Åke Edwardson - Never End

It wasn't even eighteen months ago.

He sat down at his desk, opened the first of the files, and took out the documents and photographs. He held up one of the pictures. The rock. The trees. The lawn and the path. It was all very familiar in a… depressing sort of way, like an illness that recurs after several years. A cancerous tumor that has been cut away but continues to grow.

Still, Jeanette Bielke was still alive, and they were waiting for her test results.

He stood up, with the photograph in his hand, and opened the window. The sun was on the other side of the city. He could smell the light, almost weightless scents of summer. He thought of Elsa. There was a knock at the door, and he shouted, "Come in." Halders was in the doorway. Winter gestured toward the visitor's chair, but stayed by the window.

"It was completed intercourse," Halders said. "I've just had the report. Purely technical, that is. But it is rape."

"What else does it say?"

"That the girl is probably telling the truth."

"Probably?"

Halders shrugged. "You know how it is."

Winter didn't reply. Halders looked at the files on the desk.

"You sent down for them, I see."

"Yes."

"Have you had time to read through them?"

"No. Only this photograph," said Winter, holding it up.

Halders could also see a picture of Beatrice Wägner on one of the newspaper clippings by Winter's elbow.

"Is it a coincidence?" Halders said.

"The place? Well… it's not the first time somebody's been attacked in Slottsskogan Park."

"But not at that particular spot."

"Not far away."

"Never at that particular spot," Halders said. "You know it. I know it."

It's true, Winter thought. He knew that part of the park. Since Beatrice Wägner's murder he'd been back there regularly. Would stand there watching people milling around. Halders had done the same. They'd occasionally bumped into one another. You're not among the suspects, Halders had muttered on one occasion.

They were looking for a face, a movement. An action. A voice. An object. A belt. A noose. A dog leash.

They always return to the scene of the crime. Every policeman knew that. Every one. Somehow or other, at some time or other, they always go back. They go back after ten years, or five. To carry on. Or just to be there, to breathe, to remember.

Just being there was the thing. If he was there and the man who'd done the deeds came down the path at that moment, he, Winter, would know, really know, and so it wouldn't be a coincidence. It had nothing to do with luck. Nothing to do with chance. And at that very moment-when he was still holding the photograph in his hand and looking at Halders and the damp patch on his shirt under his left armpit-at that very moment he had the feeling that it really would happen. He would see the man and it would be as if a nightmare had turned into reality. It would happen. That bastard's back," Halders said.

Winter didn't reply. Same modus operandi." Halders ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. "Same spot."

'We'd better talk to the girl again." 'She's going home this afternoon." Then go and see her there. How were her parents?"

"Desperate."

"Nothing funny?"

"Aneta had a look around, of course, while I was talking to the girl." Halders's left eye twitched slightly, as if he had a tic. "No. The old man had the shakes-clearly hung over-something like this isn't exactly going to help him recover."

Halders looked at Winter. "He's back, Erik. How many did he manage last time? Three victims, one of which died?"

"Mmm."

"Maybe we'd better talk to the other two girls again."

"I've already done that. They don't remember any more now than they did back then." Halders stood up.

"Fredrik?"

"Yes?"

"I feel just the same as you do about this. I can't forget Beatrice Wägner either."

"No."

"It's not just because it's on the unsolved list."

"I understand," Halders sat down again. "It's the same with me." He scratched his head. Winter could see a damp patch under Halders's other armpit as well. "You can feel it all over the station. Everybody's talking about it."

"I'll have a look at the old pattern," said Winter, gesturing toward the documents on his desk.

"There'll be another one," Halders said. "The same again."

"Take it easy now."

"Yes, yes, OK. One rape at a time."

The sound of sirens drifted in from the east. Somebody was shouting underneath Winter's window. A car started. Halders ran his hand over his hair.

Winter suddenly made up his mind.

"Let's go there. Now."

Everybody was wearing shorts or lightweight skirts. It was over ninety degrees. There seemed to be an unusually high number of people in town, he thought-they ought to be down by the water.

"It's sales time," said Halders, pointing to the shopping center. "Summer sales, where the prices are a dream and buying is one long party."

Winter nodded.

"I ought to go myself," Halders said.

"Oh, yes?"

"It's nothing for you, I suppose, but things can seem a bit on the costly side when you're separated and have two children." He turned to look at Winter. "Maintenance, heavy stuff. Not that I'm complaining."

"How old are your kids now?" Winter asked.

Halders looked surprised. "Seven and eleven," he said, after a moment's hesitation.

"A boy and a girl, is that right?" Winter was driving along the avenue. He was the only one in the middle lane. All other traffic seemed to have disappeared. He blinked, and all the cars came back again. He blinked once more, and stopped at an amber light after glancing in his rearview mirror.

"Er… yes. The boy's the younger."

"Are you sharing custody?" Winter asked.

Halders looked at him.

"They live with Margareta, but come to me every other weekend." He looked away toward the river, then back at Winter. "Sometimes they stay a little longer with me. Or maybe we go away somewhere. It depends." Haiders had gone into his shell. Winter cast him a sideways glance. "I always try to think of something interesting."

Winter stopped at an amber light again. A large family in Gothenburg for the day was crossing the road: map, wide eyes, comfortable shoes. A boy, maybe ten, and a girl, about seven, looked at them, then caught up with their parents, who were preoccupied with a stroller containing two small children.

"How's it going for you?" Halders asked. "With the baby. Does she keep you up all night?"

"Not at all."

Hannes had colic," Halders said. "It was horrible. Four months of terror."

"I've heard about it," said Winter.

That sounded almost apologetic, Halders thought. As if he'd gotten away with things too lightly.

That was the beginning of the end," said Halders, as they arrived.

The place was just as sorry a sight as ever. There, five years ago, the SOC team had carefully collected leaves, grass, pieces of bark. Then as now. Winter was still waiting for his promotion back then, and impatient. Halders had been an inspector too, but slightly less impatient, and still married. Home every day to a house full of life.

At least it isn't murder this time, Winter thought. Two women went past, pushing baby carriages. The sun was hidden behind the trees. Voices of children swimming in the pond. A man was lying flat out on the grass, fifty meters from the scene of the crime. Winter watched the man stagger to his feet, then stumble forward a few meters before sitting down again, producing a bag and drinking in classic wino style, without taking the bottle out of the bag.

"And no witnesses," Halders said.

Winter was observing the drunk.

"Have we thought about the homeless?" he said, mainly to himself.