Åke Edwardson - Never End

"Take them all and come straight back here," Winter said.

"The wife and daughter?" asked Bergenhem.

"I mean the cameras."

The only camera with film in it was the one Bergenhem had found in the car. Half the film had been exposed. They had the pictures within forty minutes. Winter, Bergenhem, Ringmar, Helander, and Djanali were in the conference room when the photographs were delivered.

Nobody spoke as Winter put the pile on the big table and picked them up one at a time. Bergenhem broke the silence when he saw picture number two.

"For Christ's sake, that's Angelika Hansson."

Her black face shone as brightly as the golden sun that colored everything around her as she stood on the sand close to the water. A lot of sand, Djanali thought. No camels and no camel shit, but a lot of sand.

There were four pictures of Angelika Hansson on that beach, all taken from about the same angle. The usual wasted snaps, Djanali thought. A solitary young man smiled, from the same place that Angelika had been standing.

"That's him," Winter said. "Angelika's boyfriend."

"He's in this one, too, taken at the edge of the trees," said Ringmar.

"It looks familiar," Helander said.

If Fredrik had been here, he'd have said "The west coast," thought Aneta Djanali.

"You can see the soccer field in the background of this picture," said Bergenhem.

"Hovas bathing beach," said Winter. "That was taken at the Hovas beach."

"What's this?" Helander asked.

"Angelika's home," said Winter. Nobody outside the house. The photo was taken in the afternoon, when the shadows were long.

"And this is where the Bielkes live." Bergenhem looked at the next photograph. "And this is another one of their house."

Winter turned over another picture, like a blackjack dealer in a casino. It was good for the concentration to do it like this, good for everybody's concentration. There were only a few photographs left.

He found himself looking at another picture of a house, but a different one, north of Angelika Hansson's home, south of Jeanette Bielke's.

"What the hell…" exclaimed Ringmar.

"This is where Beatrice Wägner's parents live," Winter said.

"What is all this?" Helander said.

"Where Beatrice Wägner lived," said Winter in a tone that tried to change the atmosphere, break the spell.

No people here either, another summer picture, late, long shadows. Winter looked at the remaining photographs in his right hand. What was in store? He'd secured Bielke's detention, his arrest, but he didn't feel satisfied.

"Good God," said Djanali.

"What's next?" Bergenhem leaned closer to see the next photograph.

Winter turned over the three remaining prints. They studied them in silence.

"Well, it looks like we've got our man," Bergenhem said.

"But why?" asked Helander, voicing what everybody was thinking. Madness, they all thought as well. Madness explains everything yet nothing.

He studied the last three photographs again, starting with the one on the left.

The house on the other side of the river, where Halders had disappeared.

The cave-like hollow where Angelika and Beatrice had been found, and Jeanette attacked.

The place where they'd found Anne Nöjd. Where her final… no, not words, where her final… screams, screams of terror, had been recorded by her own answering machine.

All the pictures had long shadows. They'd all been taken when the area hadn't been cordoned off.

Ringmar said what everybody was thinking.

"Did he know what he was going to do? Had all these photographs been taken… before? Did he take them before they happened?"

Good God, thought Aneta Djanali for the eighteenth time. The only thing missing is a picture of a place we don't recognize, and that will be where we find Fredrik. Good God. Just think, if we'd had these pictures… before. Before the crimes were committed. Murder will be committed there and there and there, and if you can find the locations quickly you might be able to strike a blow for peace.

The camera was upstairs with Beier.

Bielke was sitting in a cell, or maybe lying down.

"We have jobs to do," said Winter.

The shadows were lengthening outside. It would soon be evening. We'll be there soon enough, he thought.

Winter went to Yngvesson's studio. It had a dry smell, as if from another year. Dust was dancing in tunnels of light over the computer. Tapes spun around, emitting their dead screams. It was hard to breathe.

When this is all over I'll give up smoking. We'll buy a house by the sea, and I'll take a year off work, and then we'll see.

"Still just bits and pieces," Yngvesson said.

"Should I come back another time?"

"This afternoon."

"So far it hasn't been possible to recognize a voice. Really recognize. Do you think it will be possible? A voice we've heard before?"

"I'm trying to get as close to the voice register as possible, Erik."

Kurt Bielke was staring at a point somewhere above Winter's head. The camera was on the table between them. Beier's forensics team had finished with it. There were several fingerprints on it, corresponding to others, as yet unidentified, found in Bielke's home. They hadn't taken Bielke's fingerprints yet. Soon, though. Winter had spoken to Molina about detaining him. Give me an hour, Molina had said. No. You spend another hour with him. Then call me.

After that we'll take blood tests. Then it'll be over.

Bielke was still staring.

"I'll ask you one more time: do you know who this camera belongs to?"

"I've never seen it before."

"It was found at your house."

Bielke didn't respond. Winter looked at the tape recorder.

"I'll repeat what I just said: it was found at your house, Kurt Bielke."

Bielke shrugged.

"Why was it there?"

"Where?"

"At your house."

"Where in my house?"

"We found it in one of the cars in your garage."

"I have no idea."

Winter thought. The air in the room already felt too hot and too scarce.

He wanted a confession. Now. Everybody wanted to go home. It was summer outside.

"You have been identified at the scene of a crime."

Bielke said nothing. He could have said, "What scene, what crime?" but he said nothing.

"Talk to my family," he said now.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Talk to my family."

"Why?"

"They know where I've been."

"I'm asking you."

Bielke didn't reply to that. There was no answer in his eyes, nothing. His eyes were a blue reminiscent of over-washed jeans, blue going on white, and soon destined to fade away altogether.

What happens if the fingerprints and DNA and the whole damn mess don't turn up anything? Winter thought. If we have to let him go?

He asked again, kept on asking. Bielke answered intermittently.

Winter called Molina after an hour, and was granted the extension he asked for. It meant that he gained time, a maximum of four days to prepare a charge.

"Be sensible about this, now," Molina said.

Winter hung up without comment. He felt a degree of relief. As that feeling drifted away with the smoke from his cigarillo out of the window and over the river, he thought again about what Bielke had said.

The family.

The man was crazy. Everything he said might well mean something, but only to him.

He called the SOC team. Beier answered.

"Are your boys still at Bielke's house?"

"Not right now. Why?"

"I'm going there."

"Have you nailed him?"

"I don't know. When will we hear from Linkoping?"

"About the glass, you mean? They're working overtime on it, I can promise you that. But you know how it is."