Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

DCI Steve Macdonald had been his partner in a difficult case some years previously. Winter had been over in London, in the suburbs around Croydon where Macdonald’s homicide squad operated, and the pair had become friends. Long-distance friends, but still.

Macdonald had been in Gothenburg for the dramatic climax of the case. They were the same age, and Steve had a set of teenage twins.

“We’re coming over,” Steve Macdonald announced. “The kids want to see the land of the midnight sun.”

“More likely the land of the midday moon at this time of year,” Winter replied.

“Anyway.”

“When are you coming?”

“Let’s see, where are we now? Er, late November. They have a long holiday starting early in December, and so we thought: Why not? Otherwise it’ll never happen.”

“Good thinking. But that’s very soon.”

“Gothenburg’s almost commuting distance from London.”

“Mmm.”

“Do you think you could arrange a good hotel in the center of town? By ‘good’ I mean one that comes up to my modest standards. Not yours.”

“You must stay with us, of course,” Winter said.

“No, no. Beth’ll be coming as well, so there’ll be four of us.”

“You’ve been here before,” Winter reminded him, and pictured Steve, glass in hand, on the balcony one warm evening in May, very nearly falling over the railing to the ground twenty meters below. They’d been trying to relax after all the awful happenings of the previous weeks. “You know we have plenty of room.”

“What I saw was mainly the kitchen and the balcony, and to tell you the truth, I don’t remember many details.”

“It’s so big that my modesty prevents me from telling you just how big. And I don’t suppose you’re planning to stay for six months.”

“Of course we are.”

“That’s OK.”

“Three days.”

“That’s also OK.”

“Well…”

“You know our address,” Winter said. “We can sort out the practical details a couple of days before you arrive.”

“I shall be on holiday,” Macdonald said. “I don’t intend to be practical.”

“I was thinking of the beer and whiskey.”

“I’ll bring that with me. A thirty-year-old Dallas Dhu plus a Springbank that’s out of this world, I can promise you. Older than we are, as well.”

Macdonald grew up near Inverness on a farm, not far from the village of Dallas in Speyside.

“I think I’d better take vacation as well,” Winter said.

“How about that! The DCI’s getting more cooperative.”

“Or lazy.”

“In that case I’ll be happy to impose on you. How are Angela and Elsa?”

“Just fine.”

“Well, then-”

“See you later, alligator,” Winter said, then wondered why on earth he’d come out with such a corny expression. Maybe because he was feeling cheerful.

But there wouldn’t be a reunion in fact, no Dallas Dhu and no Springbank. Not this time. Before the end of November Steve Macdonald would phone to say that one of his twin daughters had had an attack of bronchitis that was threatening to develop into pneumonia, and they’d have to cancel their trip.

There were more people in the flat than he could remember ever having seen there before. Men and women and children. It was a good party. Nobody talked shop, and as far as Winter was concerned that was the main criterion for a successful occasion. He’d prepared two sides of lamb that he carved for the buffet, and nobody complained about the taste of the lamb nor that of the the oven-baked potatoes with herbs nor the salsa with roast chili served in order to warm the guests up.

Nor the cherry pies for dessert. The espresso. The calvados and grappa and the bottle of marc that more guests wanted to taste than he’d expected when he put it out.

It took him three tries before he finally managed to open his briefcase, but Bill was lying on top and hadn’t been damaged at all. Now Bill was hanging from his peg and he could almost hear his Rotty doing those funny voice imitations. He could hear him now! It was such fun!

The policeman had talked for ages, and he’d also started talking after a while, when the band around his throat had loosened and everything calmed down.

The girl laughed straight at him and he could see her holding her arms out and Bill swinging backward and forward. The film ended, and he rewound it and watched it again. They’d had so much fun. He watched her putting some candy into her mouth. He saw his own right hand touching her, then pulling back quickly, quickly. Like stroking down.

You’re so soft, Uncle had said. You’re so soft to touch.

He’d been sitting on the train. A lady had asked him where he was going. He’d laughed.

Mom!

Mom!

She’d been waiting for him at the station, and the town was very big. Where he lived with his dad wasn’t a town at all, but this one was big. Enormous.

Mom!

My little boy, Mom had said.

You can call this man Uncle, she’d said.

Uncle had taken him by the hand, and touched his head.

My little boy, Uncle had said.

Uncle lives here with me, Mom had said.

Or you with me, Uncle had said, and they’d laughed, and he laughed as well.

They’d had a marvelous dinner.

This is where you’ll sleep, Mom had said.

The next morning she’d gone to work in town, a long, long way away.

Do you want to go for a little walk? Uncle had asked.

They’d gone for an enormous walk in one direction, and just as far back again.

I can feel that you’re cold, Uncle had said when they got back home. Come here, my boy, and I’ll warm you up. You’re so soft. You’re so soft to touch.

THIS WAS HOW HE RECOUNTED WHAT HAD HAPPENED. HIS TONE was almost exhilarated.

He couldn’t remember why he had decided to cut across the soccer field when that meant he would actually have farther to walk back to the student dorm where he lived, but maybe he’d noticed a forgotten soccer ball lit up by the streetlights and suddenly felt a strong desire to shoot the damn thing into the back of the net, and show some of those jokers on the national team how it was done. Let the world know that he’d quit too soon, simply given up before his career had really taken off.

That could have been it. But it might just have been that he’d been to a party. In any case, he’d walked over the playing field at Mossen on the way home, and it had been well into the night, or rather the morning. Half past four. He’d noticed a poor newspaper delivery boy trudging around, back bent, among the high-rise apartment buildings soaring heavenward behind him. Poor kid. Lugging newspapers up to the fortieth floor. Morning after morning, no thanks. Good for keeping fit, no doubt, but you should work out at a sensible time of day. Newspaper boys are the bottom of the heap, he’d thought, and grinned as he tried to adjust his footsteps that were leading him off course to the left when he didn’t look where he was going, the student dorm that was lying in wait for him over there, gloomy and cheerless, dormant until the murky gray light of dawn signaled time for more cramming and more hassle. But not for him, no thank you very much. He would be fast asleep the whoooole day long. No cramming, no hassle, no rain down his collar, no lousy lunch, no long-winded lectures, no slushy corridors, no aggressive women throwing their weight around.

That’s what was going through his head when he staggered to his left again and heard something swiiiishing past his head that had been in a different position a quarter of a second before, and something thudded into the ground in front of him and seemed to be stuck there, and he turned his head and saw the guy tugging and heaving at something with a long handle.