Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“That there are lots of them.”

“I was afraid we might find somebody we knew among them,” Ringmar said.

“Our chief of police?”

“Or the mayor of Gothenburg.”

“The editor in chief of GP.”

“I don’t recognize any of them.”

“Me neither.”

“We’d better get started on them.”

“Yes.”

“But we haven’t finished with the film extras yet.”

“Well, nearly.” Winter looked at the files with transcripts of all the interviews. Nearly forty of them.

“It will be… delicate.”

“What we’re faced with here is delicate.”

Halders was worried.

“Have you talked to Molina?”

“We can’t arrest them, Fredrik.”

“I appreciate that. But what does he want? Something concrete?”

“Something clear-cut,” Winter said. “We’ve got to pry out something more.”

Concrete rhymes with secrete, thought Halders. Cut is very nearly cu-.

“We’ll bring them in again,” Winter said.

“Good.”

Åke Killdén answered after the third ring. It sounded as if he were on the beach, with a wind blowing.

“Hang on a minute while I close the veranda door,” he said. “Someone’s cutting my hedge,” he said when he came back.

Winter explained what the call was about.

“That’s awful.” Killdén was breathing fast, as if he’d been the one doing the gardening. “It’s the deadest spot in the northern hemisphere usually.” He coughed. “I mean… the quietest spot. The most boring spot.”

Unlike Fuengirola, Winter thought, and asked Killdén about his employees.

“I only had three. All of them part-time.”

“Can I have their names?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have their addresses?”

“They must be there somewhere in the accounts material.”

“Where can we find that?”

“If it’s still in existence I suppose it will be in my accountant’s archives,” Killdén said.

The employees, Winter thought. We haven’t given enough thought to the people who worked at Manhattan Livs.

“Did you have many regular customers?”

“They were all regular customers.”

“Do you think you could help me by thinking hard about your… regular customers? Was there anybody who stood out? Anybody you thought acted a bit oddly some time or other? Anything at all.”

“Anything at all,” Killdén said.

“Was one of your regular customers a police officer?” Winter asked.

“A police officer? What do you mean? Somebody who came in uniform?”

“Yes, or without.”

“Well… police officers called in occasionally to buy something, I suppose, but I don’t recall anything in particular.”

“Think hard about that as well.”

“Will do.”

Winter thanked him and hung up.

The employees. Matilda. The man who couldn’t count. They’d only spoken to him over the phone. Winquist. Kurt Winquist. The others, in the accountant’s archives. This was getting bigger by the hour. He was conducting an investigation that could choke him. The Mölndal police. The duty roster for New Year’s Eve.

The answers were all in the investigation material. Everything was there, in the papers he had in front of him. How many more times would he need to read them before the penny dropped?

The telephone on his desk rang, as did his mobile. He said, “Be with you in a moment,” into the mobile and picked up the receiver on his desk. It was Möllerström.

“That kid Patrik has taken a turn for the worse at the Sahlgren Hospital.”

Winter answered his mobile, but whoever had called him had hung up.

Hanne Ostergaard and her daughter were in the waiting room when Winter returned from the ward.

“They don’t really know yet,” he said. “It’s something to do with his brain.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Maria said.

“Perhaps he’s had too many blows,” Hanne said. “For too long a time.”

“He said he’d remembered something else,” Maria said.

Winter turned to look at her.

“Something about him recognizing somebody. On the stairs.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did he say anything else about it?”

“No.”

“But he recognized somebody? Somebody he’d seen before?”

“I don’t know any more.”

Now I have two hospital patients who can help us to make progress, Winter thought. Both of them are unconscious. We must have people here, around the clock. I’d better tell Angela. She’ll have to get used to seeing police officers at her place of work.

He met Morelius as he was about to leave.

“I know,” said Morelius, adjusting his belt. “It feels almost like being one of the family.”

‘Are you on your own?“

“Bartram is in the car. I just wanted to see how things were going.” He waved to Hanne and her daughter. “That fucking bastard.”

Winter drove through Toltorpsdalen to Krokens Livs. Jilna smiled at him, but he wasn’t convinced that she remembered who he was. He went outside. The wind was still battering the city, bang, bang. Elderly folk were getting off buses. He turned around and let his eyes wander. Somewhere…

Should they set up a camera in the shop? Make a video recording and show it to Killdén and Andréasson and Matilda Josefsson and all the other employees? If so, for how long?

The possibilities were endless. So was time, of course, but not now.

He had the feeling that time was slipping away. It was on its way to something that would be a bigger problem than anything that had gone before. He could feel it.

His mobile called again. It was Angela.

“Was it you who called a few minutes ago?” he asked. There was no number displayed on the screen, nor in his memory.

“No.”

“How are things?”

“I’ve just got home, and… I don’t know. I suddenly felt so… scared. Can’t you come home, Erik?”

“Has something happened?” He could feel his hand trembling slightly.

“Not really. It’s just that it suddenly felt odd when I went in through the front door. That’s all. As if somebody was looking at me. Scrutinizing me.”

“You didn’t see anybody?”

“No. I looked around, but there was nobody there. It’s ridiculous. Maybe it was that door at the bottom of the stairs, down to the cellar.”

“What about it?”

“It was open. It’s so dark and horrible in there.”

Winter drove home. He called Ringmar from his car.

“I want somebody posted to keep an eye on Angela.”

He’d spoken to Ringmar about the telephone calls and the break-in.

“Have you discussed this with Sture?”

“Screw Sture. Can you fix it?”

“From when?”

“Tomorrow morning. Outside. I’ll ring you later about times.”

Bergenhem kept his head still. Concentrated on following the painting’s frame, first with his eyes and then with his head. It went well. Better than yesterday.

“How do you feel?”

“Better than before.”

Martina had put Ada to bed. She’d been quieter than usual since he’d come home.

He stood up.

“Do you really feel well enough to go out?”

“I have to keep moving.”

“Is it really a good idea to start work again on Friday?”

“No.”

“Then don’t do it, Lars.”

“I can’t just stay at home all the time, Martina. All the time.”

“But you have to get better.”

“I am better. Nearly. I’ll be okay by Friday.”

Night was falling over Torslanda. It looked as if a searchlight had been aimed at the row of terraced houses. Perhaps the light is only shining on my house, he thought.

“I don’t know what to say,” Angela said.