Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“I’ll call.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I’ll call,” said Winter again and pressed the red key for the second time, put his mobile down on the desk, and picked up the receiver of the main telephone.

A patrol car drove past in the street below, its siren wailing. That was the first sound he’d heard from outside. He could see the top of the Christmas tree in Vasaplatsen, a lone star.

The Bergorts’ phone was busy. He considered calling the Frölunda station, but what would they be able to do? He called Larissa Serimov’s mobile number, but didn’t get through.

He called Ringmar at home, but there was no answer. He tried Ringmar’s mobile. No contact.

He was beginning to feel manic, standing in the middle of the quiet, dark room with his fingers hovering nervously over the keys. He tried a number he’d looked up in his address book.

He waited. Three rings, four. The world was unavailable tonight. A fifth ring, a crackling, an intake of breath.

“Car-Carlström.”

Winter said who he was. Carlström sounded worn out when he mumbled something.

“Did I wake you up?” Winter asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. But I have a couple of questions about Mats.”

Winter heard a sound coming from somewhere close to Carlström. It could have been a stick of firewood crackling in the stove. Did Carlström have a telephone in the kitchen? Winter hadn’t thought about that when he was there.

“What about Mats?” asked Carlström.

“I met him today,” said Winter, checking the time. It wasn’t midnight yet.

“And?”

“Does he know Georg Smedsberg?” Winter asked.

“Smedsberg?”

“You know who he is.”

“I don’t think he knows him.”

“Could they have had any contact at all?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Smedsberg’s son is one of the young men who’ve been attacked,” said Winter.

“Who said that?” asked Carlström.

“Excuse me?”

“He said that himself, didn’t he?” said Carlström.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Winter.

“Maybe not enough,” said Carlström.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not saying any more,” said Carlström.

“Did Mats have any contact with Georg Smedsberg?” Winter asked again.

“I know nothing about that.”

“Any contact at all?” said Winter.

“What if he did?”

That depends on what happened, Winter thought.

“What kind of a life did Mats have with you?” Winter asked. I’ve asked that before. “How did he get along with other people?”

Carlström didn’t answer.

“Did he have a lot of friends?”

It sounded as though Carlström gave a laugh.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He didn’t have any friends,” said Carlström.

“None at all?”

“Them round here couldn’t stand th’ boy,” said Carlström, his accent getting broader. “Couldn’t stand the boy.”

“Was he mistreated at all?”

That same laugh again, cold and hollow.

“They made a mockery of him,” said Carlström. “He might have been able to stay, but-”

“He ran away?”

“He hated ’em and they hated ’im.”

“Why was he hated?”

“I don’t know the answer to that. Who knows the answer to a question like that?”

“Was Georg Smedsberg one of those who abused him?”

“He might have been,” said Carlström. “Who can keep track of that?”

“What did his wife think about it?”

“Who?”

“Gerd. His wife.”

“I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?” asked Winter.

“What I said.”

“How did you know Gerd?” Winter asked.

Carlström didn’t answer. Winter repeated the question. Carlström coughed. Winter could see that he wasn’t going to say anything else about Gerd, not at the moment.

“Would Mats have been up to attacking those boys?” he asked. “As some sort of revenge? An indirect revenge? In return for what the others had done to him?”

“That sounds crazy,” said Carlström,

“Has he ever said anything along those lines? That he wanted to get someone back?”

“He never said much at all,” said Carlström, and Winter detected a touch of tenderness in his voice. Unless it was tiredness. “He didn’t want to say much. Avoided anything hard. That’s the way he was when he first came here.”

“Have you spoken to him this Christmas?” Winter asked.

“No.”

Winter said good night. He checked his watch again. Almost midnight now. He could still hear Carlström’s voice echoing in his ears.

Carlström could have done it, Winter thought. He could have taken revenge on old man Smedsberg, for instance, and everything associated with him. For something Smedsberg had done to Mats. Or to himself.

There was something else Carlström had just said. Winter hadn’t thought about it at the time, but now, a minute later, he was going over the conversation again, in his head.

He didn’t want to say much, Carlström had said about his foster son. That’s the way he was when he first came here. There was something else.

Avoided anything hard. What did he mean by anything hard?

Winter dialed Carlström’s number again and listened to the ringing. This time nobody answered in the house in the flats.

Winter hung up and thought. He lifted it again and dialed Mats Jerner’s number. He listened to the ringing just as he’d listened to the ringing at Jerner’s foster father’s house.

He hung up, went to the kitchen, and made a cup of double espresso. He drank the drug while standing by the kitchen window. The courtyard down below was glistening from a thin layer of snow and frost. The outside thermometer showed minus four degrees. The light from the Christmas tree in the courtyard shone all the way up to Winter’s apartment. He was reminded of Bertil’s neighbor, the mad illuminator, and of Bertil. He took his cup back into the study and called Bertil again, but there was no answer from any of the numbers. He left a message on Bertil’s mobile. He called Police Operations Center but they had no information about Ringmar. Nor any other kind of information. No car accident, no boy, no abductor.

He could hear his stomach. Some Thai curry the day before, or whenever it was, and since then nothing but whiskey and coffee. He went back to the kitchen and made an omelette with chopped tomatoes, onion, and quick-roasted paprika. The telephone rang as he was eating. He could reach the kitchen telephone from the table, and answered with his mouth full.

“Is that Winter? Erik Winter?”

“Chllm… mmm… yes.”

Winter could hear the sound of an engine-the call seemed to be coming from a car.

“Ah. Good evening, er, good morning, er, Janne Alinder here. Linné-”

“Hello, Janne.”

“Er, we’ve just come back from the country. No mobile in the world gets through to our cottage. I saw you’d been trying to contact me.”

“Good that you called.”

“No problem. We had a some trouble with the electricity in the cottage, so we had to pack up and go home in the end. I’m not a hundred percent sober, but luckily the wife is.”

“Can you remember if Lena Sköld mentioned anything about her girl saying that the man whose car she sat in stuttered?” Winter asked.

“Stuttered? No, I can’t remember anything about that off the top of my head.”

“Or if she spoke about a parrot?”

“A what?”

“A parrot. We’ve just sent out a message to all the Gothenburg police stations about that. We think the abductor had an ornament or something hanging from his rearview mirror. A parrot. A bird in any case. Green, or green and red.”