Åke Edwardson - Never End

Nevertheless, Winter detected uncertainty in the young man, in his movements, his eyes.

Winter started the interrogation again.

"I'd like to get some details about your movements last night," he said.

Bielke waited.

Winter specified the times.

"It's impossible to ask-" the lawyer began.

"If you're going to keep interrupting you'll be out that door," Winter snapped.

"Wh… what?"

"You are interfering with the interrogation. You can ask questions if you want when I give you permission to do so, but you will do that when I've finished or you're out."

The lawyer looked at Ringmar, who nodded with a friendly smile.

"Is it legal to proceed like this?" asked Bielke, looking first at Winter and then at his lawyer.

Winter asked another question.

Bielke was resting. His lawyer had left, but promised to come back.

"You need to get some sleep, Erik," Ringmar said.

"You're right."

"Go home.''

"I'll sleep here. Two hours."

"Three," said Ringmar. "We'll keep him for another six."

"I want him detained," Winter said.

"Molina will no doubt want more on him than we've got," said Ringmar. "And that's an understatement."

Mr. Prosecutor Molina always wants more than we've got, thought Winter.

"Send Bergenhem and a few of the boys to his house."

"It'll be your decision."

"It is my decision. I've just made it."

"What are they supposed to be looking for?"

"Angelika's camera," Winter said.

"What?"

"The dog leash, the belt, cameras. Anything we need to nail that bastard."

"I think he's sick," said Ringmar.

"That's an understatement." Winter looked at Bertil. "One hour from now Cohen will sit down with him and his lawyer, if he dares to come back."

"Right."

Cohen was an experienced interrogator whom Winter always relied on when he couldn't ask the questions in person.

"We have to press him for more information about Fredrik," Winter said. "I briefed Cohen about that."

"I don't think Bielke knows what happened," said Ringmar. "I don't think he saw Fredrik in there."

"Fredrik may have seen him."

It was Aneta Djanali who picked upHannes and Magda from school. Margareta's mother was in town to help Halders look after the children, but now they were parentless for the time being. Djanali thought about that word: parentless.

"How long do you think it will take?" Grandma had asked when they got in touch, with traces of hope in her voice.

How should she reply to that?

Djanali felt dizzy as the children came toward her, as if everything was happening somewhere else, as if she were seeing everything through a filter. As if a train were moving through the landscape, and she was sitting in it, looking out.

"Where's Daddy?" asked Hannes.

How should she reply to that?

"He's… on a mission," she said.

"When's he coming back, then?"

"We're not sure. That's why I'm here to get you and Magda."

The boy and his sister seemed satisfied with that. They all clambered into the patrol car. I don't want to drive them myself, Djanali had told Winter.

They got out when the car pulled up outside Halders's house. She went in with the children and checked the time. Their grandma would arrive in two hours.

"Are you hungry?" she asked them.

She took some hamburgers and rolls from the freezer, and Magda showed her where the ketchup was kept, pointing with a tiny index finger. On the next shelf down was an onion and a head of lettuce starting to turn brown at the edges.

She fried the gray meat until it turned brown, and prepared the hamburgers. No onion for Magda.

"Are you from Africat?" asked Hannes, speaking with his mouth full.

"Africa," said his sister, looking somewhat embarrassed. "It's called Africa."

"My mom and dad come from a country in Africa called Burkina Faso," Djanali said. "It used to be called Upper Volta."

"It's on top of Lower Volta!" said Magda, giggling.

Her brother gave her a nudge. Djanali felt the nudge herself. Fredrik, Fredrik, please come in through that door and say something idiotic about Ougadougou. Anything at all, at any time. We'll get married a second later. Buy a house in a mixed-race area. Live here. Move to Upper Volta. Commute to Ougadougou. Come in through that door. Call me on your mobile, you big darling idiot.

"What's it like?" Hannes asked.

"In Burkina Faso? There's a lot of sand." She looked at her untouched hamburger that was starting to go dry on her plate. "I've only been there once, ten years ago."

"Why not more often?"

"Well… I was born here. Here in Gothenburg. I'm Swedish."

"Are there any lions?" asked Magda.

"Not that many. There are more camels than lions."

"Is it a desert?"

"A lot of it is desert."

"Have you heard about the airplane that crashed in the desert?" Hannes asked.

"It's a joke," said Magda.

"No," said Djanali, turning to Hannes.

"Well, the captain sent all the passengers out looking for food," said the boy with a grin the width of his face. "They all survived the crash, of course.

He sent them all out, and they came back saying that they had good news and bad news." He looked at her. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you."

"'OK,' said the captain, let's hear the bad news first.' 'There's nothing to eat but camel shit,' the passengers told him. 'What about the good news, then?' the captain wondered. And the passengers told him: 'There's lots of it!'"

She laughed.

"Dad told us that one," said Magda.

The children went off to do their own thing. She washed up, and the sun was in her eyes, so she pulled down the blinds. In the living room she could hear the faint hum from Hannes's computer, the metallic ghostly voice from some game or other.

She turned to the collection of CDs. Hmm. Fredrik certainly had good taste, she thought, then adjusted that to: has good taste. Has. American singer-songwriters, with a few dashes of alternative country.

She sat down with lots of cases in her hand. Outside, the garden was dormant in the afternoon heat. The birds were asleep in the trees. Maybe the children were mercifully asleep as well? The computer in Hannes's room had gone quiet.

She played Buddy Miller-maybe Fredrik would hear it and come bounding in through the verandah door: Who the hell is playing my record, the bastard?

Winter had dozed on and off for an hour and a half, and dreamed violent dreams that he forgot when he woke up but which pounded away at his brain like a fever.

Fredrik Halders's face was the first thing he saw even before he'd opened his eyes. When he did, the wall in front of him was empty and piss yellow.

He sat up, rubbed his face hard, and checked the time. He reached out for the telephone on the narrow table in the overnight room and called home.

Angela sounded worried.

"What's happening to you, Erik?"

"Don't worry about me. Fredrik's the one in trouble."

"No news?"

"No. Is Elsa there?"

"She's taking her afternoon nap."

"Like me."

"When are you coming home?"

When this is all over, he thought. It could go quickly now.

"We have a witness we need to talk to."

"I have no idea," said Bielke. His face was still austere, carved up by white lines. He hadn't slept. Winter had prevented him from smoking. His lawyer was present, listening and making notes. There would be complaints. Let ' em come. Winter read a few lines on the documents in front of him. "I'm telling you yet again that I haven't seen that police officer," Bielke said.