Åke Edwardson - Frozen Tracks

He heard Ringmar’s voice behind him:

“Twenty officers have been through all the basement areas.”

“OK.”

“Have you finished here?” Ringmar asked.

“What time is it?”

“Past eleven.”

“I’ll stop in on Bengt Johansson,” said Winter.

“I’m going home,” said Ringmar.

Winter nodded. It was time for Ringmar to go home.

“But I might come by later tonight,” said Ringmar. “If I can’t sleep.”

“You mean you’ve thought of sleeping?”

Bengt Johansson was calmer than before.

“It helped to talk to Carolin,” he said. “I think it helped her too.” He was pacing up and down. “You’re not going to get me to watch those films.” He held up his hands in Winter’s direction. “Carolin said she had to because it was her fault, as she put it. But I’m not going to watch that shit. Never.”

“You don’t need to see Micke,” said Winter. “But the man doing the filming. You might see something that strikes a chord.”

But what would that be? The only help they could get from Bengt Johansson would be if he recognized Jerner from some particular place.

“I don’t want to,” said Johansson.

Winter noticed the photographs of Micke on the wall and on the desk. There were more now than there had been when he was here last.

“I’d like to tell you about Micke,” said Johansson. “About all the new words he’s learned recently. Would you like to hear?”

Winter was poring over a map of Gothenburg and maps showing the streetcar routes. It was past two when he got home from Bengt Johansson’s. His car was parked in the street outside, in a space reserved for the disabled because that’s how he felt.

In the morning they would cast the net farther afield, concentrating in the first place on the number 3 streetcar route. It was an enormous task. He fell asleep halfway through a stroke of the pen. He dreamed about a child’s voice shouting “Daddy,” and then again, “Daddy,” but farther away now, faint, and toneless. He woke up in the armchair, staggered into the bedroom, and collapsed into bed.

He was woken up by a noise. He sat up with a force that startled even himself. He checked the clock on the bedside table: nine-thirty. He’d slept for five hours.

Nobody had woken him up, nobody had called. He knew they were aware at headquarters that he was working around the clock, and maybe they were simply trying to prevent him from burning himself out. He almost smiled. But his mobile? Where was it? He looked for it in the bedroom. It felt as if he were still asleep. He looked for it in the other rooms, in the kitchen. He called the number from his landline telephone in the kitchen. No ringing. He eventually found the mobile on the washbasin in the bathroom, turned off. He had no recollection of taking it there, or of switching it off. Why had he turned it off? But if there had been any developments, he would have been called by Halders, who was back on duty now. So nothing had happened. He checked the answering machine. Then took a cold shower.

As he was drinking coffee he thought again about Nordstan. Jerner had kept visiting Nordstan. There were usually so many people there that they merged into one another. He looked at the clock. The shopping mall would be open now.

On the way there Aneta Djanali called.

“Ellen Sköld said a name.”

“Have you spoken to her again?”

“Yes, just now, this morning. She keeps saying the name Gerd. It must be Gerd she keeps saying.”

“Jerner’s mother,” said Winter.

“He’s told Ellen about her,” said Djanali.

There were plainclothesed police officers in all the arcades, Postgatan, Götgatan, in the department stores. All the entrances and exits were under observation.

People were thronging in there now. The Boxing Day sales had exploded in everybody’s face. Winter could barely move as he tried to make his way over the square. Yesterday he’d been the only person on earth, today there were thousands there.

The headlines outside the newsstand were screeching at top volume.

Ringmar was waiting outside H &M, as agreed.

“Did you get any sleep, Erik?”

“Yes, but it was not intentional.”

“I’ve spoken to Martin,” said Ringmar.

“About time.”

“He wants to meet me.”

“What does he have to say?”

“That he’s never gotten over the fact that I hit him once. Once. That was it. That was all it was. But it just grew and grew on him.”

“Did you?”

“Hit him? Not in that way.”

“What other way is there?”

“I didn’t hit him,” said Ringmar, and Winter could see that the relief in Bertil’s face was that of an innocent man. I haven’t even done that, was what he wanted to say.

“Where is he?” asked Winter, as he observed people moving slowly around in clumps.

“In New York.”

“In

New York?”

“Yes. He left that damned sect he was a member of.”

“Deprogrammed?”

“He sorted it out himself.” Ringmar looked at Winter. “This might only be the beginning, of course. Such things take time.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Working in a restaurant.”

“Is he coming home?”

“Next week.”

“When’s Birgitta coming home?” Winter asked, watching a man sitting on the ground with people stepping around him.

“She’s already home. So’s Moa.”

“Who’s checked out that guitar player?” said Winter, pointing in the direction of the plinth in the middle of the square.

“Eh? What guitar player?”

“Who’s the guitarist?!” said Winter. He stepped quickly forward, collided with a woman, apologized, and continued barging his way forward like a rugby player forcing his way through tackling backs, and he reached the guitar player who was sitting underneath the hanging and whirling bodies of Two Dimensions, strumming away at some tune or other, and Winter came up behind him, saw the checked cap and knew that it was possible, and that anybody could hide himself away like this for as long as they liked, it was a devilishly clever disguise, a disguise that would work in any public place, and Winter’s hand was shaking as he reached out for the man, who strummed a chord, and Winter pulled off his cap and found himself looking at a mop of black hair and an unknown, terrified face looking up at him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Winter.

Nobody seemed to have noticed. Nobody had been listening to the busker. He stood up, grabbed his empty guitar case and his guitar, and hurried away.

The sculptures were hovering over Winter’s head. He took a step backward and looked up at the roof that extended from the north arcade to the square. Four enormous ventilation shafts were fixed under the roof, like pedestrian tunnels. He followed them with his gaze. They opened out just in front of the work of art. You could see the sky through a circular window. The highest of the figures were surrounded by mirrors that formed a circular prism reflecting the display windows of the shops around about. He could see the reflections of people moving. The white sculptures were of naked bodies, on the way down from heaven to earth. He’d looked closely at them for the first time the previous day. He was the only person looking up. Before long, several more people would wonder what was happening, and look up as well.

The bodies were attached to transparent lines that seemed to freeze their movements.

Some were jumping.

Some were diving.

Then he saw him.

There was a new body hanging up there.

He hadn’t seen that one yesterday,

White like the rest of them, as white as snow.