Åke Edwardson - Never End

"Yes."

"I would have liked to ask her more."

"You got what information you could, for now."

Djanali looked out at the summer. People weren't wearing much. Their races were beaming, trying to outdo the sun. The sky was blue and cloudless. Everything was ice cream and lightweight clothing and an easy life. There was no headwind.

Let's hope it isn't the beginning of something," said Halders, looking at her. "You know what I mean."

"Don't say it."

Halders thought about what Jeanette had said regarding the man's appearance, insofar as she could see anything. The rapist. They'd have to wait for the tests, but he was sure they were dealing with rape.

They could never be sure about appearances. Getting a description was the hardest thing. Never put your trust in a description, he'd said to anybody who cared to listen. None of it is necessarily related to the facts. The same person could vary between five foot ten and six foot three in a witness's eyes and memory. Everything could vary.

Last year they'd had a madman running round and knocking people down from behind, no obvious pattern, just that he knocked them down and stole their money. But he did have a habit of introducing himself from the side, that was the nearest to a pattern: some greeting or other to get his victim's attention, then wham.

The victims all agreed on one thing: he'd reminded them of the hunchback of Notre Dame-stocky, hunchbacked, bald, dragged one foot…

When they eventually caught up with him, in the act, he turned out to be six foot two with thick, curly hair, and he could have landed the job of Mr. Handsome in any soap opera you care to name.

It all depended on so much. What they saw. How dark it was. Where the light came from. Fear and terror. Most of all the terror.

He turned into the park and stopped the car. The uniforms weren't there anymore. The scene was roped off; two forensics officers were crawling on the ground. There was a bunch of kids hanging round the far barrier, whispering and watching. Some adults came past and stopped, then walked on.

"Found anything?" Halders shouted. The scene-of-crime boys looked up, then down again, without answering. Halders heard a short bark, and saw the dog and its handler.

"Found anything?" he said to the handler.

"Zack picked up something over there, but it melted away into the wind."

"Or up a tree," said Halders, looking up.

"Were you there when we caught that bastard the other year who tried to hide up a tree?" the dog handler asked.

"I heard about it."

"Them trees are clean, now, anyway."

"How did he get away, then?"

"Ran, I suppose. Or drove. You'd better ask forensics. But I doubt there'll be any tracks. Everything's so damn dry."

Halders looked around. Djanali was watching the SOC team. The police dog was scrutinizing first Halders, then the SOC team. Halders looked around again, walked a few paces.

"Have you been here before?" he asked the dog handler.

"What do you mean? For another crime?"

"I'm not talking about your private life, Soren. Have you ever been called out here after a rape?"

"To this park, you mean?"

"Yes. And to this very spot."

Halders was standing just outside the police enclosure: it looked out of place, as if it had been made by the kids who were sticking around to watch. The pond was to the right. It reflected pink from the flamingos standing on one leg by the water's edge.

The SOC team was crawling around in some shrubbery.

Next to it were two trees. Two meters or so away. Maples? There was a passage between them, wide enough to get through. It was shady inside. A rock sticking out turned it into a hollow, almost a cave behind the trees. The forensic officers were moving around there now, on their way into the cave.

A perfect place to commit rape.

Good God! Halders thought. He could see it all now. It was here.

The paved path was about ten meters away, but it might as well have been a hundred. A thousand. There was a minor road on the other side of the parking lot. A hedge between the cars and the park itself. The lighting in the park was a joke. He'd walked there hundreds of times at night, and the lighting was more of a hindrance than a help. They hadn't improved it, in spite of what had happened here.

A perfect place. It was as if the shadow between the trees was lying in wait. He hadn't caught on at first.

"This spot?" asked the dog handler. He looked around. "I don't think so." He looked at Halders. "What are you getting at?"

"It's happened before," Halders said.

"I don't follow."

"This is where it was." Halders looked at his colleague. "Damn it, Soren, it's the very same spot. The same spot!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Weren't you based here in Gothenburg five years ago?"

"I came four years ago."

"But you've heard about the Beatrice Wägner case, surely?"

The dog handler looked at Halders.

"Beatrice Wägner? That girl who was murdered?"

"Five years ago. She was raped too. Raped and murdered."

"I know about it… course I do. I read about it at the time. We'd…"

"It was here," Halders said.

"Here?"

"This is where it happened," Halders said to Soren and Djanali, who had just joined them. "This is where Beatrice Wägner was found. This very spot. She was in that hollow," he said, nodding toward where the SOC team was still combing the ground. "Lying between the trees. It's like a cave in there."

Raped, and strangled, he thought.

He noticed the dog following his gaze toward the cave and then back again. It jerked at its leash, then was calm again.

Winter could feel the tiny handgripping his finger tightly. Elsa gurgled a greeting. He kissed her behind her ear, she laughed, he blew gently on her neck, and she laughed again.

He still hadn't gotten used to that laugh and that gurgle; they could be floating around in the apartment for ages. His daughter would soon be fifteen months old. Her sounds tore the silence from the walls like old wallpaper. Amazing that such a tiny body could make such a loud noise.

Angela came in from the kitchen and sat down in one of the armchairs, unbuttoned her checked blouse, and looked at Winter and Elsa on the blanket on the floor.

"Breakfast," she said.

Winter blew behind Elsa's ear.

"Time for breakfast," Angela said.

Elsa laughed.

"She doesn't seem hungry," Winter said, looking at Angela.

"Bring her here and you'll see. This is going to be the last time, though. I can't go on breast-feeding her, for God's sake."

He carried the little girl over to Angela in the armchair. She seemed to weigh barely anything at all.

Winter saw the files lying on his desk when he entered his office. The sun had already warmed the room, and there was a smell of summer. Two more months, and then it would be some time before he saw this office again. A year. He was going to take a year's leave, and who would he be the next time he stepped into this gloomy office where nearly all thoughts were painful to think?

Would he ever come back at all?

Who would he be then?

He went to the sink and drank a glass of water. He felt thoroughly rested. At an early stage Elsa had decided to sleep from 8:00 at night till 8:00 in the morning. He and Angela were very lucky.

Sometimes Angela would cry, at night. Her memories would come flooding back, but more and more rarely now. He hadn't asked her what happened in that room in that apartment the day before he got there. Not at first, not directly. She used to talk about it, night after night, in mangled sentences. Now it had more or less stopped. She slept soundly for hours on end.