Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

But Jens Book had started to regain mobility, first in his right shoulder and then slowly down through the rest of his body. There was life and hope. He had recovered some movement in his face, which made it possible for them to talk; but Ringmar wasn’t sure what they should talk about. You don’t always get the answers you want from your questions.

“Do you think he crept up on you on a bicycle?” he asked now.

The young man appeared to be thinking. He had been walking along the pavement at Linnéplatsen, past the video store. Hardly any traffic, dim light, mist over the park veiling the night sky.

“Maybe,” he said. “It happened so quickly.” He turned his head toward the pile of pillows. “But I didn’t hear, or see, anything to make me sure that he was riding a bike.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No.”

The kid moved his head again.

“How’s it going?” Ringmar asked.

“Well…”

“I heard that you’re on the mend.”

“It seems so.”

“Can you move your right hand?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“Soon you’ll be able to wiggle your toes.”

Book smiled.

“We’re still not absolutely clear about where you’d been that night,” Ringmar said.

“Er, what do you mean?”

“Where you were coming from when you were attacked.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Somebody might have followed you.”

“From there? No, I don’t think so.”

“From where, Jens?”

“Didn’t I say that I’d been to a party in, er, Storgatan I think it is? Just past Noon.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.”

“But you weren’t there the whole time,” Ringmar said.

“What do you mean?”

Ringmar looked down at his notebook. The page was empty, but sometimes it was a good idea to look as if you were checking information you already had.

“You left that party about two hours before the attack at Linnéplatsen took place.”

“Who said that?”

Ringmar consulted his notebook again.

“Several of the people we’ve spoken to. It wasn’t a secret.”

“It sounds almost like I’m being accused of something.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“It sounds almost like that.”

“I’m only trying to establish what you were doing. Surely you can understand that? If we’re going to find this attacker, we have to walk in your footsteps, so to speak,” Ringmar said.

Pure bullshit, he thought. I’m thinking like my daughter speaks.

The boy didn’t answer.

“Did you meet somebody?” Ringmar asked.

“Even if I did, it’s got nothing to do with this.”

“In which case there’s no harm in telling, is there?”

“Telling what?”

“If you met somebody,” Ringmar said.

“Yes and no,” said Book. His eyes were wandering all round the room.

Ringmar nodded, as if he understood.

“What year are you in?” asked Winter.

“My second.”

“My wife’s a doctor.”

“Really?”

“She’s a hospital doctor. General medicine.”

“I suppose that’s what I want to be.”

“Not a brain surgeon?”

“It would be useful to be one, after this,” said Aryan Kaite, grimacing slightly and touching his head with his left hand: The big bandage had been replaced by a smaller one. “The question is whether I’ll be able to go on studying.” He took down his hand again. “Thinking. Remembering. It’s not certain that everything will still work.”

“How do you feel now?” Winter asked.

“Better, but not good.”

Winter nodded. They were in a café in Vasastan, chosen by Kaite. I should come here more often, Winter thought. It’s relaxing. Interviewing people over coffee. There should be a sign outside: Coffee and Questions.

“I live just around the corner,” Winter said.

“Working within walking distance, then,” said Kaite.

“Yes, again,” said Winter, and told him about the case he’d worked on a few years previously, the couple in the apartment fifty meters down the street who had been sitting so still. The odd circumstances regarding their heads. But he didn’t say anything about that particular detail.

“I think I read something about that,” said Kaite.

“We got the call from a newspaper boy,” said Winter. “A young kid who became suspicious.”

“I guess they see a lot,” said Kaite.

“You didn’t see a newspaper boy that morning, did you, Aryan?”

“When I had my head bashed in? I couldn’t see anything at all.”

“When you came up to Kapellplatsen, or just before you were attacked. You didn’t notice a newspaper boy around? Or on the other side of the square? Near the buildings?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Did you see anybody carrying newspapers?”

“No.”

“OK. I’ll tell you why I’m asking. I take it you’ve heard that another young man was, er, attacked, in the same way? At Mossen?”

“Yes.”

“He says he saw a newspaper boy shortly before it happened, but there was no newspaper boy there that morning. The usual person was sick.”

“So it must have been a replacement.”

“No. The usual one called in sick at the last minute, and they didn’t have time to find anybody else.”

“How does he know it was a newspaper boy he saw, then?”

“There was somebody carrying newspapers up and down staircases at four-thirty in the morning.”

“Sounds like a newspaper boy,” said Kaite.

“Exactly,” said Winter.

“But isn’t there something a bit fishy there? How could he know the usual delivery person was sick?” he asked. “He could have bumped into her. How did he know?”

“That’s what we are wondering as well,” said Winter, studying the boy’s face-it was as black as Aneta Djanali’s, but with different features from another part of Africa.

“Very odd,” said Kaite.

“Where do you come from, Aryan?”

“ Kenya.”

“Born there?”

“Yes.”

“Are there a lot of Kenyans living in Gothenburg?”

“Quite a few. Why?”

Winter shrugged.

“I don’t hang out with any of them,” said Kaite.

“Who do you hang out with, then?”

“Not many people.”

“Fellow students?”

“Some of them.”

“Who were you with that evening?”

“Eh?”

“When you were attacked. Who were you with then?”

“But I told you I was on my own.”

“Before you came to Kapellplatsen, I mean.”

“Nobody. I was just wandering around the streets.”

“You didn’t meet anybody?”

“No.”

“Not at all? All evening?”

“No.”

“It was a long night.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t meet anybody later on, either?”

“No.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” He looked surprised. “Is it that strange?”

“So you didn’t know the person who clubbed you down?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Do you want me to ask it again?”

“You don’t need to. If I knew who it was, I’d say so of course.”

Winter said nothing.

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?”

“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF I SAID ‘BICYCLE’?” ASKED HALDERS.

“Is this some kind of word association game?” wondered Jakob Stillman.

“-What?” said Halders.

Stillman eyed the detective inspector with the shaved head and rough polo-necked shirt and jeans and heavy shoes. Who was he? Was there a mix-up during the arrest of a gang of aging skinheads?

He rolled carefully to one side. His head followed his body, and hurt. He couldn’t shake off this constant headache. And this conversation was not making things any better.