Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“There was a farm-I don’t know if it’s still there-him who ran it was a bit odd. Did things ’is own way, you might say.” Smedsberg did some more massaging. “In the next village. We needed to go there once for some or other, and I think ’e… That ’e used to mark some of his animals like that. Come to think of it.” He peered out from inside his memories, turned to look at them. “I remember the smell, in fact,” he said. “Odd, ain’t it? A sound as well. Yes. When we got back home I asked Gerd and she said… she said he used to brand ’is mark into ’is animals.”

“You mean that number he was given by the cooperative?” Ringmar asked.

“No. He ’ad ’is own. I remember asking and Gerd said so.”

“You remember a lot, Mr. Smedsberg,” said Winter.

“It’s the smell,” he said. “Odd, ain’t it? You remember this smell and then you remember loads of other things. All you gotta do is think of a smell, and memories start to come back.”

Open the floodgates, Winter thought.

“What was the name of this farmer who had these unusual methods?”

“I don’t remember, I can tell you that now. Don’t have enough memory for that.” It sounded as if he gave a chuckle. “There are limits.”

“Do you remember where the farm was? Or is?”

“It’s in the next parish.”

“As far as we’re concerned that could be in another province,” said Winter.

“It is in another province, in fact,” said Smedsberg.

“Could you show us where it is?” Ringmar asked.

“Do you mean now?”

“Is it far?”

“Yes. It’s over twenty kilometers, I reckon. Depends on what route you take.”

“Do you have time to show us now? We can go right away. We’ll bring you straight back, of course,” Winter said.

Smedsberg changed the waterproof trousers he’d been wearing. He somewhat hesitantly got into Winter’s Mercedes. Winter noticed the Escort rusting away peacefully by the big barn.

The road was as straight as an arrow. Black birds circled overhead, followed them like seagulls shadowing a ship. The light sank down again, into the earth and over remote farms where lamps were starting to glimmer in the windows. They drove through a little village with a gray church and a hall next to it, with a dozen or so cars parked outside.

“Advent coffee meeting,” said Smedsberg.

“Feel like a cup?” said Winter to Ringmar, who didn’t reply.

“We don’t got time, surely,” said Smedsberg.

They passed two girls riding horses that looked as big as houses. So there are in fact horses around here. Winter gave them as wide a berth as he dared, and the girls waved in acknowledgment. The horses looked even bigger in the rearview mirror. It was a different world out here.

“We’re getting close,” said Smedsberg.

At a small crossroads he told them to turn left. The road surface was uneven and patchy asphalt that seemed to have survived both world wars. Fields were enclosed by rickety, broken-down fences, and the village seemed to have been abandoned. Which it no doubt has, Winter thought. They drove past two farmhouses that were in total darkness. A depopulated area: Everybody’s moving into the cities nowadays.

“People’ve started moving out of this place,” said Smedsberg, as if to confirm Winter’s thoughts. “There used to be lots of young kids in them two farms.”

They came to another crossroads.

“Left,” said Smedsberg. It was a dirt road now. Smedsberg pointed. “That’s where my Gerd came from.”

Winter and Ringmar looked at the house, which was wood-built, still red in the fading light: a cowshed, a smaller cottage, a fence. No electric light.

“Her nephews and nieces use it as a country place, but they aren’t there very often,” said Smedsberg. “They ain’t there now, for instance.”

The forest became more dense. They came to a clearing, then more trees, another clearing. There was a gloomy-looking log cabin at the side of the road.

“That used to be a village store once upon a time,” said Smedsberg.

“This really is a depopulated area,” said Ringmar.

The forest suddenly opened up and they found themselves driving through fields that seemed endless, compared with the concentration of trees they’d just passed through. There was a big house on the other side, set back some fifty meters from the road.

“That’s it,” said Smedsberg, pointing. “That was the house.”

There were lights on.

“HOW ARE WE GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS? ”RINGMAR ASKED AS THEY walked toward the house.

“We don’t need to explain anything,” said Winter.

The wind was gusting in circles around the house. Winter could see only one single light, in the distance, like a lighthouse at the edge of the plain. Darkness was closing in fast. It also felt chillier, as if winter was approaching at last. If he were to come back here a month from now, everything would be white all around, and it really would look like an ocean. It would be even more difficult to see the difference between sky and land, between heaven and earth.

As he raised his fist to hammer on the door, he had the feeling that he would in fact be coming back here. It was a feeling he couldn’t explain, but in the past it had led him deep down into the depths of darkness. It was a premonition that foreboded terrible things. Once it appeared, it wouldn’t go away.

Everything is linked.

He kept his hand raised. Gusts spiraling, a strange hissing in his ears. A faint light in the window to the left. An acrid smell of soil. His own breath like smoke signals, Bertil’s breath. Another smell, hard to pin down. He thought of a child on a swing, he could see it. The child turned to look at him and laughed, and it was Elsa. A hand was pushing the swing, and another face appeared and turned to look at him and it was not himself. He didn’t recognize it.

“Aren’t you going to knock?” Ringmar asked.

After the third salvo of hammering they could hear somebody moving inside, and a voice said: “What do you want?”

Yes, what did they want? Ringmar looked at Winter. Two stupid chief inspectors banging on the door of an isolated house in the middle of nowhere. In the backseat of our car is a hillbilly who has tricked us into coming here with his cock-and-bull story. Inside the house his psychopathic brother is waiting with an elk rifle. Our bodies will sink down under all the pig shit and never be recovered. Our coats will keep the brothers warm on their tractors.

You’ve got me covered, Erik?

Uh… sorry, no, Bertil boy.

“We’re from the police,” said Winter. “Can we come in and ask you a few questions?”

“About what?”

The voice was gruff and seemed to be in several layers, an old man’s voice.

“Can we come in?” Winter said again.

“How do I know you’re not thieves?” The voice was muffled by the door, which looked battered but substantial.

“I have my ID in my hand,” said Winter.

They heard a mumbling and a clanking of bolts. The door opened and the man inside appeared as a silhouette, illuminated by a low-octane light from the hall and perhaps also the kitchen. Winter held out his ID. The man leaned forward and studied the text and photograph with his eyes screwed up, then looked at Winter and nodded at Ringmar.

“Who’s he?”

Ringmar introduced himself and showed the man his ID.

“What do you want?” asked the man once more. He was slightly hunched but still of average height, his head shaved, wearing a whitish shirt, suspenders, trousers of no particular style, and thick woolen socks. Classical rural attire from head to toe. Winter could smell a wood-burning stove and recently cooked food. Pork. It was damp and chilly in the hall, and that was not entirely due to the air coming from the outside.