Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“No comment,” said Winter.

“Come on, Erik. I’ve helped you before. You ought to know by now, after all the contact you’ve had with the media, that facts are better than rumors.”

Winter couldn’t help laughing.

“Was that an ironic laugh?” asked Bülow.

“What makes you think that?”

“You know I’m right.”

“The statement is true but the messenger is false,” said Winter. “I deal in facts, you deal in rumors.”

“That’s what can happen when we don’t get any facts to work with,” said Bülow.

“Don’t work, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t write anything until you know what you’re writing about.”

“Is that how you work?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you sit around doing nothing until you get a little piece of the jigsaw?”

“I wouldn’t find a little piece of the jigsaw if I sat around doing nothing,” said Winter.

“Which brings us back to the point of this conversation,” said Bülow, “because I’m also doing something to find a little piece of the jigsaw that I can write about.”

“Ask me again tomorrow evening,” said Winter.

“I have to write about this now,” said Bülow, “tonight. Even you must understand that.”

“Hmm.”

“We’ve already got facts in connection with the Waggoner case.”

“Why are you waiting to publish them, then?” asked Winter.

Winter could hear that Bülow was hesitating before answering. Was he going to say “no comment”?

“We’ve only just gotten hold of them,” said the reporter. “In connection with the appeal for information about the other boy.”

“Oh.”

“Can you see a connection, Erik?”

“If I say yes, and you write that, it’s hard to see what the consequences would be,” said Winter.

“Nobody here is going to create panic,” said Bülow.

Winter was about to burst out laughing again.

“What creates panic is the indiscriminate spreading of unconfirmed rumors, and I’m looking for facts,” said Bülow.

“Haven’t we had a conversation about that very topic before?” said Winter.

“Is there a connection?” asked Bülow again.

“I don’t know, Hans. I’m being completely honest with you. I might know more tomorrow or the day after.”

“That’s Christmas Eve.”

“And?”

“Will you be working on Christmas Eve?” asked Bülow.

“Will you?”

“That depends. On you, among other things.” Winter heard voices in the background again. It sounded as if somebody was asking Bülow a question. He said something Winter couldn’t hear and resumed the conversation. “So you don’t want to say anything about a link?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t raise that question just now, Hans. It could make a mess of a lot of things. Do you follow me?”

“I don’t know. I’d be doing you yet another favor in that case. Besides, I’m not the one who makes all the decisions here,” said Bülow.

“You’re a good man. You understand.”

The alarm clock woke him up from a dream in which he had rolled a snowball that grew to the size of a house, and kept on rolling. An airplane had passed overhead, and he’d been sitting on top of the snowball and waved to Elsa, who had waved back jerkily from her window seat. He hadn’t seen Angela. He had heard music he’d never heard before. He’d looked down and seen children trying to make an enormous snowball, but nothing had moved, not even Elsa’s hand as the airplane had passed by and vanished into a sky, where all the colors he’d seen earlier had been mixed together to form gray. He’d thought about the fact that when all those brilliant colors were mixed, the result was simply gray-and then he’d woken up.

Angela was already in the kitchen.

“The snow’s gone,” she said. “As you predicted.”

“There’ll be more.”

“Not where we’ll be.”

“So you’ve made up your mind?”

“I want some sun.” She looked at Winter, held up one of her bare arms. “I damn well want a bit of sun on this pale skin. And a bit of sun in my head.”

“I’ll join you on Boxing Day.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Or the day after.”

“Should we stay there over New Year’s?”

“At least.”

“Have you spoken to Siv?”

“I’ll call her now. I wanted to be certain what you were going to do.”

She leaned over the table. There was a teacup in front of her, the radio was mumbling in a corner, words full of facts.

“Erik? Were you serious last night? Or were you just prepared to do anything at all in order to be allowed to stay at home and spend Christmas on your own, thinking to your heart’s content?”

“I was as serious as it’s possible to be.”

“I’m not sure how to interpret that.”

“Give me a date. I’m fed up with calling you my partner or my fiancée,” he said.

“I haven’t said yes yet,” she said.

Winter’s mobile rang as he was shaving. Angela handed it to him.

“That cap has popped up again,” said Ringmar.

“Where?”

“We’ve heard from three witnesses during the night who think they saw a man pushing a stroller with a child in it from H &M or somewhere near there, and he was wearing a checked cap. No leading questions.”

“What made them notice that?”

“A woman was working right by where the mother left the stroller, and she noticed that it was unattended for a while, and then a man came up after a while and went off with it.”

“And she didn’t react?”

“Well, it seemed natural enough at the time. She recalled the incident when we started rooting around.”

“Good God, Bertil: If what she says is right, we’re onto something here. What about the other witnesses?”

“Independently of each other, they both saw that cap in Nordstan.”

“Nobody saw it outside?”

He could hear Bertil sigh. Bertil had had another sleepless night. Winter hadn’t been able to stay with him, it wouldn’t have been possible. It had been necessary to discuss the Christmas holiday with Angela. And to make a snowman with Elsa.

“We’ve had the usual idiots who’ve seen everything you can imagine. There’ve been more than ever of them, but that probably has to do with Christmas,” said Ringmar.

Winter didn’t ask him what he meant by that.

“Have you made copies of the photo?” he asked.

“Hundreds.”

“I’ll be with you in half an hour.”

“I haven’t gotten around to talking to the parents yet,” said Ringmar.

“I heard his father was taken into the hospital last night,” said Winter.

“I’ve never seen anybody in such a state of shock,” said Ringmar. “It hit him afterward, like an avalanche.”

“Nothing new from the mother? Carolin?”

“She’s told her side of the story,” said Ringmar. “She didn’t set up a kidnapping scenario, I don’t think so. But we’ll be talking to her again.”

“I thought of trying again with Simon Waggoner later this morning,” said Winter.

“At home? Or at the station?”

“At home. Do you have the video camera?”

“It’s here on my desk.”

“How are the checks on the nursery-school staff going?” Winter asked.

“It’s progressing. It takes time, as you know.”

“We have to check up on everybody who works, or has worked, at those places. I take it that Möllerström is aware of that? Even if we have to go back ten years, or even longer.”

He embraced Elsa and whispered things into her ear that made her giggle. The bags were all packed.

“We should have had some sort of Christmas party last night,” said Angela.