Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“We’re trying to interview everybody who might have been around the areas where the incidents took place, and now it’s the delivery boys’ turn,” said Winter.

“That’s hard work,” said Halders.

“Interviewing newspaper boys?” said Djanali.

“I’ve worked as a newspaper boy,” said Halders, ignoring her.

“Good,” said Winter. “You can give Bergenhem a hand, then.”

“I’ll take another look at the locations first,” said Halders.

HE WAS AT KAPELLPLATSEN, STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE square. The high-rise buildings concealed the sun that would remain up in the northern sky for a bit longer.

Halders turned his head, and felt how stiff it was. He couldn’t swivel his head around anymore. The blow to the vertebrae at the back of his neck had left behind this physical reminder. He could just about manage to turn his head to the right, to the left was worse. He’d had to learn to turn his body instead.

Other memories were worse. He had once run all the way across this very square with Margareta when they were very young and very hard up and very happy. The number 7 streetcar had already left and he had stood in the way and nearly been run over. But it had stopped. And Margareta had nearly died laughing once she’d gotten over the shock. And now she really had died, not just nearly died-hit by a drunk driver, and it was debatable whether or not he’d gotten over the shock, or ever would. God only knows. They’d been divorced when it happened, but that didn’t mean a thing. Their children were still there, as a reminder of everything that life stood for. That’s the way it was. If there was a meaning at all, that was it. Magda’s face when lit up by the sun at the breakfast table. The spontaneous joy in the little girl’s eyes that turned into diamonds in that flash of light. The feeling inside him. At that moment. Happiness, just for one second.

Still, despite everything he was on the way back to some kind of normality. The banter that morning had been a positive sign. He was glad about that. Therapy? Could be.

He was glad that Aneta had caught on, and played along.

Maybe the two of them were going somewhere together. No, not maybe. We are going somewhere together. Very slowly, very carefully.

He turned around, slowly, carefully. The student had come up the steps from Karl Gustavsgatan. Maybe he was tired. Certainly a bit drunk. Beer. Aryan Kaite, as black as could be, like Aneta; and what a name! Aryan. Perhaps a plea from his parents, it had struck Halders when he talked to the kid after he’d come around. An Aryan black man. Weren’t they the first humans? Africans?

This one was studying medicine.

A horrible wound to the head. Could have killed him. The same went for the others. He thought about that as he stood by the steps looking down at the paving stones sparkling in the sunlight. All of them could have been killed, but nobody had died. Why? Was it a coincidence, a stroke of luck? Was that the intention? Were they meant to survive?

This is where the blow had been delivered, in the square, Kapellplatsen. Then darkness.

Linnéplatsen was surrounded by tall buildings that were new but meant to look old, or at least in time blend in with the century-old patrician mansions.

Jens Book had been clubbed down outside Marilyn’s, the video store. Halders was standing there now. There were five film posters in the windows, and all of them depicted people brandishing guns or other weapons.

Die Fast! Die Hard III! Die and Let Die! Die!

But not this time either. Jens Book was the first victim. Studying journalism. The Aryan, Kaite, was the second. Jakob Stillman the third. In the same department as Bertil’s daughter, Halders remembered, and moved to one side to avoid a cyclist who came racing down from Sveaplan. Gustav Smedsberg was the fourth, the yokel studying at the university of technology, Chalmers. Branding iron. Halders smiled. Branding iron my ass.

Book was the one with the worst injuries, if it’s possible to grade them like that. The blow had affected nerves and other things, paralyzing the kid on his right side, and it was not clear if he would recover mobility. Maybe he wasn’t as lucky as I was, Halders thought as he backed out of the way of a cyclist evidently determined to ride straight ahead. Halders very nearly fell through the door of the video store.

He thought about the blows again. First the one he’d received. Then the ones that had injured the young men.

It had all happened so quickly. Wham, no warning. Nobody noticed anything in advance. No footsteps. Just wham. No chance of defense, of protecting themselves.

No footsteps, he thought again.

He watched the cyclist ignoring a red light and riding straight over the crossroads, displaying a splendid contempt for death. Die? Pfuh!

The cyclist.

Have we asked about a possible cyclist? Have we thought about that?

He had interviewed the Aryan himself, but there had been no mention of a bicycle.

Had the attacker been riding a bike?

Halders stared down at the pavement, as if there might still be some visible sign of bicycle tracks.

Lars Bergenhem had some news before lunch. Winter was smoking a Corps. The window overlooking the river was open a couple of centimeters, letting in air he thought smelled more distinctly than his cigarillo smoke did. The Panasonic on the floor was playing

Lush Life. Only Coltrane today, and in recent weeks. Winter had unfastened two buttons of his Zegna jacket. Anybody coming into his office now who didn’t know any better would think he wasn’t working. Bergenhem came in, saying:

“There was no newspaper delivery boy there.”

Winter stood up, put his cigarillo down on the ashtray, turned down the music, and closed the window.

“But the kid saw him,” he said as he was doing this. “Smedsberg.”

“He says he saw somebody with newspapers,” said Bergenhem, “but it wasn’t a newspaper delivery boy.”

Winter nodded and waited.

“I checked with Göteborgs Posten delivery office and on that particular morning, the day before yesterday, their usual employee for that round called in sick just before it was time to start delivering, and it took them at least three hours before they could find a replacement. So that would have been at least two hours after Smedsberg was attacked.”

“He could have been there anyway,” Winter said.

“Eh?”

“He could have called in sick but showed up anyway,” Winter said again. “He might have started to feel better.”

“She,” said Bergenhem. “It’s a she.”

“A she?”

“I’ve spoken to her. There’s no doubt. She has an awful cold, and a husband and three children who were all at home that morning and give her an alibi.”

“But people received their morning papers?”

“No. Not until her replacement showed up. According to GP, in any case.”

“Have you checked with the subscribers?”

“I haven’t had time yet. But the girl at GP says they had lots of complaints that morning. As usual, according to her.”

“But Smedsberg says he saw somebody carrying newspapers,” Winter said.

“Did he really say that he’d seen the actual newspapers?” Bergenhem wondered.

Winter sorted through the pile of papers in one of the baskets on his desk and read the report on the interviews Ringmar had submitted.

Ringmar had asked: How do you know it was a newspaper boy?

Because he was carrying a bundle of newspapers and went into one of the buildings, and then I saw him come out again and go into the next one, Smedsberg had replied.

Was there a cart outside with more newspapers? Ringmar had asked.