it, went in, and shouted that he was home. One of these days somebody might respond.

He sat down at the computer without taking off his jacket and had soon entered the right files. He was following the investigation. Everything was there, he knew all about it, and smiled.

Hanne Östergaard phoned Winter.

“How is he?”

“He’s had a nasty bang on the head.”

“Does he need to go to the hospital again?”

“I don’t know, Erik.”

“That bastard. I’ll send a car around to the apartment and we’ll throw the swine in a cell.”

“What will we do with Patrik?”

“What do you think?”

“He’s having a rest here. I think somebody has to have a look at him.”

“Should I send an ambulance?”

“No, I’ll take him in the car.”

“All right.”

“There’s…”

“Yes?”

“There was something I was going to ask…” she said. “But it can wait. I’ll take Patrik to the hospital.”

Morelius and Ivarsson went to get Patrik’s father. The man was unconscious when they got there. The woman opened the door, then ran away down the stairs with no shoes on. She’d been red under the eyes, blue. There’d been blood on her shirt or whatever it was. Blouse.

They carried him down. Ivarsson put a plastic sheet over the backseat.

The man was still more or less unconscious when they locked him up. “Was that necessary?” Ivarsson wondered. “Yes,” Morelius said.

“Was it you who phoned their apartment a week ago?” Winter asked, who was also there. They were walking along the corridor, which smelled old.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you been trying to contact Patrik for some reason?”

“No.”

“Somebody from the police phoned. In addition to me, that is.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“You know him pretty well, don’t you?”

“You get to know people when you’re patrolling the streets all the time.”

“Has he calmed down a bit?”

“He’s always been pretty calm,” Morelius said. “It’s… her… er, the vicar’s daughter who’s been a bit wild, rather than him.”

“Yes, evidently.”

“But she seems to have calmed down now as well.”

Winter’s colleague called from Stockholm.

“We’ve been up there.”

“Well done, Jonas.”

“An interesting place.”

“Did you find any completed ad coupons?”

“The shredding business hadn’t worked as it should have done for the Valkers. Too many advertisements. Too many people trying to make contact. They’ve got thousands of bloody advertisements in that office. And that’s only one of these so-called men’s magazines.”

“Well?”

“We have the coupon from the Valkers, duly filled in. And we have the coupon from the Martells.”

“Just what I was hoping for.”

“And they only use letters,” DCI Jonas Sjöland said. “No telephone responses. And your hopes were also fulfilled when it came to the replies to the Martells’ ad. They’d already sent out the replies to the Valkers, but they still had the ones for the Martells. Hadn’t got around to sending them.”

“How many answers have you got there, to the Martells?”

“I haven’t counted them yet…” Winter listened to the pause. “Have you got authorization for this, Erik?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“You’ve got the Code of Judicial Procedure there on your bookshelf, what does it have to say? Are you a hundred percent sure of what you’re doing?”

“Don’t worry, I said.”

“I looked it up, in fact,” Sjoland said. “Chapter twenty-seven, paragraph three. Interesting.”

“Especially as it’s never been tested,” Winter said.

“Who’s your prosecutor?”

“Molina. Do you know him?”

“Only by name.”

Winter had decided to inform the prosecution service immediately after the first murder. Peter Molina had been following the investigation closely all the time so that he would be able to make decisions fast.

“So you are creating new practices, are you? Setting precedents, in fact,” Sjöland said. “Sensitive stuff, this. Opening other people’s letters.”

“If you study the paragraph carefully, you’ll see there is scope for the officer in charge of the investigation to make a decision in a criminal case as serious as this.”

“Well, I suppose you could interpret it like that.”

“But I’ve asked permission from the public prosecutor, and got it. Positive.” In the end it was positive anyway, Winter thought. He owed Molina.

“All right. I give in.”

“I’d like the letters by tonight if possible. You can fax me the completed ad coupons.”

“We’ll fix that.” Sjöland paused again. “Has it occurred to you that if you hadn’t been so damn quick off the mark, the pile of letters would have turned up at the Martells’ place. By post. They gave their home address, no dodgy box number. The girl at the office said they would probably have sent off the pile in a week or so. Just imagine, that would have been interesting… A possible solution suddenly drops in through the mail slot.”

“I’ve been anything but quick off the mark,” Winter said.

Winter’s reasoning presupposed that somebody who replied to the Martells had also replied to the Valkers.

He was sorry not to have the replies to the Valkers. He needed them more. But somebody who had made contact with the Valkers through the advertisement might also have gotten to know the Martells. Erika Elfvegren had told them about Louise Valker’s “man.” Had the Martells also heard about this man? Had they also met him?

Or had he heard about them? Even before their ad was published? Or in the meantime? Would he prefer to answer an ad rather than simply telephone? Would that have been too indiscreet? Did he want to go about it as he had the previous time?

Be that as it may. They would shortly have names and addresses. They had started interviewing the film extras. More names and addresses. He was waiting for the transcripts.