Åke Edwardson - Never End

Halders sat in Winter's office. Winter was standing by the window, smoking. There was a slight evening breeze now. Halders ran his hand over his hair. He was looking cheerful. He was there, which must mean somebody else was looking after his children.

"Aneta's with the kids tonight," Halders said.

"Good."

"She's sacrificing her free time."

Winter said nothing.

Halders stood up. "Jeanette's old man used to have some kind of restaurant business."

"So you said."

"I've tried to check him out, and it seems he was mixed up in that kind of thing."

"But legitimate, presumably?"

"What is legitimate when it comes to restaurants and bars in Sweden?" said Halders.

"Don't let the occasions when you've had to put up with poor service influence you," Winter said.

"He's apparently used to running that kind of place," said Halders. "Sort of on the side. He's never mentioned it, though."

"We haven't asked."

"We will now."

"Wait a while."

"Why?"

"Just hold back for a while."

"Why?"

"I don't want to be pulling at too many strings at the same time, that's why." Winter took a puff at his cigarillo. Just this one, then that's it. Not for at least an hour. "We've got a fresh murder and an old one, neither of them solved, and I've been thinking as you have that Jeanette Bielke fits into the pattern somehow, but I can't quite see how at the moment, and we have other leads that we need to pursue that are more pressing. By all means poke into Kurt Bielke's business interests, but hang on a bit before you talk to him."

Halders said nothing.

"OK?"

"They took the wall with them," said Halders.

"If it actually was a wall."

"Stage scenery?"

"Something like that."

"Unless the ghosts are at it again," said Halders. "Do you believe in ghosts, Erik?"

"People come and go in real life, too. Things exist, and then they disappear. Places vanish. But they still exist."

"Where are they, then?"

"Somewhere. We're going to find them."

Anne was on her way through the night, or was it the early morning? It depended where you drew the line. There were still a lot of people around in the center of town. Somebody shouted, but not to her. Andy wasn't there; she'd left the other place without telling him. She hesitated halfway up the steps to the outside part of the restaurant.

"It's full," said the doorman. His face was red after standing in the sun for so long, and it looked even redder in the neon lights. He looked like an idiot with his bleached hair standing up on end. Like somebody in a cartoon who's just seen something horrific.

Me, perhaps.

"I'm not going in anyway," she said, turning back.

There was a smell of cooking and alcohol all the way down the Avenue. Sunscreen, after-sun, all the other nasty stuff.

She waited for a streetcar to rattle by, then jumped onto her bike and pedaled away down the Allé. There was a slight breeze, and it felt like taking a lukewarm bath.

I'll take a bath when I get home. Light a candle in the bathroom and watch it burn down.

There weren't many cars around. One was behind her. Passed her and stopped at the traffic lights. She ignored the red light, turned left, and headed for home.

She pedaled slowly through the night. Gothenburg was under siege this summer, with roadworks everywhere, cables coming up and going down, tar boilers. Nobody around at this time. Everything quiet. A faint buzz from cars on the other side of the buildings. People were asleep behind black windows. Some people had to work through the worst of the summer heat, and get up early in the morning, she thought.

The park was lit up to the left and right. It was dark in the center. The bike path went through the middle, but she knew. She wasn't stupid. There was another path that was a bit longer but a bit lighter. There was traffic on the other side of the pond. A few cars out late, taxicabs with their roof signs lit up.

There was a smell of exhaust. Somebody had just driven along here. Unless the smell came from the road on the left. There was a car parked under a tree, in the shadows. The streetlights were few and far between, producing a dirty yellow glow, maybe more of a white, but it didn't extend very far and wasn't much use, and she speeded up, but suddenly her foot slipped off one of the pedals and she veered to the left, and the handlebars twisted out of control and her heart jumped almost into her mouth, and then she twisted back again and nearly regained her balance, and she wobbled into the light of the next lamp, which was just as dim as all the rest. Then she felt a prod in her side, and she'd seen the shadow the moment before, and she felt scared now, and then another prod and she fell off her bike and her terror was like an ice-cold block of stone inside her and her heart went bang, bang, bang.

Three hours earlier: Winter had been trying to contact Hans Bülow, and Bülow had phoned and left a message, and Winter called him as he walked over the soccer fields at Heden. A ball came bouncing toward him and he kicked it back, and play was able to restart in one of the matches. A pity he couldn't join them; it would be nice to work up a sweat that warm evening.

It was late. The digital clock on the building behind him had just changed to 22-something. But they'd still be working at the newspaper offices, preparing for the next morning's edition.

"GT, Bülow."

"Winter here."

"You were supposed to call ages ago."

"Didn't have time."

"If you want help, you have to put yourself out, too," said the reporter.

Winter paused as he came to Sodra Vagen. A car full of teenagers sailed past. Eddie Cochran's voice at an aggressive volume, girls in sweaters- there are always girls in sweaters in cars full of teenagers.

"Hang on a minute."

He crossed over the street and came to the sidewalk café section of Kometen. A table was just becoming available, as a party of four prepared to leave. Their bill was on the table.

"If you can manage to drag yourself away from your desk, you'll find me at Kometen."

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

Winter ordered a beer. Bülow arrived and followed suit.

"Have you always been a crime reporter?" Winter asked, as Bülow took a swig of his beer.

"Ever since I learned to write."

"I'm thinking of giving you a piece of highly sensitive information."

"About time, too."

"It won't be the first time," Winter said.

Bülow took another drink, puffed at his cigarette, waited. He'd leaned his bicycle against the wooden fence.

"A boy might have been murdered."

Bülow put down his glass.

"Who? When?"

Winter didn't answer.

"For God's sake, Erik."

"Nobody knows."

"You shouldn't say things like that."

"Highly sensitive, as I said."

"No."

"You mean you don't want it?"

"You've just given it to me, for Christ's sake! Jesus… you think I'd keep quiet about a murder? Another one?!"

"Keep your voice down, if you don't mind."

Bülow looked around. Nobody seemed to be listening. Some new customers had just arrived at the next table, and were in the process of ordering and talking all at once, blah blah blah blah.

"Let's have the details, please."

"We can find him. This is my own suspicion, if you see what I mean. We're in a situation where we need to make a breakthrough." Winter looked Bülow in the eye. "I need to smoke somebody out. I want you to write something."

Cut cut cut. Rip rip rip. It was deafening inside her head. She could feel breathing against her cheek, a smell she'd never come across before, sweat, smell, cut, cut, her heart was leaping like a wild beast inside her chest, cut, breathing, a voice saying something right next to her but also far away, rip, rip.