Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“And vanished?” said Ringmar.

“Shortly before six. Loads of people. They closed at eight.”

Winter looked at Johansson. The man seemed as if he had come face-to-face with a horror that must have been worse than anything Ringmar had dreamed recently.

“Bengt here started calling when they didn’t turn up. And eventually got through to us, as he said.”

“Where’s the boy?” Ringmar asked.

“We don’t know,” sighed Winter. Johansson sniffled.

“Where’s the mother?” asked Ringmar. “Is the boy with her?”

“No,” said Winter. “Bengt mentioned a few places he hadn’t gotten around to phoning, and she was in one of them.”

“What kind of places?”

Winter didn’t answer.

“Pubs? Restaurants?”

“That kind of place, yes. We found her and identified her, but the boy wasn’t with her.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Nothing that’s of any help to us at the moment,” said Winter.

Johansson showed signs of life.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“Is there someone who can keep you company for the time being?” Winter asked.

“Er, yes. My sister.”

“One of our colleagues will give you a lift home,” Winter said. “You shouldn’t be on your own.”

Johansson said nothing.

“I’d like you to go home and wait,” said Winter. “We’ll be in touch.” Maybe somebody else will be in touch as well, he thought. “Could you call Helander and Birgersson, please, Bertil?”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Ringmar. They were still in Winter’s office. Winter had tried to get in touch with Hanne Östergaard, the police vicar, but she was abroad on Christmas leave.

“A family drama of a more difficult kind,” said Winter. “The mother left the boy all alone and hoped that some kind soul from the staff would look after him. Or some other generous passerby.”

“Which might be what happened,” said Ringmar.

“It looks like it.”

“But now he’s disappeared,” said Ringmar. “Four years old.”

Winter nodded, and drew a circle with his finger on the desk in front of him, and then another circle on top of that.

“Where’s the mother now?”

“At home, with a couple of social workers. She might be on her way to Östra Hospital by now-I expect to be informed at any minute. She’d been drinking at the pub, but not all that much. She’s desperate, and very remorseful, as you’d expect.”

“As you’d expect,” said Ringmar.

“She went back after a while, she couldn’t say how long, but the boy was no longer there, and she assumed he’d been taken care of by the authorities.”

“Did she check via the emergency police number?”

“No.”

“And she never called her husband? Bengt Johansson?”

Winter shook his head.

“They are divorced,” he said. “He has custody.”

“Why did she do it?” Ringmar asked.

Winter raised both arms a bit.

“She can’t explain it,” he said. “Not at the moment, at any rate.”

“Do you believe her?” asked Ringmar.

“That she abandoned the boy? Yes. What’s the alternative?”

“Even worse,” said Ringmar.

“We have to work with all possible alternatives,” said Winter. “We need to check the father’s alibi as well. The important thing is that the child is missing. That’s what we need to concentrate on.”

“Have you been to their home? The Johanssons’? The father?”

“Yes,” said Winter. “And we’re tracking down everyone who was working at the time on that floor of the shopping center. The first.”

“So somebody might have abducted the kid?” said Ringmar.

“Yes.”

“Is this a pattern we recognize from before?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly,” said Ringmar. “But it doesn’t really fit in with the previous cases. The others.”

“It might,” said Winter. “This boy, Micke, went to a nursery school in the center of Gothenburg. Not all that far away from the others we are involved with, including mine-or Elsa’s rather.”

“And?”

“If there’s somebody stalking the day nurseries from time to time, keeping them under observation, it’s not impossible that the person concerned could follow somebody after they’ve picked up their child.”

“Why?”

“To see where they live.”

“Why?”

“Because he or she is interested in the child.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason as in the earlier cases.”

“Calm down now, Erik.”

“I am calm.”

“What’s the reason?” Ringmar asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

Ringmar eased off. He recognized Winter’s fervent involvement, and his own.

“Perhaps it’s easier to abduct a child if you’ve been keeping it under observation for some time,” said Ringmar.

“Perhaps.”

“Instead of just marching up and wheeling the stroller away. I mean, the mother might have been within reach.”

Winter nodded. He tried to picture the situation but wasn’t very successful. There were too many people in the way.

“For Christ’s sake, Erik, we could be dealing with an abducted child here.” Ringmar rubbed away at his eye. “Or I suppose it’s possible that the boy woke up and staggered off all by himself?” He peered out from underneath his rubbing. “It’s a possibility.”

“We have lots of officers searching,” said Winter.

“Down by the canal?”

“There as well.”

“Do you have a picture of the boy?”

Winter pointed at his desk, where a little photograph must have been lying all along.

“We’re busy making copies,” Winter said.

“You realize what will happen once the wanted notice becomes public?” Ringmar said.

“Goodbye secrecy,” said Winter.

“And all the rest follows, like it or not.”

“Just as well,” said Winter.

“The media will give us hell,” said Ringmar.

“Can’t be helped.”

“I get the impression, Erik, that… that you’re looking forward to it.”

Winter said nothing.

“This is going to be some Christmas,” said Ringmar. “You’re on your way to Spain, I gather?”

“I was. Angela and Elsa are flying tomorrow. I’ll follow when I follow.”

“I see.”

“What would you have done, Bertil?”

“It depends what we suspect this is all about. If it’s the worst-case scenario, then there’s no question about it,” said Ringmar.

“We’ll have to interrogate the children soon,” said Winter.

THE APARTMENT WAS BEING HAUNTED BY THE GHOST OF TOM Joad when Winter stood in the hall with his overcoat half off and heard the sound of Elsa’s feet on the way to greet him. Angela dropped something hard on the bedroom floor and the volume was high and piercing: The highway is alive tonight, but where it’s headed everybody knows, another bang from the bedroom, Elsa’s face lit up, Winter was down on his knees.

It had started snowing outside. Flakes were still melting on his shoulders.

“Would you like to come outside with me and see the snow, Elsa?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

The pavement was white, and the park.

“We make snowman,” said Elsa.

They tried, and managed to make a small one. The snow wasn’t really wet enough.

“Have carrot for nose,” said Elsa.

“It would have to be a little one.”

“Can Daddy get?”

“Let’s use this twig.”

“Snowman breaking!” she said as she pressed the twig into the middle of the round face.

“We’ll have to make another head,” he said.

They were back home after half an hour. Elsa’s cheeks were as red as apples. Angela came out into the hall. Springsteen was singing on repeat about the dark side of humanity, still loud: