Åke Edwardson - Never End

He looked at her and waited. The group near them started singing. One of them looked proud, perhaps slightly embarrassed.

"Andy, I haven't said anything about this."

"About what? Now you've lost me completely."

"The girl that was murdered. Raped and murdered. Angelika. Angelika Hansson."

"I know about that. You can't miss it the second you pick up a newspaper."

"I knew her… From the club," Anne said.

"From the club? Was she a dancer?"

"No. She worked behind the bar."

"When… when it happened? I mean, was she working there when it happened? That same night?"

"I think so. I saw her the day before."

"And?"

"What do you mean?"

"What conclusion have you drawn from that?"

"I'd rather not."

"That there's a link between the club and what happened to her?"

"I don't want to think about it."

"Why should it be linked to the club?"

"It's just what I think."

"It has nothing to do with the club," Andy said. "Why should it? It's a coincidence."

"Yes," she said, and in her mind's eye she saw that face. That smile.

"Do you feel sorry for me?" Halders asked.

"What kind of a question is that?" Djanali said.

"You're answering a question with another question."

"It's hard to talk about people needing pity."

"I don't need pity," said Halders. "Not like that. It's a catastrophe, but it's twice as bad for the kids. Twenty times as bad. A thousand times."

"It affects all of you," Djanali said.

"It's worse for them."

They were sitting on the patio outside the house where Halders's children had always lived, and would continue to live if he had anything to do with it, and he intended to make sure he did.

Hannes and Magda were asleep. He'd just been with them. Hannes had mumbled something in his sleep. Then Magda had said something as well. It was as if the children were talking to each other.

Djanali stood up.

"Time to get home."

He nodded.

"Will you be all right?"

He nodded again.

"Are you sure?"

"I'll be all right." Halders looked up at a sky that was growing dark in the east. An airplane on its way into the distance winked down at them. "Tomorrow is another day, and all that stuff."

"What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"Talk to the girl's boyfriend. Jeanette's."

"Mattias. The one that was being awkward."

"Yes. I wonder why."

"Is it so odd? She wanted to break up with him."

"It's not that. I've spoken to him. It was something else. There was something he wanted her to do, but he wouldn't tell me what. Wouldn't tell us. Something he'd said to her."

Djanali waited, standing there. A car passed by on the road behind the hedge. There was a crunching of gravel.

"There's something going on there… he was upset, but not just because she'd broken up with him." Halders looked at Djanali. "Do you understand? It's something you sense."

"Yes."

Halders stood up.

"I'll go with you to the car."

He bent down as she settled behind the wheel.

"Thank you for coming."

"Go to bed now, Fredrik."

He held her hand, and let go as the car moved off.

Winter was in Beier's room. He could hear noises all around from the forensics officers: test gunshots, vacuum cleaners, running water, clothes being removed from plastic bags, the rustling of paper, flashguns.

Beier had just called.

"The boys in Linkoping have done as much as they can."

"Same attacker?"

"We don't think so, but it's not possible to be a hundred percent sure."

It had taken them two weeks to carry out the DNA analysis. Or rather, the pathologists concerned had decided it would take them two weeks. Not top priority, but not far off.

"Unfortunately, with the Bielke girl, they say there's not enough to go on."

"Jeanette," said Winter. "What did they actually have?"

"Nothing, really." Beier took a sip of the coffee he'd offered Winter as soon as he arrived. "She washed and scrubbed exceedingly efficiently." He put his cup down and wiped his hand over his mouth. "And Angelika wasn't raped. There was no trace of anything of the sort."

"So, not the same bastard," said Winter. "Beatrice Wägner five years ago and Angelika Hansson now. Five years in between. Same place. Same… weapon." He leaned forward. "You can't say anything more about the belts? Nothing more concrete?"

"No. They were strangled, but I can't say precisely what was used."

"Even so, this is sort of a breakthrough," said Winter. "If you look at it that way. We eliminate possibilities and block out a few questions."

"Yes."

"The next step is the cameras."

"I checked as soon as you mentioned it. You're right."

It was not possible to say what camera had taken the picture of Angelika, not on the basis of the print, and a print was all they had. But there was a small dot on the photograph, and Winter had noticed it, and Beier's men had studied it more closely, and it was probably due to damage on the lens.

"I compared it with other pictures that may have been taken with Angelika's camera, but there were no signs of that spot on them."

"I'm with you."

"We know that her camera is gone, but we can assume that it wasn't the one that took the picture in the bar, or wherever it is."

"So now we know that."

"We've checked with the other girl's, Jeanette's, and there's no sign of damage on her camera lens either."

Winter nodded.

"So somewhere out there is a camera that took the picture of Angelika, and it has a damaged lens," Winter said.

"Find that, and you may have found the murderer," Beier said.

Neither man spoke. Winter could feel the sun on the back of his neck from the window behind him. He was no longer hungry.

"That button, by the way: it's a standard one you'll find on any shirt you buy from a chain store," Beier said.

The button Winter had found in the park was on Beier's desk with all the other things.

"I don't buy my shirts from chain stores," Winter said.

"I didn't mean you personally."

"Ah."

"I meant people who don't buy only designer shirts from Baldessarini."

Beier himself was wearing a suit from Oskar Jakobson, white shirt and tie.

"It would have been easier if it had been a Baldessarini button," said Winter.

"These are just some of the things we found at the scene," said Beier, pointing at the objects spread out on his desk. "How much of this belonged to the killer?"

"You tell me."

"Nothing, as far as we know."

"Hmm."

"If I can get a decent set of fingerprints, I might be able to help."

"You'll have to keep on looking."

"We are looking, and looking."

"One other thing," said Winter. "What do you say about the unidentified party guests?"

"I can't explain it," said Beier. "They are in the picture taken at the graduation party. The one Angelika Hansson's father took. They were there. He might not be able to recognize them, but they were recorded on the film. So they were there."

"Yes, that's the assumption we've generally worked on," said Winter. "Living people standing in front of a camera normally end up in the photograph."

"Which they did," said Beier.

"But not in Cecilia's photo of the same scene," said Winter. "A different angle but more or less the same scene."

"One explanation is obvious," Beier said. "When Cecilia took her picture the other three had moved."

"That had occurred to me," said Winter.

"I was hoping it had," said Beier with a smile.

"But when you compare the two photographs it's hard not to believe that they were taken at more or less the same moment."

"A lot can happen in a second."

"I suppose so."