Åke Edwardson - Never End

Not a third time on this occasion. But not far off: four hundred meters, as the crow flies. He thought about the girl. A dead sparrow.

"You didn't see anybody else?"

"Not a soul."

"How did you find the girl?"

"We saw the bike, as I said, and stopped. I got out to investigate. It was obvious somebody had been walking on the side of the road. I didn't have to look very hard to find her. I mean, you've seen for yourself."

"Yes."

"We've all had our eyes peeled, after what's happened recently."

"Well done, Peter."

The constable looked at Winter, then into the bushes and trees.

"Is it the same old story?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was he at it again?"

"No idea," said Winter, going back to take another look at the girl.

"Do you think it's rape?" asked Ringmar, who'd arrived only minutes after Winter.

The pathologist shrugged.

"He asked you a question," Winter said.

"Probably," said the man, rising to his feet. The peak of his cap was pointing to the sky. That doesn't fit in here, Winter thought. Doesn't fit in anywhere. The doctor looked at Winter. "OK, I know what you're getting at. Could be. I'll be as quick as I can."

"We'll have to bring in the coroner's office in Linkoping as well," Ringmar said. "Where's Beier, by the way?"

"In New York."

" New York?!"

"A conference. Didn't you know?"

" New York," said Ringmar again. "It must be even hotter there than here."

"I'll get her out of here now," the pathologist said.

"She's called Anne Nöjd," Winter said. "She has a name."

Her handbag had been lying there. She had a name and an address. She lived on the west side. Winter had an uncomfortable feeling as he drove through the tunnel and out onto the motorway. All the victims lived on the west side.

It seemed lighter there, even if the sun was rising behind them. There was a smell of the sea through the wide open window. They were driving along narrow streets through old coastal communities.

He felt like he was in Lilliput. There was a number over the verandah.

"That must be it," Ringmar said.

There was a hedge all the way around. Boats were anchored only fifty meters away. The smell of the sea was even stronger now. Winter listened to the sound of the waves. He knew there were rocks just behind the promontory that lots of kids used as a base for swimming. If he went out onto it he'd be able to see the rocks. Jeanette had gone swimming there. And Beatrice, in another age, the previous century. Angelika, too. Had Anne Nöjd sunbathed and swam there as well? Was that significant?

The house was in darkness.

She was twenty. This was where she had lived. That was all he knew. The house looked smaller as they drew closer to it. It ought to be the other way around. Winter bent down and peered through the window. He could make out dark silhouettes of objects. Ringmar knocked on the door. And again, harder this time. No response.

Ringmar produced a bunch of keys that they had taken from the girl's handbag. There were four keys. Two seemed similar and looked like they might fit the lock. The second one opened it. Ringmar shouted into the house. He shouted again, and looked at Winter. Winter nodded. He could hear the first seagull of the morning as they entered the house.

It was lighter inside than they'd expected from what they'd seen through the window. They were in a hall, then turned left into a kitchen that couldn't be any bigger than six square meters. There was a newspaper on the table, and a cup beside it. There was a half-full glass of wine, glistening in the morning sunlight that was growing stronger by the minute now. Winter bent over the table and watched the sea shifting in the sunlight, changing in swell and color.

It must be great sitting here, watching the morning reflected in the water.

Ringmar shouted from another room. Winter went back into the hall and then into a room off to the left that wasn't much more than a closet with a little table and a chair. The next room was a bedroom with a bed, a bedside table, and a chair. The floor was wood, pine, polished. There was a smell of flowers. Ringmar spoke again. Winter continued into the living room. That was the whole house. The living room was a maximum of eight square meters and the windows looked out onto the road, where he could see the tires of his own car. There was a wood-framed sofa and an attractive-looking carpet in colors he couldn't yet make out. In another hour, perhaps, but not yet. There were pictures of various sizes hanging from the walls. In the dawn light the pictures looked like holes. Ringmar was standing by a table, and on the table was a telephone with an answering machine. The red light was blinking. Ringmar looked at Winter, eyebrows raised. The light blinked.

They hadn't found a mobile phone in the girl's handbag. Winter was sure that Anne Nöjd must have had a mobile. All young people had a mobile phone. Everybody did. They would have to search around the place where the body had been found. They'd also have to check if she'd had a contract.

The light was blinking. A gull called outside the window. Winter nodded, and Ringmar pressed gingerly on the button with his gloved finger. A shrill peep. Static. A voice.

"Andy here. I got held up. You know how it is. Call me when you get home. Ciao, baby."

The static again. Peep.

Nothing.

Something.

Ringmar leaned forward to hear better. Winter took a step closer.

They could hear her voice now. A scream. Another one. A… grunting, or… a weird noise, a scratching, like something brushing against branches, bushes…

"What the hell…?" Ringmar said.

"Shush," Winter said. "It's her."

Ringmar's face was stony. His eyes flitted from Winter to the answering machine, from the answering machine to Winter.

"How on earth…?"

Winter held up his hand. He could feel it shaking.

We're listening to a murder.

"NNNAAAAIEIERRYYYYW."

Words they couldn't quite make out. Sounds. Was this what Jeanette had meant when she talked about the noise her attacker had made?

He stared at the answering machine as if it were alive, a black beast, potentially lethal.

They listened to the screams, the yells, the grunts, the roars, the repeated words "naaieieier …" quietly the first two times, then louder, "NNAAAIEIERRYYY!"

Sudden silence. Winter checked his watch. Not many minutes had passed but… the message should have been cut off earlier. They waited but there was nothing else. There was a series of clicks from the answering machine and the tape rewound to the beginning. Ringmar pressed play again.

"Andy here…"

They listened once more. Ringmar made notes.

Silence.

"We need to find this Andy," Winter said.

A gull screamed again. The sun had climbed over the hill to the west now, tumbled down the other side, and scrambled as far as the house. The answering machine was suddenly lit up by the sunlight.

Halders put on another record. Twenty more minutes and it would be light. Aneta Djanali could smell the whiskey on his breath when he came back and sat on the sofa beside her.

The music started. Some tentative piano chords. Then Bob Dylan's voice singing "Blind Willie McTell."

Halders sang along for a few lines, then mumbled something.

"What did you say, Fredrik?"

"No one can sing the blues like Bob Dylan."

She didn't answer.

Halders started singing again.

"Maybe you should go to bed now, Fredrik."

He leaned forward, picked up his glass, and drank.

"Am 1 behaving myself, do you think?"

"You look tired."

"Tired? Huh!"

"Don't drink any more now."

"That's up to me. Maybe I need it."

"Tell me that tomorrow."