Åke Edwardson - Death Angels

“Have you checked out everybody who’s come here from England recently?” a Swedish reporter asked.

“We’re working on it.”

“How about people heading the other direction?”

“We’re working on it,” Winter lied.

ANGELA CAME OVER TO HELP HIM PACK, BUT HE TRAVELEDlight and insisted on saving space for some books he planned to buy in London.

“If you ever get out of here,” she said.

“The sky is clearing.”

“Call the airport first thing in the morning.”

“Excellent idea.”

“What do you expect to accomplish-arrest this serial killer or something?” Angela ran her fingers over the collar of a white shirt on top of the pile by the suitcase.

“He’s no serial killer.”

“What?”

“He’s no serial killer,” Winter repeated, folding two pairs of socks and putting them in the suitcase.

“Is that so?”

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“Uh-huh?”

“It’s even worse.” He turned to her. “Could you hand me those pants, please?”

“Take them yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Come and get them,” she said, her eyes wide and misty as if she had been walking through rain.

Winter lunged across the bed, grabbed the pants from her, smoothed out the wrinkles and put them on the chair. He took her hands and folded them behind her back as she leaned forward toward the bed.

“Now you’ve got me where you want me.”

He doubled her long skirt halfway up her back, let his hand glide over her right hip and worked his finger under her panties. As she parted her legs, he moved his hand downward and felt how wet she was. His forehead was pounding and she gasped, raising her chin. He carefully squeezed his fingers further in, unbuckled his belt with his left hand and pulled down his zipper. All my blood is there and nowhere else, he thought, leaning against her thigh for a second. When she started to moan louder, he gradually entered her, stopping only for a moment when he couldn’t go any farther.

After a few seconds they were in sync. He held her firmly by the hips, as though she were treading water above the bed.

He leaned forward, reached inside her sweater and cupped her breasts. Now she had dived into the water and was floating beneath him. He squeezed her hard nipples. She turned her head to the side and looked back at him. He caressed her cheek and lips with his left hand. Opening her mouth, she licked and sucked on his fingers one by one. Her tongue had the same rough texture as her sweater.

As they moved faster, he braced his left knee against the bed, grasped her hips with both hands and summoned all his strength to hold on as she trembled and then cried out, throwing her head back. His eyes dimmed. His power seemed to plunge him into unconsciousness as it poured into her. They clung to each other one last time, and he held her.

THE SNOW HAD STOPPED AND EVERYTHlNG HAD FROZEN OVERnight. The Monday morning sun had bleached the edge of the cold front.

Bergenhem shuddered in the kitchen, made some coffee and opened the blinds. The trees outside the window were wrapped in mist, which slowly dissolved as the colors of the day reappeared, coming back from their resting place, he thought, reinventing themselves and gliding back into the objects all around him. A juniper bush lost its transparence just after the clock struck eight. The fence emerged from behind its curtain of white, and his car glistened under its snowy blanket as if startled by the first dashes of sunlight.

He had the afternoon shift. Martina was asleep. He felt vaguely restless, a low murmur in his chest. He drank his coffee quickly and put the cup in the dishwasher, then went into the bathroom and splashed some water in his eyes. As he brushed his teeth, he probed the jagged edge of one of his canines and felt an icy coldness there when he rinsed out his mouth.

He tiptoed back to the bedroom and picked up his clothes from the Windsor chair next to the doorway. Martina stirred in her sleep, or half stupor. The sheet had slipped down and revealed her thigh, a spring hillside in the midst of a snowy landscape. Walking over to the bed, he ran his fingers over her bare skin and grazed it with his lips. She murmured something and moved again without waking up.

He put on his heavy sweater, boots, leather jacket, hat and gloves. The fresh snow was in the way, and he had to kick the door open.

He took the shovel that was leaning against the house and hacked at the frozen crust, plowing his way down the driveway to the car. This summer you are building a carport, he told himself. Assuming you can get hold of cheap wood.

He brushed the snow off the hood and windshield as best he could and tried to open the driver’s door to get a scraper, but the key wouldn’t go in. He stared dumbfounded through the window at the can of lock lubricant in the inside pocket of the passenger door.

He tried the other doors and the trunk, but they were all frozen shut. In the shed behind the car, he dug out a nine-inch length of wire, which he managed to slide through the crack in the door, and he was finally inside. He grabbed the lubricant, sprayed the lock, waited a few seconds and then worked the key in. Putting the bottle in his jacket pocket, he scraped the entire windshield. He was pleased with himself, as if this interlude had prepared him for the trials and tribulations of the day.

The ignition sputtered for a few seconds before turning over. He put the defroster and heat on high. A Phil Collins song was playing on the first station he came to. He flipped the dial for a while but soon tired of it and slid R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People in the tape deck instead. It had been number two on the Billboard charts in the winter of 1992, when he had taken a long field trip to London during his last semester at the Academy. He had gotten drunk at a pub in Covent Garden and found himself in bed with a party girl in Camden. He could never quite remember how they had wound up at her place. Automatic for the People . My automatic is for the people, he’d said, because that’s a cop’s job, and he’d gulped down some more wine while she giggled under the sheets.

He had met Martina the following spring.

As Bergenhem drove south, the open fields quickly gave way to glass and concrete. In Torslanda, smoke poured out of Volvo’s main assembly plant on his right. Ahead loomed the Älvsborg Bridge. The glitter of oil tanks almost blinded him as he approached the abutment.

The second wave of the morning rush hour rolled across the freeways as commuters descended from the north into downtown Gothenburg.

Driving onto the bridge, he glanced quickly to his right, and when he reached the top, he saw a clear purple stripe below the rising sun. From this vantage point, the horizon changed according to the time of year. It was impenetrable on most winter days, as if someone had built a wall over the water. But on mornings like this, you could see through the shimmering light as it slowly turned to blue. The city had pulled back its curtains.

Leaving the bridge behind him, he continued west with no destination in mind. This restiveness had whispered in his ear for as long as he could remember, though it had grown louder the last month or two. He wondered whether it had to do with the blunt little cone that stuck out from Martina’s belly, and he felt ashamed of himself.

He drove to Frölunda Square, turned around and came back through Gnistäng Tunnel. His mind went blank in the darkness, and he had to blink and shake his head when the sky reappeared and the sunlight stung his eyes. Fear struck him suddenly, like a premonition. He was cold, but the heat was already as high as it would go. Driving back over the bridge, he stared straight ahead the entire length of it.