Åke Edwardson - Never End

Gone. He had some of the photographs in his inside pocket, and pictured them in his mind's eye, saw the faces of the four people that nobody had recognized, who were there but not there. Gone. Except the woman. She had been there in both versions.

The boy had been there, at least in Angelika's pictures. They'd made an appeal for him to come forward immediately after they'd first spoken to Cecilia. But now they had a picture of him; his face would soon be displayed everywhere. Bergenhem had gone to take care of that.

Winter walked across Brunnsparken and came to his tobacconist's in the Arcade.

"I'm sorry," the woman in the shop said. "I warned you, but I didn't know myself that the time had come."

"The time had come?"

"They're not importing Corps any more. We can't get them at all."

"What!" Winter felt his mouth go dry. A tingling in his chin. He swallowed. He felt bad. "You can't get them at all?"

"I was just about to put aside the last pack yesterday, but a customer came in, and, as I had it in my hand, I couldn't exactly say 1 didn't have any and hide it under the counter for you."

"I suppose not."

"Well, I couldn't, could I?"

"No, of course not." said Winter. "Thanks for the thought, anyway."

"You could take it up with Swedish Match."

Winter tried to smile.

"I called the other tobacconists in town, but nobody has any left," she said. "Haven't had any for ages, they said. We were the only ones still selling them, and you were the only customer who still asked for them. Aside from that man yesterday."

Another victim, Winter thought. He felt he'd been taken by surprise, or something more. Don't panic.

He'd been thinking about giving it up. This was his opportunity. Divine intervention. A favor. Fate had done him a favor. The tobacco distributor. Everybody was working together to safeguard his health. His family needed him, his child needed him. Now was the moment to choose a life free of poison.

He suddenly felt desperate for a smoke, absolutely desperate.

"There are other brands, you know, Inspector," said the woman, turning to the well-stocked shelves behind her.

"I've been smoking Corps for fifteen years," said Winter. "No other brand." He hoped he didn't sound like he was about to burst into tears.

"But there are others."

"Not for me," said Winter, and bade her farewell. Now he needed to concentrate on getting home in one piece and discussing with Angela what to do next. She was a doctor. He needed some of those nicotine patches. Nicotine gum. Morphine.

The sun was behind a cloud. It was shining from a clear sky for everybody else, but everything was black for him.

There were other things. Corps weren't everything. He could give them up. He was weak, but other weak people had managed to give them up.

As he walked across the market square he felt a pain in his chest. He had just lost a friend.

Anne arrived at the clubat three minutes after midnight. She recognized a few faces in the bar, all of them looking somewhere else- possibly toward the brick wall in the other room. You could see it from one side of the bar.

The music surged through the room, like hawking, she thought, something nasty forcing its way up through your throat. Not something to lie back and enjoy, but the people who came here didn't think like that. Their faces were white and green and violet in the glow from the ceiling lights.

He came out of the office near the bar.

"We wondered where you'd run off to," he said.

"I'm here now."

"You're not really fed up, are you?"

"Yes."

She waited before saying it. Waited. Said it.

"Why don't you say anything about Angelika?"

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't said a word about Angelika since… it happened."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"It would be natural to say something."

"I let other people do the talking."

"But this is your place, isn't it?"

"What are you getting at, Anne?"

"Don't you understand?"

"I assume you know I had nothing to do with it."

"If you had I wouldn't be here now. If I thought you had."

"But that doesn't mean that I don't care."

"Mourn?"

"Yes. Mourn. Of course. She was one of us."

"One of us?"

"You're on. Go."

She could see that the door next to the stage was ajar. The stage, oh yes. He nodded in that direction. She turned around. One of the faces at the bar seemed familiar.

"Oh no. Not him again."

"Does it matter?"

"All you think about is your regular 'customers,' or whatever I'm supposed to call them."

"Well. He's been coming here for a long time."

"You're not the one performing in there. You don't know what it feels like."

"You don't need to be afraid, you know."

"It's easy for you to say that. But, anyway, that's not it."

"What is it, then?"

"I can't explain it."

"Just close your eyes."

She might have laughed as she walked toward the door. The face seemed to move from the bar, big and white and horrible. She entered the dressing room before the face came too near. She got herself ready and went out into the cage, closed her eyes, and moved in time with the music from the loudspeaker. It was a different tune now.

It was raining. Ringmar had shut the window, but after five minutes it was too hot. He opened it again, and there was soon a little pool on the floor under the window. Winter could feel a little breeze. Nice. He was chewing some awful-tasting nicotine gum. His headache had started half an hour after breakfast, exactly as Angela had predicted.

"How long do I have to put up with this?" he'd asked over coffee at breakfast.

"Until you've driven the devil out of your body."

"He's been in there for a long time."

"You'll make it, Erik."

"There are other brands."

"This is your opportunity. Destiny has finally given you a chance," she'd said.

"Swedish Match, more like," he'd replied.

He put another lump of gum in his mouth, chewed, then spat it out again. Images were flitting through his mind. Another investigation, another set of pictures being circulated around the team. Pictures of dead bodies, body parts. Children. Children's drawings. Houses. Cars. Trees. Rocks. Sea. Forest clearings. Several bodies. Dead faces: swollen, shot away, mashed. Year after year. No end to it.

Brick walls. Graduation parties. Living faces that would be dead within a few weeks. They had some sort of key, but what was it? A skeleton key that didn't fit any lock. This had happened, but why and how and when and who and…

"Unlicensed clubs," said Halders. He was back at work, three days after the funeral. He looked leaner, thinner. No banter, no jokes. A new man. No oral wrestling with Aneta Djanali, who was sitting a couple of chairs away. Winter wondered if she might miss that. Maybe they'd all miss the old Haiders. He would never return.

"This reeks of unlicensed clubs," said Halders, looking at the slide currently on the screen. Mollerstrom had drawn the blinds and started the projector. First Beatrice. Then Angelika. The same wall.

"We'll have to check everything," said Ringmar.

"There are people who keep an eye on restaurants," said Bergenhem. "Check up on pubs and bars. Health and Safety people. And the fire department, I assume."

"Yep," said Winter. "Follow up on that. Bring in the uniforms as well."

"Of course."

"Report back with this location."

"I'll find it."

"Unlicensed clubs are springing up like mushrooms wherever you look, all the time," said Halders. "You cut one out, and two new ones grow to replace it."

"Not this one," said Winter. "Assuming it is an unlicensed club." He turned to look at the slide, with Beatrice and the wall behind her. "This picture was taken at least five years ago. It seems to be the same place."