Åke Edwardson - Never End

"He seemed familiar," Bergenhem said.

"The type, you mean?"

"More than that. The man himself."

"You didn't show him the pictures of the girls. Or of the wall."

"No."

"Why not?"

"It wasn't the right time." Bergenhem turned to face Mollerstrom, who was driving. "He would've sworn up and down he didn't recognize any of them, no matter what."

"You think?"

"There was something familiar…" Bergenhem breathed in the wind that was blowing into his face. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't unpleasant either. "I'll have to take another look at Winter's photos."

Richard Yngvesson listened to what Winter was saying. The technician was sitting at his computer, which was connected to a mixing board and other equipment that Winter didn't know the name of, nor what it did.

"You don't need to go to Swedish Radio," Yngvesson said. "It's a shame you found it necessary to mention them."

"Sorry about that."

"I didn't know you guys were so ignorant."

"Come on, Richard. Is it possible to get anything from that tape?"

"What do you want?"

"Anything at all that makes sense. A sentence or a word. A voice that sounds natural. Anything other than that noise, whatever it is."

"The problem is that there are no stereo tracks for me to work on," Yngvesson said. "The answering machine's only mono, so everything's in the middle." He turned to face Winter, who'd sat down beside him. "Do you follow me? There's just one signal for everything."

"I've got a vague idea about what mono is," said Winter.

Yngvesson pressed a few buttons, changed a few connections, and put the cassette into something that looked nothing like a tape recorder. The sound started.

The technician listened intently.

"What we need to do is try to filter this sound image," he said. "Give it a good wash."

"Is that possible?"

"Of course."

"Good."

"Don't expect too much. The main thing is cutting out the bass so that it isn't so deep, and increasing the descant in the middle register."

"When can you start?"

Yngvesson looked at a list on the notice board next to his computer.

"In a week."

"The hell you can."

"You're not the only person we're dealing with here, Winter. You seem to think that as soon as you come storming in, we can drop everything else." He looked almost angry. "There are other things going on out here, you know."

"Which murders are you referring to?"

"There are-"

"Give me the cassette."

"Eh?"

"I'm taking it to somebody at Swedish Radio."

"Hang on a minute-"

"I don't get people sometimes," Winter said. "Here I am working on a complicated case, to say the least, with young girls being raped and murdered while Gothenburg basks in the summer sun, and you sit here babbling on about something that is supposedly more important."

"Are you making a speech?" asked Yngvesson. "Tell me when you've finished so that I can start work."

"On what?"

"On your murder," said Yngvesson, turning to one of the computer screens and gaping at Winter as if in a mirror.

"Plural," said Winter. "It's several murders."

Yngvesson listened to the cassette again.

"Three minutes," he said.

"Yes."

"It took her three minutes to die."

"Unusually long for an answering machine."

Yngvesson shrugged.

"When do you think you can come up with something?"

"I'd rather not talk about results." Yngvesson did something with his keyboard. "Give me three days."

"Three days?"

"Back off now, Winter. You should really be waiting for a week, possibly two, and you've got it down to three days. OK?"

"OK."

"Three minutes, three days," said Yngvesson. "But be prepared for it to take longer."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll put it into the computer and let a few programs get to work on the sound image. There's software that can clean up the sound and analyze it. If there's some kind of background noise, for instance, a constant hum or something, such as an air-conditioner fan, I can remove those frequencies."

"Hmm."

"It's not something you can rush. I have to work on the sound a little bit at a time. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"What I've heard so far is partly treacle, what we call treacly sound, that's muffled and vague. I'll try to raise the descant and see if I can tease out what I assume you're interested in."

"I'm interested in everything," Winter said.

"The voice," said Yngvesson. "Aren't you trying to hear words? Or at the very least a voice? Bits of words, or whatever else we can produce?"

"Of course."

"There are voices here, but it's not possible to hear anything intelligible aside from the girl's cries for help now and again. You could say most of it's a sort of whisper. And then there's the other stuff… the grunting, or whatever you want to call it."

"That's it," said Winter. "That's the stuff I’m mainly interested in."

"Alright. I'll concentrate on the middle register, do some work on the compression. Amplify the faint pants. Try to dampen the loud ones."

Winter made no comment. Yngvesson listened to the tape again.

"Right, let's see if we can manage to dig out a few pieces of words. It sounds like the mobile was inside something. Presumably it was in her handbag, is that right?"

"I have no idea. We haven't found the phone."

"That makes it more difficult. If it was in her handbag, that is. It also sounds as if they were at varying distances from the microphone."

Winter could picture the scene. The handbag, the ground, the man, the girl, the struggle, the blows, the hands, the dog leash. Death. The leash? Why had he thought of the "dog leash"? He hadn't thought of "the belt." He could see a dog leash around the girl's neck. What was the difference between a leash and a belt?

"There's something positive here as well," said Yngvesson. "She had a hands-free set."

"You think?"

"She must have. It sounds like the microphone was outside the handbag. At the end here at least. The sound is clearer, if you can call it that. The mike has picked up clearer sound."

"We didn't find anything to support that. No earphones."

He wondered where they might be now. Would anybody use that mobile phone again?

He played Michael Brecker at top volume and watched the clouds disperse, maybe for good. The music had chased them away.

He called Angela.

"The sun's coming out. Look."

"Is that why you called?"

"Isn't that a good enough reason?"

"Here's Elsa."

He spoke to his daughter. Angela returned to the phone.

"We've been invited to a party on Saturday, by the way."

"Where?"

"At Agneta and Pelle's." "Ah. A beach party, I take it?" "Can you make it?" "Saturday? I certainly hope so.

Bergenhem was reporting on the visit.

"Samic?" Winter said.

"Does the name mean anything to you?" asked Bergenhem.

"No."

"He's been around for a while."

"I'll check up on him."

"We don't have anything on him. I ran a few searches."

Winter lit a cigarillo. He didn't have the strength to go to the window. Bergenhem had changed into shorts in his office.

"I just took another look at those graduation party photos again," Bergenhem said, taking out his copies, leaning over the desk, and pointing. "Look at this."

Winter looked at the dark-haired man standing next to the boy.

"That could be Samic," said Bergenhem.

"It could be anybody at all."

"Yes…"

"You have to be certain."

"I'm not."

"What are the similarities?"

"Something about his face. Of course, this guy has hair, whereas Samic is going bald."