Åke Edwardson - Never End

"Did they both go in?"

"Yes."

"Could Samic be the Southern European-looking man in the party picture here?"

"Could be," said Ringmar. "With a good toupee, it could be him. But we haven't been able to check all that thoroughly."

"Our toupee experts have said that it isn't a toupee," said Halders with a sort of smile.

I wonder what Fredrik would look like in a toupee, Djanali thought briefly. God awful. A man in a toupee's nothing to go for. Neither is a man with a comb-over either.

Samic hadn't been wearing a toupee on the boat or in the restaurant. Why should he be wearing one at that party, she wondered, assuming it was him? And if he had been there-why?

"We'd better take a look at that mansion," Winter said.

"I'll go," said Halders. He looked at the others.

"He'll be suspicious if he sees you, won't he?" said Bergenhem.

"He won't see me."

"Oh, no?"

"That's where my new toupee comes in handy."

Somebody chortled, but soon stopped.

"Shouldn't there be several of us?" Helander asked.

Winter thought about it. Caution. Yes. Either they marched in and brought Samic to the station for questioning-six hours minimum, because that is what the investigation needed-or they waited. They were looking for an unknown address, and they had an unknown name, and there might be a connection. Possibly. That's the way they worked. It was no coincidence that Helander had seen Samic and followed him. If the ferry hadn't shown up they would've found the house anyway, but it would have taken them longer.

Samic was lying, but lots of other people were too.

He wanted to know what was inside the house before they reacted.

"You and Fredrik," he told Sara Helander.

"When?"

"Tonight."

"What should we d-"

"That's enough now, Sara," said Halders getting to his feet. "Let's do some thinking for ourselves, OK?"

Yngvesson called as Winter was on his way to his office. The ring tone echoed around the empty corridor.

"I might have something for you," the technician said.

Winter was there within five minutes.

"Listen to this," said Yngvesson.

He started the tape. Winter listened: there was less to listen to now. Yngvesson had filtered the sound image, taken away as much as he could of what he called "the porridge." Winter was reminded of the noise on the beach the previous evening, fragments of other voices.

He looked at the tape. Where he had heard a park before, he now seemed to be hearing a room, a barren room.

He heard the girl, Anne. "Oh, oh, oh, no… no, no, no nooooo, nooooooo," a scream, something from inside her throat, choking noises when… something was squeezed around her neck.

A mumbling now, like a prayer, like a devilish prayer, a sort of mantra loud, louder than when there had been other noises there, noises that came from that park and the traffic around it. These sounds were different, they didn't belong, sounds that ought to be eradicated, Winter thought, nobody should be forced to listen to this.

But he was here. The girl was there. He couldn't turn anything off.

"Here it comes," said Yngvesson.

Winter listened. At first to what he'd heard before, but clearer, the same… cries, but as if they'd been trumpeted through a horn and down a long tunnel, straight at him, "nnaaaaeieieierr, naaieieieierrayy… NAEEEIEIEE… NEEEER… neewaaiyggee… never… neveragi!! nevaragi!!!

Yngvesson turned it off.

"Neveragi?" said Winter.

"Never again."

"Yes."

"I don't think I can get any closer than that."

"Never again," Winter said.

Yngvesson turned back to his computer. It was humming away merrily, totally unaware of how smart it was. It must be pretty good, being a computer at times, Winter thought. Efficient, and always merry and carefree.

"It can't be her, I suppose?" Winter said.

"What do you mean?"

"She can't be the one speaking?"

"No."

"Never again," said Winter. "Our murderer says 'Never again.'"

"That was the last murder. For the time being, at least."

"That's not what it's about."

"I don't dare speculate."

"He's not saying it to himself," said Winter. "He's… showing her that it will never happen again."

"What won't ever happen again?" Yngvesson swung around in his chair to face Winter. "It won't happen again? Never again?"

"What she's done. He's punishing her for what she's done."

"For what she's done… to him?"

Winter thought. He would listen to the tape again in a moment; he was thinking and preparing himself.

"Yes. Either directly or… indirectly."

"Indirectly? For what she's done to others?"

Winter suddenly felt depressed, infinitely depressed. He wanted to sink down into the ocean and never rise up again. The sun could rise, but not him.

"I don't know, Yngvesson. It's going around and around. I need to sit down while it spins." He sat on the other chair. "What did we say? Indirect? She's done something he's punishing her for."

"Hmm."

"For God's sake, Yngvesson, 1 don't know what to say about this. We'll have to see later if anything I do say is relevant."

"But this isn't… personal, is it? Not in that way? He didn't know her, did he?"

"He knew her, or didn't know her. I don't know."

"It does make a difference, doesn't it?"

Sara Helander and Halders were sitting in his car, about seventy-five meters from the house that Samic and the woman had disappeared into.

The house was built of wood, as tall as an apartment building, Halders thought. Four or five stories, and no doubt a huge basement stretching under the whole thing.

It was one of four similar houses in a row. They blocked out the sun, but only to a degree. Some rays were shining directly into their faces. Sara Helander was squinting with one hand over her eyes. Halders was wearing sunglasses.

"Maybe we should have parked behind the house," she said.

"No."

"No, you're right. This side is where the traffic is."

There wasn't much traffic, but a few cars passed at regular intervals, on the way to the ferries and the new apartment buildings that were only a few meters from the water's edge.

There was a car parked in the driveway. The garage was out of sync with the house. Seemed to have been built in a different century. Maybe even two centuries between them. Halders kept his eyes on the house, on all the windows that were almost invisible against the light.

It was darker now. Sara Helander had brought something to eat and drink. No sun in their eyes now. Nobody had entered or left the house. Halders was biting into a sandwich that might have been egg and mayonnaise, or ham and cucumber, he couldn't taste anything. He checked his watch. Almost midnight.

Two cars drove by slowly, but continued past the house. Then they came back from the other direction, despite the fact that it was a one-way street.

"Down," said Halders, and they both ducked out of sight. The headlights on the first of the cars were shining directly at them. They heard voices, but no words. Car doors were opened and closed carefully. The engines were still running. Then the cars set off again, their lights just a few centimeters over the two police officers' heads.

"Exciting, eh?" Halders muttered.

"Somebody went in."

They waited, then cautiously sat up again. Everything was as before, except that there was now a light on in a ground-floor window.

"Were there lights in many of the rooms when you were here last night?" Halders asked.

"No."

"More than this?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

"Do you think it was Samic who just went in?"

"Doesn't he come by boat and on foot?"