Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

“A parrot? No. Have the witnesses seen a parrot or something?”

“The children have,” said Winter.

“Hmm.”

“It feels reliable,” said Winter.

“You’re certainly doing overtime on this case,” said Alinder.

“You will be too,” said Winter. “Right now, and maybe more later. If you’re prepared to.”

“Overtime? Of course, for Christ’s sake-I know what’s involved.” Winter could hear a slight slurring, but Alinder wasn’t so drunk that he wasn’t thinking straight. “What do you want me to do?”

“Check your notes one more time.”

“Have you checked with any of the others?”

“I’ve tried to contact Josefsson at Härlanda, but I haven’t gotten ahold of him yet.”

“When do you want this done?”

“As soon as possible.”

“I can instruct my chauffeur to drive me to Tredje Långgatan. Even if I can’t find the station, she will.”

The silence after the phone call almost took him by surprise. He stood up and shoveled the remains of the Basque omelette that had been his Christmas dinner into the trash. It was past midnight now. He turned on one of Angela’s CDs that had now become his too. He opened the balcony door, breathed in the night air, and contemplated the Christmas tree and its star that seemed to be reflecting images of the city all around. The stars in the bright sky. Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. He thought about Carlström, his barn, and lit a cigarillo, the music from U2 behind him, delicate synthesizers, the words,

Heaven on Earth, we need it now.

The telephone rang.

WINTER RECOGNIZED NATANAEL CARLSTRÖM’S BREATHING, HEARD the rush of air in the wood-burning stove, the wind howling around the godforsaken house, all that solitary silence.

“Sorry to disturb you so late,” said Carlström.

“I’m up,” said Winter. “I tried to call you not long ago. Nobody answered.”

Carlström didn’t answer now either. Winter waited.

“It’s Mats,” said Carlström eventually.

“And?”

“He called here, not long ago.”

“Mats called you?” Winter asked. He could hear Carlström nod. “What did he want?”

“It was nothing special,” said Carlström. “But he was upset.”

“Upset? Did he say why?”

“What he said didn’t… didn’t make sense,” said Carlström. “He talked about the sky and heaven and other things that I couldn’t understand. I was very upset.”

It sounded as if he’d been surprised to hear himself saying that, Winter thought.

Things I couldn’t understand, Carlström said.

“When I tried to call you again it was regarding something you’d said about Mats earlier on. You said he avoided anything hard. What did you mean by that? What exactly was it that he avoided?”

“Well, er, it was sort of everything that he found hard to say. And it was harder for him when he was upset. Like he was when he called just now.”

Winter could picture Mats Jerner in his office in police headquarters. The calm, the few seconds of uncertainty, which was normal. The impression that he had all the time in the world in a very unusual place on Christmas Eve.

“Are you saying that he found it hard to pronounce words?”

“Yes.”

“That he stuttered?”

“He stuttered then, and he stuttered now, just now, when he called.”

“Where did he call from?” Winter asked.

“Where? He must have called from home, surely?”

“Can you remember what he said? Tell me as exactly as possible.”

“I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

“The words,” said Winter. “Just tell me the words. Don’t bother about the order.”

Ringmar parked behind a copse on one of the narrow dirt roads that skirted the fields. Dark shapes were flying across the sky, like bats. He seemed to be walking over a frozen sea. The plain was white and black in the moonlight. He could feel the wind blowing through his body. The wind was the only sound.

There was a light and it came from Smedsberg’s farm. It was flickering, moving back and forth in the wind. It grew as he approached, acquired an outline, and became a window. He went closer, but not before picking up a handful of mud and dropping it into a plastic bag inside another one, which he then put in the pocket of his overcoat.

He stood next to a bush five meters from the window, which was at eye level. He heard his mobile vibrating in his inside pocket, but he didn’t touch it.

He recognized the kitchen, a late-medieval version of old man Carlström’s iron-age room. Georg Smedsberg was leaning over his son, who sat with his head bowed, as if expecting a blow. His father’s mouth was moving as if he was shouting. His whole body was a threat. Gustav Smedsberg raised an arm, as if to protect himself. For Ringmar it was a scene that said everything, that confirmed what had brought him here, Georg Smedsberg’s words that first visit: They mebbe got what they deserved.

He remembered what Gustav had said the first time they interviewed him: “Maybe he didn’t want to kill us. The victims. Maybe he just wanted to show that he owned us.”

Ringmar suddenly felt colder than he had ever been in his fifty-four years. He stood there as if frozen fast in the sea.

Then he found the strength to walk toward the house.

Winter rang Mats Jerner’s number again.

No, no, that couldn’t be it.

But everything was getting mixed up. Nevertheless, Jerner’s name had come into his head. Jerner had attacked the boys. His foster father had attacked them. They’d both done it. Neither had done it. Yes they had. There had been a lot of hatred or despair, and a lust for revenge. There were several people taking part in this dance: Georg Smedsberg, his son Gustav, Gustav’s mother Gerd (was she the mother?), Natanael Carlström, his foster son Mats Jerner (that was definitely true, Winter had read parts of Jerner’s grim curriculum vitae), the other students: Book, Stillman, Kaite.

Jerner didn’t answer. Winter looked at the clock. Had he gone back to work? Another overtime shift for the solitary man? Surely there weren’t any streetcars running now?

No sound of traffic from Vasaplatsen down below. He hung up, walked through the hall to the living room, and looked down at the street. There was no traffic, and nobody waiting at the streetcar stops. A taxi cruised by slowly from Aschebergsgatan, hunting for fares. The star on top of the Christmas tree smiled at him.

He called Police Operations Center and asked them to find somebody who would know. He didn’t have any timetables.

“I want to speak to somebody from their personnel department as well,” he said.

“Now?”

“Why not now?”

“There’s nobody there.”

“I realize that. But some of the staff will be at home, won’t they?”

“OK, OK, Winter. We’ll get back to you.”

He loosened the cord around the boy’s wrists, even though the little boy hadn’t asked him to.

It had been so quiet in there for so long.

He felt calmer now.

He’d called the old man when he got back from the interview with that superior policeman who had everything this world had to offer. He’d been so angry! Look at the clothes he’s wearing! As if he’s on his way to a ball at the Royal Palace! But the policeman hadn’t shaved! They’d never let him in!

That policeman had everything, but even so he’d been sitting there, on Christmas Eve, in his ugly office, with a visitor’s chair that was worse than anything they had in the coffee room at the streetcar sheds.

Did that policeman live there, in his office? Why wasn’t he at home, with his… with his family? The policeman had a family, he could tell that. Superior. I have and you don’t have. That was what the superior person had meant, and demonstrated.