Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“How can things get any worse?”

“Another victim, for Christ’s sake. If someone dies.”

“We could easily have had four dead bodies,” said Winter.

“Hmm.” Birgersson lit his cigarette using the glowing butt. “Bad, but not bad enough.”

“Four murders,” said Winter. “That would be a record, for me at least.”

“And for me.” Birgersson walked around his desk. Winter could smell the tobacco. As if the old tobacco factory down by the river had come back to life. “But you’re right. It’s nasty. What we’re stuck with might be a serial killer who hasn’t actually killed.”

“Assuming it’s the same person.”

“Don’t you think it is?”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” said Winter.

Birgersson leaned backward and picked up three pieces of paper from his desk. Apart from them, it was empty, clear, shiny. There’s something compulsive about him, Winter thought, as he always did when he was standing there, or sitting, as he was at the moment.

Birgersson read the documents again, then looked up.

“I wonder if this gay theory is valid,” he said.

“It’s only you and me and Lars and Bertil who know about it,” said Winter.

“That’s probably just as well.”

“You’ve taught me to investigate through a bifocal lens,” said Winter.

“Have I really? That was pretty well put.” Birgersson stroked his chin. He looked Winter in the eye, possibly with just a trace of a smile. “Can you remind me what I meant by it?”

“Being able to look down and also forward at the same time. In this case, investigating several parallel motives.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s obvious, really,” said Winter.

“I didn’t hear that.”

“Like all great thoughts.”

“Hear, hear,” said Birgersson.

“The gay theory might give us a motive,” said Winter.

“Have you managed to interview any of the kids again? With this idea in mind?”

“No, we’ve only just thought of it,” said Winter.

Birgersson didn’t respond, which meant that the discussion was over for the time being. Winter picked up his pack of Corps and removed the cellophane from one of the slim cigarillos.

Birgersson held out his lighter.

“You quit too,” he said.

“It hurt too much,” said Winter. “Now I feel better again.”

Halders stood in the middle of Doktor Fries Square. Time stood still here, in this square that had been built during the era of the Social Democrats, when Sweden ’s welfare state was strong, when everybody was cared for from the cradle to the grave and looked into the future with confidence, anticipating the fulfillment of their dreams. In this square I’m a little boy again, Halders thought. Everything here is genuine; this is what it looked like then.

Flags, stone, concrete. But everything in the square was lovely then, dammit. Concrete soaring high over the ground. Not bad, not bad at all.

A few people were wandering around between the library, the community center, and the dentist’s office that Halders knew Winter used. There was a pizza parlor, of course. A closed-down bank, of course. A newstand, post office (but not for much longer). A self-service store-a name that fit the square’s appearance and age. For me this shop will always be a self-service store. That’s a 1960s term.

Halders sat down on one of the benches outside Forum and drew a map in his notebook.

Stillman had passed by here, after climbing up the steps that lead down to the city center. He’d walked through the bushes, which must have been pitch black. There were other routes he could have taken. This had been the most awkward one. Perhaps the boy was a bit of an adventurer. Halders drew a line that Stillman must have walked, from where he was sitting to the point where the attacker had clubbed him down.

Almost the dead center of the square. He looked in that direction. Somebody might have been standing in the covered passageway in front of the self-service store. Or by the tobacconist’s. Or the delicatessen on the other side. Crept forward with his club. A seven iron. Or a different iron. Or swished up on a bicycle. Or run like the devil on silent soles, and the young man who was tired and tipsy hadn’t heard a thing. Too bad the victim didn’t have a Walk-man with Motorhead filling his brain at full volume. That would have explained a lot.

Perhaps they weren’t alone. Halders kept thinking that when he made this follow-up visit to the various locations. Maybe they were with somebody but didn’t want to say who, even though whoever it was had tried to kill them. Could that be the case? Were they protecting their own attacker? Huh. Halders had learned a lot in this job. It was a mistake to believe that people will behave rationally. The human psyche was an interesting piece of reality in that respect. Or frightening, rather. You had to take things as they came.

Not alone. Shielding somebody. Or ashamed of something? He looked down at his sketch again. Drew a dotted line to the bus and streetcar stop. Stillman had been on his way there, he’d said.

From where? He still hadn’t been able to explain what he’d been doing here. Halders didn’t buy all that stuff about just strolling around, going nowhere in particular. It was a long way from here to Olofshöjd and his dorm room. It’s true that it’s possible to go there from Slottskogen via Änggården and Guldheden, just as it’s theoretically possible to stroll east from Gothenburg to Shanghai.

Had he been visiting somebody around here? In which case, why the hell didn’t he say so? Did they go for a moonlit walk? We’ll have to have another chat with him. And with the other students, a student from Uppsala-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la. Halders hummed the tune as he got up from the bench and made his way to the delicatessen to buy lunch.

Winter lingered on the grounds after dropping off Elsa at the nursery school and waving to her through the window. She had turned away immediately and vanished, and it dawned on him that he and Angela were no longer the only ones in her life.

A lot of children were running around the grounds. Two supervisors, as far as he could see. There was a lot of traffic passing by-the second stage of the morning rush hour. I’ll be joining the rush shortly.

A little boy was making his way through the bushes. Maybe the same one as last time, hoping to escape to freedom outside the fence.

Winter watched him disappear into the undergrowth. He’d soon be out again. Maybe he had a secret den among the bushes that he went to every day.

Winter walked down to the gate and looked to the right, expecting to see the boy on the other side of the bushes and inside the fence. But there was nobody in sight. He walked toward the bushes but still could see nothing, hear nothing. He approached closer still, noticed a loose bit of the thick steel wire, pulled at it, and felt the whole length open like a swinging door.

He turned around, but there was no little boy in brown overalls and a blue cap standing in the bushes, waving.

What the hell…

The opening was too small for him to clamber through. He jogged quickly to the gate and out into the street, but he still couldn’t see the boy anywhere.

He walked the ten or so meters to the intersection, which was partially hidden from view by the evergreen bushes surrounding the day nursery, turned right, and saw the boy some twenty meters ahead of him, marching purposefully away.

By the time Winter got back to the nursery school with the boy, they had already called the register.

“We were going to have a snack,” said the deputy manager, who was standing at the gate, looking worried.

“There’s a hole in the fence,” said Winter, putting down the boy who had allowed himself to be carried back without protesting.