Åke Edwardson - Death Angels

COHEN:Our tests show that the bloodstains in the car match some of the blood we found in your Gothenburg apartment.

VIKINGSSON:How many blood types are there altogether? Three?

COHEN:We also have witness statements that there were bloody clothes in your apartment.

VIKINGSSON:Who says that?

COHEN:According to witness reports, a garbage bag in your apartment had bloody clothes in it.

VIKINGSSON:That’s a lie.

COHEN:Where did the blood come from?

VIKINGSSON:What blood?

COHEN:The bloodstains.

VIKINGSSON:Okay, I might as well come clean before we go any further.

Winter exchanged glances with Cohen.

COHEN:What were you going to tell us?

VIKINGSSON:I’m no murderer.

COHEN:You’ll be better off once you confess.

VIKINGSSON:What?

COHEN:All this questioning will be over and you’ll feel an enormous sense of relief.

VIKINGSSON:I didn’t do it, dammit.

COHEN:What didn’t you do, Carl?

VIKINGSSON:I didn’t…

COHEN:What did you say?

VIKINGSSON:I’m not…

COHEN:I can’t hear you.

VIKINGSSON:There’s a simple explanation for all of this. I do a little hunting on the side with a friend of mine.

COHEN:A little hunting on the side?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:What kind of hunting?

VIKINGSSON:Moose, deer, rabbits, game birds.

COHEN:Poaching, in other words?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:I asked whether you’re a poacher and you answered in the affirmative. Is that correct?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:When do you hunt?

VIKINGSSON:Whenever I’m in Sweden. That’s why I don’t have any alibis.

COHEN:And where do you go to hunt?

VIKINGSSON:The woods north of here, in the Dalsland and Värmland provinces. It’s not for…

COHEN:I didn’t catch what you said.

VIKINGSSON:It’s not for the money, even though it…

COHEN:Could you please repeat that?

VIKINGSSON:Even though it pays well.

COHEN:Why do you poach?

VIKINGSSON:For the thrill of it.

COHEN:You hunt for the thrill?

VIKINGSSON:Do you have any idea what it’s like to be at the beck and call of a bunch of whining passengers all day long?

COHEN:No, I don’t.

VIKINGSSON:You should give it a try sometime.

COHEN:So you hunt whenever you’re in Sweden?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:And you use the car we were talking about before? VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:A 1988 white Opel Kadett Caravan, license plate number ANG 999?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:Where do the bloodstains come from?

VIKINGSSON:From the game, of course.

COHEN:From the game?

VIKINGSSON:When we cut up the carcasses.

COHEN:There’s human blood in the car and your apartment.

VIKINGSSON:Somebody must have cut himself.

COHEN:Who could have cut himself?

VIKINGSSON:My buddy cut himself once.

COHEN:What’s his name?

VIKINGSSON:Do I have to say?

COHEN:Yes.

VIKINGSSON:Peter Möller.

COHEN:The same Peter Möller you rent the parking spot from?

VIKINGSSON:Yes.

COHEN:Did you cut somebody up, Carl?

VIKINGSSON:What?

COHEN:Did you kill those kids?

VIKINGSSON:No, goddammit. You’ve got to believe me.

Vikingsson was ushered back to his cell.

Cohen turned off the tape recorder and gathered up his papers. The room felt vacant, as if Vikingsson’s voice had been a piece of furniture, now removed.

“What do you think?” Cohen asked.

“I’m speechless,” Winter said. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“A raving lunatic.”

VIKINGSSON WAS ARRESTED THREE DAYS LATER. WHEN THE D.A.walked out of the judge’s chambers, he looked as though he were searching for a bowl to wash his hands in. They had requested that he be held for a month and had been given fourteen days.

Vikingsson shook his head-he, a petty criminal who didn’t qualify for the major leagues.

They lined him up next to seven other six-foot two-inch blond or ash-blond men, who could just as easily have been Winter, Bolger or Bergenhem-or Macdonald with a wig on.

Or the victims, Winter thought. They could have stood there with a thumb in their pants pocket, already hungry even though it was still a couple of hours until lunch. Feeling immortal.

None of the witnesses could point out Vikingsson. Maybe they had chosen the decoys too carefully.

Winter had talked with Macdonald, who had arranged a photo lineup in Clapham. Anderton couldn’t identify Vikingsson as the man he had seen with Per in the park. He had the wrong kind of hair.

There was another difference too, but Anderton couldn’t say exactly what it was. Something about a jacket.

The whole idea of finding someone who would recognize Vikingsson had been hopeless from the start. They were clinging to what little they had, Winter thought, and time was passing.

McCoy Tyner was playing the introduction to the John Coltrane Quartet’s “I Wish I Knew.” It was past midnight. Winter sat and waited for dawn to stretch out its hand through the darkness. Coltrane’s music was for the seekers and the restless at heart.

He got up and made a full circle around the room. The computer shone from the desk behind him, its reflection in the window a square of liquid radiance.

He had created a new scenario and closed the document just as the gruesome story came to a head. Coltrane was playing “It’s Easy to Remember (but So Hard to Forget) . ” I’m not so sure about the first part, Winter thought as the short piece drifted through the room. He had been six years old when it was recorded.

The CD over, he put on Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny. It was music to bring back memories, even the ones that flew around the room in circles.

He went back to his scenario. Scrolling to one of the key paragraphs, he cut and pasted it three pages later. That made it part of the climax. He worked some more on the end of the story.

His thoughts had descended to a place where he didn’t want to be. They swirled around an image of Bolger’s bar. Vikingsson sat on one of the stools. What was he doing there? Winter had tried his best to rule out a connection between the two men but had come up short.

He forced himself to think about Bolger. He knew him, but only up to a certain point. He had dragged Bolger into this case as a consultant. Wasn’t that the way it had been? He had turned to an old friend for help.

He needed to question his assumptions, use his analytical abilities. Assuming he had any left.

Why had Bolger talked about Red Records as though he had been there many years earlier when it had opened just recently? Winter had checked into it. Bolger claimed that he hadn’t been in London for a long time. He made a point of repeating it on several occasions.