Åke Edwardson - Death Angels

STURE BIRGERSSON’S OFFlCE WAS IMMACULATE. NOT A COFFEEstain or piece of paper on his desk. Winter harbored a certain admiration for the way the division chief arranged his world: concentration on one thing at a time, no reminders of everything that was still unsolved, no remnants of incomplete thoughts, no reports resembling books whose authors had died in the middle of writing them.

They called Birgersson the Boss in the corridors of police headquarters, but that had more to do with his position than his personality. Birgersson sat eternally in his office and waited. He read but drew no conclusions. God knows what happens to all the reports after he’s done with them, Winter thought as he crossed and uncrossed his legs in front of the desk.

Birgersson was a Laplander who had wound up in Gothenburg by chance, not design. Unlike everyone else from northern Sweden, he didn’t go back and hunt in the fall. He always took two weeks off, but Winter was the only one who knew where he went, and he wouldn’t have told anyone else if his life depended on it. In all the years Winter had been acting division chief during those times, he had never needed to call Birgersson. He couldn’t conceive of a situation he wouldn’t be able to handle on his own.

“I have to admit you’ve got a healthy imagination.” Birgersson had the peculiar accent of someone who’d grown up in a mining district near the polar circle and spent his adult life in the hustle-bustle of a European metropolis.

Winter brushed a speck of dust off his tie, leaned forward and tugged on the seat of his pants, which had gathered too tightly on one side when he’d sat down.

“Not so much in the way of results, but you compensate for that with creativity,” Birgersson continued, lighting a cigarette.

“We’re making progress.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ve read the reports.”

“It wears me out to go back and forth between all the different styles.” He pointed to the empty desk as if it were overflowing with stacks of paper. “William Faulkner one minute, Mickey Spillane the next.”

“Which do you prefer?” Winter asked, lighting a cigarillo.

“Faulkner, of course. He was a small-town boy too.”

“But you don’t feel like you’re seeing any results.”

“No.”

“I don’t look at it that way. We’re reading the witness statements, we’re going through the files on our favorite jailbirds, not to mention some of the more obscure ones. I’m not the only one who’s online from morning to night. And we’ve got all our sources working for us, and I mean all.”

“Hmm, have you talked to Skogome?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too early, Sture. I don’t want a profile by a forensic psychologist until we’ve got more to go on.”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

“What?”

“Not enough results.”

“What you’re talking about,” Winter said, “is longer reports and more bullshit to feed the press and evidence so strong that it will reach out and grab the police bigwigs.”

“Speaking of the press, I hope you’re ready for them.”

“Absolutely.”

“A fresh planeload of British reporters has just landed,” Birgersson said, “and they’re not taking any prisoners this time.”

“Not taking any prisoners? You’ve been watching too many Holly-wood action movies.”

“This afternoon I want you by my side, partner.”

“So you’re going to be there too?”

“Orders from the top.”

“I see.”

Birgersson put out his cigarette.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Winter said.

“Remember that your trip is unofficial.”

“Of course.”

“Police force to police force.”

Winter took a puff of his cigarillo and scanned the room for evidence that it had ever seen a piece of paper. Nothing.

“I have no idea what to expect from London,” Birgersson said. “But their DSI seems to be on top of things. Their detective superintendent.”

“I know what it means.”

“He has nothing but praise for your contact, that chief inspector.”

Birgersson looks like a dwarf birch, Winter thought. One that’s made a heroic effort to straighten up and climb down from the mountain. Funny I never noticed it before. “Macdonald,” he said.

“On his way up just like you.”

“Right, on an eleven o’clock flight tomorrow morning.” Winter put his half-smoked cigarillo in an ashtray that Birgersson had taken out of a desk drawer.

“Who knows, maybe you’ll have the whole thing solved by the time you get back. Meanwhile, we’ll do our best to hold down the fort.”

“Now that’s reassuring.” Winter smiled.

“I suggest you go to your office and get yourself into the right frame of mind for the press conference.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take an extra beta-blocker?”

Birgersson broke into a hoarse laugh that could have been lifted from one of the action videos he guffawed his way through one night a week.

The press conference started off badly, staged a recovery in the middle and ended in chaos. Birgersson was exasperated before fifteen minutes had passed. Winter answered the questions that swarmed at them both.

The Swedish tabloid reporters were more restrained, taking the opportunity to pick up a few tricks of the trade from their aggressive British colleagues.

“Is this your first case?” This from the ugliest person Winter had ever seen. His face resembled five pounds of meat loaf molded by an arthritic potter. He acted drunk but was sober as a judge. Like the other Englishmen, he was wearing a threadbare suit, having landed in Scandinavia without a coat.

“Is the murderer Swedish?” somebody else asked.

“How many similar cases have you had?”

“Describe the murder weapon.”

“What were the victims doing in Sweden anyway?”

“What kind of sex crime was involved?”

“Excuse me?” Winter balked, examining the reporter. She had blue eye shadow, blond hair with black roots, a narrow face and a spiteful mouth.

“What kind of sex crime?” she repeated.

“Who said that it was a sex crime?” Winter asked.

“Isn’t it rather obvious?”

Winter looked the other way, hoping that someone would rescue him with a question about the weather in Sweden, what soccer team he rooted for…

“Answer the question,” somebody shouted.

“We don’t have anything that points to a sex crime,” Winter said.

“Like what?” someone else asked.

“What did you say?”

“What is it that you don’t have?”

“How about sperm?” Winter asked.

The room fell silent for a few seconds.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” a reporter asked in Swedish.

“We didn’t find any traces of sperm,” Winter said, “which means we can’t be a hundred percent sure that it was a sex crime.”

“But it might be?” the reporter persisted.

“Certainly.”

“Speak English,” a British reporter shouted.

“What did he say about sperm?” somebody else asked.

“They found a shitload of sperm,” the reporter with the pockmarked face explained.

“Whose sperm?”

“What did the lab tests show?”

“Was there sperm on only one of the victims, or both?”

“Was it on his body or his clothes?”

Winter could tell Birgersson was longing for the cool emptiness of his office. After he had straightened out some misunderstandings and asked the reporters to publish a few facts that would help the investigation, he fielded a couple more questions. The television cameras, both British and Swedish, whirred away.