“There were all kinds of things that could have helped you, Erik, but you couldn’t see them. You’re not so smart after all.”
They walked down the hill, Bolger as if in his sleep.
“While you’re taking this stroll with me, it could happen again. Has that occurred to you?”
They had been questioning Bolger for three hours when another inspector came in and said that Winter had a call. It was Marianne, obviously in a phone booth. He could hear the roar of traffic in the background.
“You don’t know how happy I am to hear from you,” Winter said.
“It’s dreadful. I just read about it. He was a fine man.”
“He’s going to pull through.”
“What? Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
Winter heard something that sounded like a car splashing water over the curb. He looked out the window. Rain clouds had blown over Gothenburg. “You don’t have to be afraid,” he said.
“Why not?”
“We have him here.”
“Him?”
“Yes.”
“Bolger?”
“That’s right.”
“You knew. It was like you knew even before I called and told you the first time.”
“He said it himself.”
“Just now?”
“A long time ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain. But I have to see you.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“It’s absolutely necessary. There’s a good chance that he’ll be released otherwise.”
“But you told me . . .”
“I’ll explain everything.”
Four hours later they obtained a detention order for Bolger on suspicion of murder. He flatly denied everything, insisting that he needed to sleep. Maybe I’ll remember more when I’m rested, he repeated over and over.
Marianne had agreed to meet Winter and told him she had seen Bolger with two of the victims.
How did she know? She recognized them in the photos that were circulated afterward. Where had she seen them together? Someplace that few people went to. Why hadn’t she said anything? She couldn’t explain it. Nobody else was really in a position to see them, she had offered, and Winter didn’t press her on it right then.
There was something in her manner, a kind of hesitation, when she talked about Bolger. About the way he was. Winter kept that in the back of his mind while he moved on to other things.
“But Lars didn’t say he was going straight to Bolger’s apartment the last time you saw him?”
“He didn’t have to say it.”
Winter knew what time everything had happened. Bolger could have been Bergenhem’s assailant.
Where had Bergenhem been injured? Not among the rocks, certainly. Someone had driven across the fields and carried him down there.
They had turned Bolger’s apartment upside down.
“Can he get out?” Marianne had asked.
“No,” Winter said.
“Will he be arrested?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Who’s going to believe anything I say?”
“We’ve got other evidence too.”
“Enough to convict him?”
“Yes.”
But he didn’t know the true answer to that question. They had strong circumstantial evidence, that was all. Winter had thought Bolger would confess but there was no guarantee, and now he was worried that Bolger would maintain his innocence forever.
“We’re going to need you,” he’d said to Marianne.
“I can’t go back to the boat.”
“Is there some other reason?”
“What would that be?”
“Fear.”
“Would that be so strange?”
“Are you afraid of someone else?”
“Is there someone else?”
“I can’t honestly tell you.”
“Are there more murderers?”
“We don’t know.”
“Jesus.”
Winter could tell she had more on her mind.
“I feel like somebody’s after me,” Marianne said. “He has an accomplice or whatever you call it. But I’m not sure.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“No.”
Macdonald called, his voice equal parts agitation and relief. “Is it going to stick?” he asked.
“Sooner or later,” Winter said. “We might have a murder weapon too.”
“That will make your Viking happy.”
“He’ll have to be a witness if we don’t find anything else. Assuming that Bolger flew on Vikingsson’s plane under one of his pseudonyms.”
“Didn’t you say Vikingsson was crazy?”
“What are we going to do with him? He claims he’s never set eyes on Bolger. He’s been to Bolger’s bar, but it’s just one of many. Why would he remember that particular bartender? We got hold of Möller, his hunting companion.”
“And?”
“He says he doesn’t know a thing about it.”
“The poaching story?”
“All he has to say is that Vikingsson is nuts and he doesn’t know what the guy is talking about. How are things going there?”
“Under control.”
“Are the papers ready?”
“Almost.”
“How many people have you told?”
“We’re operating on a need-to-know basis.”
