Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“And that is?”

“Hatred,” said Winter.

Bergenhem nodded.

“Let’s assume for the moment that these four young men don’t know one another,” said Winter. “They have no common background, nothing like that. But they are linked by their sexual orientation.”

“And the attacker hates gays,” said Bergenhem.

Winter nodded.

“But how did he know that his victims were gay? How could he be so sure?”

“He didn’t need to wait long,” said Winter. “Only long enough to be invited to go home with them.”

“I don’t know…”

“You were the one who started this line of reasoning,” Winter said.

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“OK. But maybe the attacker knew all four of them.”

“How could he?”

“It could be that he has the same predilections. Maybe they knew each other from some club. The Let’s All Be Gay Club, I don’t know. A pub. Confidential contacts. In any case, it developed into a drama of passion.”

“With quite a lot of people involved,” Winter said.

“There could still be more,” said Bergenhem.

Winter scratched his nose again. It was possible that they were on entirely the wrong track. Then again, they might have made progress. But this was just a conversation, just words. Words were still the most important tools in existence, but everything they’d been talking about now needed to be followed up with questions and more questions and actions and visits to streets and staircases and new interviews and telephone interviews and reading after reading after reading after run-through after run-through.

“There’s another one as well,” said Winter, “and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.”

“What’s that?”

“If there really was a fake newspaper boy there, if we can get Smedsberg’s claim corroborated by others, how could this person have known that he would be able to operate that morning undisturbed?”

Bergenhem nodded.

“He must have known the real one was indisposed. Otherwise the real one and the fake one might have bumped into each other. But she didn’t show up. How could he have known that?”

RINGMAR WAS STANDING BY THE WINDOW, LOOKING OUT AT HIS November lawn that no longer needed mowing; he was grateful for that. It was large, and lit up by the lantern over the front door of his house and the streetlights on the other side of the hedge.

The rain falling onto the garden covered it like a shroud. Wind was whistling through the three maples whose crowns he had watched developing over the twenty years they had lived in the house. For twenty years he had been able to stand by this same window, watching the grass grow, or resting, as now. Luckily enough, he’d had other things to do. But still. He was thirty-four when they bought the place. Even younger than Winter. Ringmar took a swig of the beer glittering in its thin glass. Younger than Winter. For a while, quite a long while, before even Winter grew older, that had been an expression in the Gothenburg CID, even the whole force, in fact. Nobody was younger than Erik. A bit like the slogan “Cooler than Borg,” which he’d seen in one of the newspapers when he was a UN police officer in the buffer zone in Cyprus eons ago. That was before Moa’s time, even before Birgitta’s time. Before Martin’s time.

He took another drink, listened to the wind, and thought about his son. Strange how things could turn out. His twenty-five-year-old daughter lived at home with them, temporarily; but it could take some time for her to find a new apartment. His twenty-seven-year-old son hadn’t even sent them his current address. Martin could be in a buffer zone, for all he knew. Aboard a ship on the other side of the world. Drinking life away in a bar in Vasastan. Gothenburg was big enough for Martin to hide himself away in if he wanted to. If nobody looked for him. And Ringmar didn’t look for him. No active search for a son he’d heard nothing from for almost a year. No looking for somebody who didn’t want to be found. Moa knew that the little brat was alive but that’s all.

But he did search for him inwardly instead, tried to figure out why.

Surely he’d treated him well? Tried to be there when needed. Was it because of his damned job, when all was said done? His peculiar working hours? The traces of post-traumatic stress that were not always just traces?

The memory of a dead child’s body wasn’t something you could rinse off in the shower the same night. The little face, the gentle features that could no longer really be made out. Younger than anything else, and that’s the way it would always be. Finished, finished forever.

Ringmar emptied his glass. I’m rambling, he thought. But the children have been the worst.

Now I’m longing for a conversation with my only son.

The telephone on the wall by the kitchen door rang. At the same time a little flock of small birds took off from the lawn, as if frightened by the noise.

Ringmar walked over to the telephone, put his glass down on the counter, and lifted the receiver.

“Hello, Bertil speaking.”

“Hi, Erik here.”

“Good evening, Erik.”

“What are you doing?”

“Watching the lawn rest. Drinking a Bohemian pilsner.”

“Do you think you could have a word with Moa?” Winter asked.

“What are you talking about, Dad?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really know.”

“This isn’t something you’ve thought up yourself.”

“Not in that way,” he said.

He was sitting in the armchair in her room that had been there as long as the room had been hers. Twenty years. She usually sat by the window, looking at the lawn, just like her father.

“Not in that way?” she said from her bed. “What does that mean?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really know,” he said again, with a smile.

“But somebody has dreamed up the suspicion that Jakob Stillman is gay, is that it?”

“I don’t know that I’d use the word ‘suspicion.’ ”

“Call it whatever you like. I’m just wondering what all this is about.”

“It’s about this job I have, among other things,” said Ringmar, shifting his position in the puffy armchair that was starting to sag after all these years. A bit like me, he thought. “We’re testing various theories. Or hypotheses.”

“Well, this one is way off base,” she said.

“Really?” he said.

“Completely wrong.”

“But you said you didn’t know him,” Ringmar said.

“He has a girlfriend. Vanna. I sent her to see you, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Well, then.”

“Sometimes it’s not that straightforward.”

She didn’t respond.

“Well?” he said.

“What would it mean, anyway?” she asked. “If he did turn out to be gay.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t really know,” Ringmar said.

“What exactly do we know?” asked Sture Birgersson, who was just about to light a new John Silver from the stub of his old one. The head of CID was standing in his usual place, in front of the window, behind his desk.

“I thought you quit,” Winter said.

“My lungs feel better,” Birgersson said, inhaling. “I thought I’d better reconsider.”

“A healthy approach,” said Winter.

“Yes, glad you think so.” Birgersson held the cigarette in front of him, as if it were a little carrot. “But we have other questions to consider here, me-thinks.”

“You’ve read the notes,” said Winter.

“Do you need more people?”

“Yes.”

“There aren’t any more.”

“Thank you.”

“If things get any worse, I might be able to dig a few more out,” said Birgersson.