***
Winter poured hot water from the coffeepot. It was eight in the morning and birds he didn’t know the names of had already warbled themselves hoarse in the courtyard below his open window.
Just a few more hours and he would be sitting in a television studio with Macdonald and a bunch of reporters. The producers of Crimewatch had called a second time and Macdonald had accepted without hesitation.
Winter and thirteen other investigators had met the night before in one of the big offices on Parchmore Road. A bottle of whisky was on the table. Everybody said what they had been thinking. Macdonald tried to draw out the best in each of them.
Could they distill what had been said and communicate it to the public? Winter wasn’t nervous, and he hoped and prayed they would get calls after the program.
“Now’s the time to go for it,” Macdonald had said to Winter. “We’ve just got to keep our fingers crossed that someone out there in the anonymous public has seen something.”
“I agree.”
“Television is a paradoxical medium.”
“The anonymous public.”
Winter spread butter and orange marmalade on two slices of toast. Earlier in the morning, he had walked down Hogarth Road to a newspaper stand on Earl’s Court Road and bought the Guardian , the Independent, the Times and the Daily Telegraph .
His cell phone rang.
“I know you’re an hour behind us,” Ringmar said, “but I assumed you’d be up anyway.”
“It’s broad daylight here.”
“We just got another letter from our burglar friend.”
It took a few seconds for Winter to follow the chain of thought backward: burglar, apartment, bloody clothes-far-fetched, so goddam far-fetched.
“Erik?”
“I’m still here.” Winter washed down his toast with a mouthful of tea.
“He was insistent, as if he wanted to make up for his procrastination and set the record straight.”
“And?”
“So we took a closer look at the guy who rents the apartment. Halders and Djanali had a little extra time when-”
“For God’s sake, Bertil, skip the chronology and tell me what happened.”
“We called him in for questioning.”
“And?”
“He didn’t respond right away, but finally we heard from him.”
“Bertil!”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming to it. Listen carefully now. We couldn’t get hold of him in Gothenburg at first because he was in London.”
“What?”
“I told you to listen carefully. He was in London.”
“How the hell can you know something like that?”
A chilliness began to creep through Winter’s body. His scalp was prickly. Sweeping the newspapers off the table, he took three steps over to the counter and picked up his notepad. He sat down again, pen in hand.
“That wasn’t so hard to figure out,” Ringmar said. “He’s a flight attendant, often on the Gothenburg-London route.”
“Good Lord.”
“And that’s not all. He has an apartment in London. He lives there and has an overnight apartment in Gothenburg, or the other way around.”
“Is he British?”
“Swedish through and through. Not to mention his name-Carl Vikingsson.”
“Vikingsson?”
“Yes. And the name of the aircraft he usually works on is Viking something.”
“Does he have a record?”
“Nope, clean as a whistle.”
“Where is he now?”
“We’ve got him here.”
Winter’s throat was dry. He drank his lukewarm tea but it might as well have been kerosene or blueberry soup.
“We haven’t had a chance to question him yet,” Ringmar went on.
“No alibi?”
“Like I said, we don’t know at this point. It could get pretty complicated.”
“Where is his London apartment?”
“The address I’ve got is 32 Stanley Gardens.”
“Hold on.” Winter put down the phone and walked over to the coffee table. He picked up a London A-Z street atlas and checked the index. “ London has six streets named Stanley Gardens,” he told Ringmar when he returned.
“Shit.”
“I need the postal code-NW7 or something like that.”
“Wait a minute.”
Winter took another gulp of kerosene and felt the hunter’s instinct rise in his gut. He heard fumbling at the other end of the line.
“We have his business card here. Let me see… it’s Stanley Gardens W11.”
Winter looked in the index. W11. The address was at 7 H 59. He flipped to page 59 and found 7 H: Notting Hill, Kensington Park Road, Stanley Crescent… there. It was a little cross street. “Up in Portobello.”
“Sounds good.”
“Hold him for six hours, and make sure to get an extension for another six.”
“Okay; remember, we haven’t questioned him yet.”
Winter had made up his mind. They had the legal right to keep him that long-with necessary rest and food. “And screw any alibis he comes up with,” he said.
“Fine with me. Cohen is raring to go with the interrogation.”
No doubt Cohen had read everything he could get his hands on.
“Don’t turn Cohen loose on him just yet,” Winter said.
“What?”
“Keep it low-key at first. Start off yourself.”
“But Cohen has to be there.”
“Just as an onlooker. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”
“Easy does it.”
“No screwups.”
“Don’t underestimate me. Odds are we’ll still be discussing the weather forecast when you get here tomorrow.”
“Good-I have faith in you.”
“What time are you getting back, by the way?”
“I don’t know yet. The television program I told you about yesterday is this afternoon. We’ve got to check out the address you gave me right away. I’ll let you know in an hour or two.”
“Erik?”
“Yes?”
“One thing we know for sure. Vikingsson was in London when Christian was killed.”
“Not on a plane?”
“Shit, that’s possible. But he wasn’t in Sweden.”
They hung up. Winter dialed the eleven-digit number to the Thornton Heath police station. “This is Chief Inspector Erik Winter. May I speak to Steve Macdonald?”
“Just a minute please.”
Macdonald came on the line.
“It’s Erik, I just heard from Gothenburg. They’ve called a guy in for questioning, and he has an apartment here in London. It might be a long shot, but we should take a look.”
“An apartment here?”
“Up in Notting Hill.”
“Nice area.”
“I don’t know anything about the guy. But I think we need to see his apartment.”
“From the outside?”
“What?”
“I know a couple of sympathetic judges, but neither of them is going to let us search an apartment without a little more to go on.”
“I want to head over there anyway. I’m leaving now. See you at the corner of Kensington Park Road.”
“ Kensington Park Road and what?”
“Sorry, the apartment is on Stanley Gardens.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
“I’m out the door.”
WlNTER FLAGGED DOWN A NORTHBOUND TAXl ON EARL’S COURTRoad. It was fifteen minutes to Notting Hill Gate on the narrow streets past Holland Park. He had hiked around there occasionally in his younger days.
The houses on Kensington Park Road shone like marble. At the Pembridge intersection, a café owner was putting checkered tablecloths on the outdoor tables. People were already waiting for the first cappuccino of spring.
The buildings on Stanley Gardens were surrounded by silence and shade. Number 32 had an entrance where anybody could go in and out. Winter continued down the street and then turned back to Kensington Park Road. He stood still on the corner. A couple his own age stopped before him.
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