“That’s good.”
“Maybe we’re being overly cautious.”
“You’re doing the right thing.”
“God have mercy on us.”
“Have you received the photos?”
“You Swedes all look alike. How the hell can we set up a photo lineup with a bunch of fucking clones?”
The line crackled with static, as if the North Sea were eavesdropping on the conversation.
“We share the same sky and the same north wind,” Macdonald said. “But you guys look different from us. It’s hard to explain.”
“Aberdeen is at the same latitude as Gothenburg.”
“On the map?”
“Where else?”
“Talk to you soon. May God be with us.”
Cohen had asked Winter to conduct the interrogation but he’d declined. He sat in the background like a shadow from another time. He could get up and leave if he was in the way.
Bolger’s somnambulistic behavior had reversed itself. He was full of life, derisive, aggressive, and Winter recognized the tough teenager he had once known. Bolger was a perpetual-motion machine back then, constantly talking about everything he was going to do, the person he would someday become. He would succeed where nobody else could. He was going to prove he was smarter than all the rest.
Winter had sat for hours and thought about what Bolger had said so long ago, what he had done, what he himself had done, what had become of Bolger during all those years that had pursued them with growing fury and finally caught up with them here in this interrogation room.
COHEN: You haven’t satisfactorily accounted for your comings and goings on Friday, March thirteenth.
BOLGER: Like I said, it was an unlucky day and I didn’t want to see anyone. I never left home.
COHEN: Is there someone who can confirm that?
BOLGER: That’s your job to find out.
COHEN: You’d be better off if you cooperated.
BOLGER: Cooperated? Who with? I’m innocent.
COHEN: You’ve said that several times now.
BOLGER: A lot of good it does. The big boss over there in the corner doesn’t believe a word I say. With friends like him, who needs enemies?
COHEN: We found three passports in your apartment. They’re in the following names.
Bolger listened while Cohen recited the names.
COHEN: What do you know about those passports?
BOLGER: Nothing.
COHEN: Are you sure?
BOLGER: Somebody planted them.
COHEN: Who would put three passports in your apartment?
BOLGER: Chief Inspector Erik Winter, who else?
COHEN: You’re claiming that the assistant head of the homicide division of the county criminal investigation unit put passports in your apartment. Is that right?
BOLGER: He broke in, didn’t he? That’s against the law. Planting evidence, or whatever the hell you call it, is the logical next step.
COHEN: We have no knowledge of someone breaking into your apartment.
BOLGER: But I do.
COHEN: What were the passports used for?
BOLGER: Are you deaf or something? I have no idea.
They went on and on in the same vein. Winter studied Bolger from the side. His jowls were much heavier than when he was a kid. Something had drawn them to each other back then, and it had continued through the years. They had both remained bachelors, chosen not to have families—or families had chosen not to have them. Winter remembered Macdonald’s ponytail-clad kin. He had felt a pang of regret when he thought about the photo afterward. What did he have but the remnants of a family? If even that. When had he called his sister last?
Was Bolger plagued by the same regrets? Winter listened distractedly to the interrogation, the questions, the short answers, a couple that were a little longer. The voices came together in the middle of the room and he could no longer tell who was saying what.
Cohen ended the session, and Bolger followed the guards out without looking at Winter.
“I’d like to get a psychological profile of this guy,” Cohen said.
“I’ll arrange for one.”
43
MACDONALD CALLED AGAIN. HOUR AFTER HOUR, WINTER SAT deep in thought with his palms pressed against his forehead. Days had come and gone, bringing light and darkness and the whisper of a new kind of wind when he crossed Heden Park.
His phone jolted him out of his reverie.
“Publicizing those photos of Bolger may have yielded us some results,” Macdonald said. “For whatever it’s worth.”
“You said yesterday you’d never manage to sift through everything.”
“That was yesterday.”
“So what happened?”
