Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“If the blow stops him from working as a journalist in the future, the report certainly is very positive,” said Halders. He turned to Helander. “I don’t like journalists, you see.”

“Jens Book had been with his friend Krister Peters about half an hour before he was attacked in Linnéplatsen outside Marilyn, the video store.”

“His homosexual friend,” said Halders.

“Do you have a problem with that, Fredrik?” Ringmar had looked up from his file.

“Not at all. I only mentioned it for clarification.”

“Peters is gay,” said Bergenhem. “I’ve met him, as you know. He makes no attempt to hide the fact.”

“Why was he secretive about his meeting with Book, then?” asked Djanali.

“It wasn’t Peters who was secretive. It was Book himself,” said Ringmar. “We had to drag it out of him. It took time.”

“Not unusual behavior,” said Bergenhem. “If he doesn’t want to tell anybody, that’s up to him. Don’t you think? There are lots of people who don’t want to. We’ve talked about it before.” Bergenhem could see that Halders wanted to say something but was holding back. “Do you have a comment to make about that, Fredrik?”

Halders shook his head.

“So Book’s possible relationship with Peters doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with this,” said Bergenhem.

“But Peters doesn’t have an alibi,” said Ringmar.

“Then again, the plain fact is that Book is the one we know most about when it comes to what they were doing immediately before they were attacked,” said Bergenhem. “If we believe Peters, we know more or less what Book was up to all evening, apart from a short time before he was bashed.”

“Yes,” said Winter, who hadn’t spoken for some time, had just listened and made a few notes.

“But it’s quite different when it comes to Kaite, for instance. What was he doing in the hours before he was attacked in Kapellplatsen?”

Nobody answered.

“Kaite is very vague about that, and now he’s run off to God only knows where,” said Bergenhem. “He’s also had an argument with Smedsberg, who lived in the dorm next door. There’s a link for you, Fredrik.” Halders gave a start. As if he’d woken up out of a short coma, Winter thought.

“And our friend the law student, Jakob Stillman, is no longer as silent as he was forced to be at first, but he doesn’t have a very good memory either,” said Bergenhem. “Unless it’s the blows that have knocked the memories out of his head. Which I don’t believe. I think he was somewhere that he doesn’t want to tell us about, and then he walked across Doktor Fries Square and was attacked in the same way.”

“What took him to Doktor Fries Square?” said Djanali.

“What took Kaite to Kapellplatsen?” said Bergenhem.

“Is there a link?” wondered Halders.

“Perhaps nothing more than the fact that they were on their way home,” said Winter.

“On their way to the same place but from different directions,” said Ringmar.

“At different times,” said Bergenhem.

“Stillman seems to be a full-blooded heterosexual,” said Halders. “If you can believe Bertil’s daughter’s friend, that is.” He looked at Bergenhem. “Talking of nonlinks.”

“The link here is that three of them were attacked by the same person,” said Ringmar. “Or all four, in fact, since the intention was that Smedsberg should get the same treatment.”

“If we can believe him,” said Halders.

“He reported it to the police,” said Djanali.

“So did that family out at Önnered,” said Halders. “Possibly for the same reason as Gustav Smedsberg.” Halders looked at Winter. “By the way, shouldn’t we be on our way there now?”

“Soon.”

“Speaking of getting under way, perhaps we should pay a visit to the Smedsberg family farm,” said Bergenhem. “Out in the flatlands, as Fredrik put it.”

“Why?” asked Winter.

“The weapon. The branding iron. If we follow through with the hypothesis that all of the victims actually did the opposite of what they said they did, it’s Gustav Smedsberg who clubbed down the other three, and he did it with a branding iron like the one he said was back at home on the farm.”

“Hang on,” said Djanali. “If we shortly get hold of the identity number or whatever it’s called, and on that basis can find the farm the weapon comes from, well, if Smedsberg half kills people with a weapon that can be traced back to him, and he puts us on the right track… Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“You’re suggesting that people’s actions are rational and based on sound logic,” said Halders. “That we should use that as our starting point. The day we start doing that we might just as well pack up here and start selling roasted almonds in Slottsskogen.” He looked at Bergenhem.

“We’ll see,” said Winter. “Perhaps we ought to drive out to the flatlands.”

“It occurred to me that Kaite might be there,” said Bergenhem. “And the girl, perhaps.” He looked at Halders. “Bearing in mind what you just said about logic. Smedsberg and Kaite might have fallen out, so what could be more natural than Kaite relaxing at Smedsberg’s home?”

“Precisely,” said Halders. “But he won’t be able to hide away from us out there in the Wild West.”

“Who said he’s trying to hide away from us?” asked Ringmar.

“He ran off when we tried to have a chat with him, didn’t he? We were in his room, and he vanished.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you getting at, Bertil?”

“He might be more afraid of something else than you, Fredrik.”

Halders said nothing.

“You as a police officer, I mean.”

“Yes, I’m with you. You could have a point there.”

“How long was he gone?” asked Ringmar. “When you were sitting in his room, waiting?”

“He still hasn’t come back,” said Djanali with a smile.

“I’ll rephrase my silly question,” said Ringmar.

“We understand it even so,” said Halders. “We waited for ten minutes, and then it dawned on us that he couldn’t be in the john all that time and we found he was gone with the wind. Gone with the monsoon.” Halders pointed at the window, where the pale light of morning had turned into the darkness of aggressive winter rain. “Listen to that. I’ll be damned if we don’t have a northern monsoon up here at the edge of the universe.”

“Have you questioned all the others living in the corridor?” asked Bergenhem.

“Of course. And we didn’t leave until we’d checked all the rooms to make sure he wasn’t there.”

“There is one thing,” said Djanali.

Everybody waited.

“We’ve been waiting for the wounds on the boys’ heads to heal sufficiently for us to see if there is a brand of some kind. But it didn’t work with Stillman and Book. The scab has fallen off, but we haven’t seen anything. We were waiting for Kaite, or however one should put it.” She looked up but not at anybody in particular. “Was there somebody else waiting? Or who couldn’t wait?”

HE FRIED TWO EGGS, PUT THEM ON A PLATE, LOOKED AT THEM, and decided that he wasn’t hungry anymore. He stood up, scraped them into the trash can, and realized that he would have to throw them down the chute later.

He had collected eggs, turned his sweater into a carrier bag, and taken them to the kitchen. But that was then. They’d had a special smell, which seemed to force its way through the shell. Put them in the dish, the old man used to say. You could break them, carrying them like that.

The smell was no longer there when he put them in the dish. One of the eggs had broken even though he’d been as careful as he could possibly be.