Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Ringmar said. “A branding iron is used for branding cattle. But in this case it’s been used as a club. Would there still have been a brand mark?”

“I really don’t know.”

“OK. But an ordinary branding iron must be pretty heavy, you need to be on the strong side to use one, is that right?”

“Yes, I would say so.”

“You’d need an awful lot of strength, in fact?”

“Yes.”

“The man who attacked you-did you get the impression that he was big?”

“Not particularly. Normal.”

“OK. Let’s assume he’s determined to club you on the back of the head with a branding iron. He creeps up behind you. You don’t hear him and ha-”

“Why didn’t I hear him? Shouldn’t I have?”

“Let’s not worry about that for the moment,” Ringmar said. “He’s behind you. He attacks you. At that very moment you veer to one side.”

“Stagger to one side, I’d say. I wasn’t stone cold sober, to be honest.”

“Stagger. You stagger to one side. He attacks you. But all he can hit is thin air. He hits thin air. His weapon thuds down into the ground and gets stuck. He tugs at it, but it doesn’t come loose. You see him standing there, and then you take off.”

“Yes.”

“Why did this weapon, whatever it was, get stuck in the ground?” Ringmar wondered. “It wouldn’t have if he’d jabbed at you in a straight line.”

“So he didn’t do that, I guess,” said Smedsberg.

“Really?”

“He took a swing at me with the branding iron.”

“If that’s what it is,” Ringmar said.

“Whatever it is, you’ve got to catch him pretty damn quick,” Smedsberg said. “Will he come after me again?”

Ringmar made no comment. Smedsberg looked away. He seemed to be thinking something over again.

“Maybe he’s trying to brand people, really brand them.” He was looking at Ringmar now. “Maybe he wants to show that he owns them, these people he’s branded?”

Ringmar listened. Smedsberg looked as if he were concentrating, as if he’d already accepted a job as a CID officer and was now on duty.

“Maybe he didn’t want to kill us. The victims. Maybe he just wanted to show that, er, that he owned us,” said Gustav Smedsberg.

“Fascinating,” said Halders. “We should give the kid a job here. Start at the bottom and work his way up to the top.”

“And where’s the top?” asked Aneta Djanali.

“I’ll show you when we get there,” said Halders. “We’ll make it one fine day.”

“It’s a fine day today,” said Djanali.

She was right. The sun had returned after a prolonged exile. The light outside made your eyes hurt, and Djanali had shown up at the police station in black sunglasses that made her look like a soul queen on tour in Scandinavia. At least, that’s what Halders had told her when they met outside the entrance.

They were in Winter’s office now. Winter was sitting on his desk chair, and Ringmar was perched on the edge of his desk.

“Shall we consult the farmers’ union-what do they call themselves, the Federation of Swedish Farmers? FSF?” Winter wasn’t quite sure if Halders was joking.

“Good idea, Fredrik,” he said. “You can start with all of Götaland.”

“Certainly not,” said Halders, looking at the others. “I was only joking.” He turned to Winter again. “What if it is a bumpkin, then? What do we do? How will we be able to pinpoint every clodhopper in the area?”

“Officer Plod in search of a clod,” said Winter.

“They’re a dying breed,” said Ringmar.

“Officer Plods?” said Djanali.

“Farmers,” said Ringmar. “Soon there won’t be any Swedish farmers left. The EU will see to that.”

“There’ll always be tough little Portuguese olive growers, though,” said Halders. “The Swedish national dish will become olives, whether you want the crappy things or not.”

“Olives are good for you,” said Djanali. “Unlike baked pig’s feet.”

“For Christ’s sake,” screamed Halders. “Why did you mention pig’s feet? You’ve made my feet hurt.”

At last the banter is getting back to normal, Winter thought. About time too.

“Maybe he wants to brand pigs,” said Halders. He sounded serious now. “Our attacker. Branding people he regards as swine.”

“

If it is a marking iron, or whatever it’s called,” said Winter.

“We’d better start making comparisons,” Ringmar said. “We’ll have to get hold of a branding iron.”

“Who’s going to volunteer to have their head bashed in so that we can make comparisons?” Halders wondered.

Everybody stared at him.

“Oh no, no, not me. I’ve already been bashed on the head, that’s enough for this life.”

“Maybe it wasn’t enough, though?” said Djanali.

Have I gone too far? she thought. But Fredrik asks for it.

Halders turned to Winter.

“The answer could be in the victims. Maybe there is a link between them after all. They don’t have to be random choices.”

“Hmm.”

“If we can find a common denominator we’ll have made a start. We haven’t checked up on the first two in detail yet. Not enough detail, at least,” Halders continued.

“Well,” said Ringmar.

“Well what? I can think of ten questions they weren’t asked but should have been. But I must say I think this last kid’s story is a bit odd. Gustav. The farmer’s boy.”

“What do you mean, odd?” asked Djanali.

“Confused, muddled.”

“Perhaps that makes it more credible,” said Winter.

“Or even incredible,” said Halders. “How can you fail to notice somebody creeping up on you in the middle of a soccer field?”

“But the same thing goes for the others, in that case,” said Djanali. “Are you seriously suggesting that they’re all in it together? That the victims allowed themselves to be injured? Or at least knew what was going to happen to them?”

“Maybe there’s something important he wants to tell us but doesn’t dare,” said Ringmar.

Everybody understood what Ringmar was getting at. A lot of people tell lies, and often because they are scared.

“We’ll have to ask him again,” said Djanali.

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” said Halders. “But OK, maybe they weren’t all aware of what was going to happen to them. But maybe they were, to some extent at least. This Gustav, though, he might have other reasons for telling us this story.”

Nobody spoke. Winter contemplated the sunlight blazing in through the window. We need some light, he’d thought as he raised the blinds shortly before the others arrived. Let there be light.

The trees in the park outside had been pointing at him, black fingers glinting in the sun. The sky was as blue as it’s possible to be in late November.

“He also said something about a newspaper delivery boy. We’d better check up on that,” Winter said, still staring into the heavens. “Bergenhem can look into that when he gets back from lunch. Somebody was working there that morning, and might have seen something.”

“Or done something,” said Ringmar.

“Even better if that’s the case. We’ll have solved it.”

“What about the other attacks?” asked Djanali. “Were there newspaper boys around then too?”

Winter looked at Ringmar.

“Er, we don’t actually know yet,” Ringmar said.

“Is that code for we haven’t looked into it yet?” asked Halders.

“Now we have a time pattern that is becoming clearer,” said Winter, getting to his feet. “All the attacks took place at about the same time-in the hours before dawn.”

“In the wee hours of the morning,” said Halders.