Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

Winter drove to her house in Grimmered, following her directions.

“Can I have my car back one of these days?” Ringmar had asked as Winter was on his way out.

“I hope so,” Winter had replied. “Will you call Skövde station?”

“Already done,” Ringmar had said. “They’re on their way to the old man’s house.”

It was a possibility, Winter thought as he drove through the morning. Jerner going back to his old home in the sticks. He could be there already. Natanael Carlström would let him in.

But Carlström couldn’t know.

Winter remembered Carlström’s telephone number. He called from the car. After six rings he hung up, then called again, but there was no reply this time either.

He met three taxis on the highway, but no other traffic at all. A solitary bus stood in Kungsten in a cloud of steam and exhaust fumes, waiting for nonexistent passengers. Nobody crossed the streets. Snow was still lying as a thin layer of powder that would be blown away by the slightest breeze, but at the moment there was no sign of any wind in the city.

He saw three squad cars emerging from the tunnel. He heard a snatch of siren and saw another squad car approaching from Högsbo höjd.

The police radio was rapping out instructions regarding the hunt for Jerner and the boy.

He turned off Grimmeredsvägen and found the house. The Christmas tree in the garden was tastefully lit up. Winter thought of Ringmar’s neighbor. Did Ringmar murder him yesterday?

The sky behind the timber-built house was alternating between bright yellow and wintry blue. It was going to be a beautiful Christmas Day. It was cold. The time was just past nine.

She was dressed when she opened the door. The man beside her had tousled hair, bloodshot eyes, a hangover.

“Come in,” she said. “The tape player is in here.”

He found the sequence with her and the boy. The man smelled of alcohol and looked as if he were going to throw up when he saw the scene.

“It’s Mårten Wallner,” she said without hesitation.

“Where does he live?”

“They live at-just a moment, I have the address list on the fridge. It’s not far from here.”

Winter phoned from the kitchen.

“Mårten’s at the playground,” said his mother. “He’s an early bird.”

“On his own?”

“Yes.” He heard her intake of breath. “What’s going on?” she asked, a new sharpness audible in her voice.

“Go and get him immediately,” said Winter, replacing the receiver and hurrying into the hall.

“I heard,” said Margareta Ingemarsson. “The playground-assuming it’s the one near here-is on the other side of the hill. That’s the quickest way.”

She pointed, and he ran through the undergrowth. You could never be certain.

Never. He could see Elsa’s face in Jerner’s recording.

There were some fir trees on the top of the hill, and there was a little playground a bit farther on, and a little boy in a wool hat walking away from it hand-in-hand with a man in a thick jacket and a cap. Winter could see only the man’s back, and he started sliding down the slope and scraped his thigh on the frozen ground under the thin layer of snow, and he shouted and the boy turned around and the man turned around, and they stopped:

“It’s only us,” said the man. The boy looked at Winter, then up at his father.

Ringmar was making a Basque omelette in the kitchen, Winter had explained how to do it before sitting down in the living room and calling Angela.

He wouldn’t say anything about the video. Not now.

“My God,” she said. “How will you find him?”

She meant the boy.

It was a difficult question. They knew who the abductor was, but not where he was. Winter was very familiar with the opposite situation: the body of a victim but no identity for the killer. Sometimes they didn’t know the identity of either.

Children disappeared and never came home again. Nobody knew, would never know.

“We’re trying to think of every possibility,” said Winter.

“When did you last get some sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Forty-eight hours ago?”

“Something like that.”

“Then you’re not functioning now, Erik.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“I’m being serious. You can’t keep going for another day on nothing but cigars and coffee.”

“Cigarillos.”

“You have to eat. For God’s sake. I sound like a mother.”

“Bertil’s making a Basque omelette at this very moment. I can smell paprika burned black.”

“It’s supposed to be burned black,” she said. “But Erik. You have to get some rest. An hour at least. You have colleagues.”

“Yes. But right now I have all the details in my head, everything, that’s how it feels. So does Bertil.”

“How is he?”

“He’s spoken to his wife. He doesn’t want to tell me what they said. But he’s, shall we say, calmer now.”

“Where’s Martin?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if Bertil knows. I haven’t asked yet. He’ll talk when he wants to talk.”

“Say hello for me.”

“I will.”

Winter heard Ringmar shout from the kitchen, which was a long way away.

“Lie down for a few hours,” she said.

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“I don’t have a clue, Angela. I have to think about it over the food. We’re looking everywhere.”

“Have you canceled the ticket?”

“What ticket? Tomorrow’s flight?”

His ticket for the late afternoon flight to Málaga, return two weeks later. It was lying on the hall table, as a sort of reminder.

“Of course that’s what I mean,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to cancel it.”

“Where the hell are they?” asked Ringmar over the kitchen table, but mostly muttering to himself.

They were trying to contact any friends of Jerner’s, colleagues, nonexistent relatives. He didn’t seem to know anybody.

Jerner had been off sick for the last few days. When he came to see Winter it wasn’t after work. He drove straight back there, Winter thought when he heard.

And then possibly left immediately for somewhere else. Where?

Winter looked up from his plate. He’d felt slightly dizzy when he sat down, but that was gone now.

“Let’s drive out to the old man,” he said.

“Carlström? Why? The Skövde boys have already been there.”

“It’s not that. There’s something… there’s something to do with Carlström that’s linked with this business.”

Ringmar said nothing.

“Something else,” said Winter. “Something different.” He pushed his plate to one side. “Are you with me? Something that can help us.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” said Ringmar.

“It’s something he said. Or didn’t say. But there’s also something in that house of his. It was something I saw. I think.”

“OK,” said Ringmar. “There’s nothing more we can do in town at the moment. Why not?”

“I’ll drive,” said Winter.

“Are you up to it?”

“After this restorative meal? Are you kidding?”

“We can always get someone to drive us,” said Ringmar.

“No. We need every single officer for the door-to-door.”

The telephone rang.

“Press conference in an hour,” said Birgersson.

“You’ll have to take it yourself, Sture,” said Winter.

Winter smoked before they set off. The nicotine bucked him up. He didn’t look at the headlines outside the newsstand.

The city streets seemed to be deserted. Normal for Christmas Day, perhaps. Now that was drawing to a close as well. Where was it going? Dusk was lying in wait over Pellerin’s Margarine Factory.