“A couple called. They live near Christian’s hotel and say that they saw him sitting with a man outside a pub on Camberwell Grove.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s that upscale street with Georgian architecture. I pointed it out to you when you were here. Our inspectors had knocked on all the doors in the neighborhood, but this couple was away at the time and we never had a chance to go back.”
“Okay.”
“They saw a black guy around twenty years old drinking beer with a tall blond man who could have been in his midthirties.”
“And they’re sure about that?”
“They’re sure it’s your high school buddy.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“What?”
“Please don’t use that expression.”
“Sorry. Anyway, the woman is positive. She watched them out of the corner of her eye when her boyfriend was inside the pub.”
“But all they’ve seen is a photo.”
“She also said she figured the kid was a foreigner because it’s so unusual to see a black person at that pub.”
“Local blacks are afraid to go there.”
“Right.”
“And she thinks it was Bolger?”
“Yes, but I’m going to reserve judgment until we can arrange a real lineup.”
“And suddenly they’ll all look the same to her.”
Silence at the other end of the line. The static was like fragments of Macdonald’s thoughts, crystallized in the emptiness of space.
“How’s the interrogation going?” Macdonald asked.
“He’s not talking. When he opens up a little, he claims he can’t remember. He’s had a lot to say about amnesia the past few days.”
“It’s not so unusual for a murder suspect to say he can’t remember.”
“I have my doubts. Deep down I know for sure, but I still have my doubts. Maybe it’s time for someone to take over the investigation who’s more capable. Or at least less emotionally involved.” He heard his own breathing in the receiver. “I’ve talked with Skogome, the forensic psychologist. He’s working on a profile of Bolger.”
“I have a lot of respect for those guys.”
“So do I.”
“As you know, people can feign amnesia to avoid confessing.”
“Yes.”
“Or it can be for real. That would make things a bit tougher for us, wouldn’t it? We’d find ourselves in unknown territory.”
Winter didn’t respond.
“Am I right, Erik?”
“He’s never going to confess under interrogation. I know what he’s like, and he’s simply not going to do that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I also know what his motive was.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve thought through it, finished writing.”
“Writing?”
“My story.”
Macdonald waited, but Winter had nothing more to say. Macdonald was breathing heavily, and it sounded to Winter like he’d caught cold in the middle of the British spring.
“How are things with Frankie?” Winter asked.
“He’ll never let himself get drawn into something that endangers his own safety.”
“But what’s he looking for? Remember all that stuff he had to say about torture scenes?”
“I couldn’t tell you. He left a message for me this morning. I called back but he was out.”
“Maybe he’s found something.”
“Frankie? You never know.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Depends on what you mean by trust.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Frankie may be black, but his soul is white as snow.”
“Would he appreciate that comparison?”
“Of course not. Would you? I’ll call you right away if he comes up with anything you need to know.”
“Great.”
“Going back to Bolger’s memory problems—according to the statistics I’ve seen, 30 percent of the most violent criminals claim they can’t remember what happened.”
“The numbers are about the same here in Sweden.”
“We do lots of simulations, and it seems they have a naïve hope of holding on to their innocence.”
“Exactly.”
Winter knew that memory lapses needed to be taken seriously. If you wanted to get as close to the truth as possible, they had to be acknowledged and diagnosed. It was called dissociative amnesia. “But many offenders with amnesia have had mental problems at some point in their lives,” he said to Macdonald.
He had just spoken to an expert about it. Amnesia might be limited to the point at which the actual crime was committed. Or it could involve a personality change and loss of identity for several days. Or a split personality.
Winter had a moment of terror during their conversation. He had given the expert the photograph and handwritten material from Bolger’s apartment, and they’d discussed possible connections.
The expert explained that one cause of genuine amnesia was trauma or profound, emotionally charged conflict earlier in life.
Committing a crime was accompanied by strong feelings and extreme stress.
Criminals don’t generally exhibit any anxiety about their amnesia.
Bolger didn’t exhibit any anxiety. He alternated between indifference and scorn, his eyes darkening as he insisted he was doing his best to remember. He carried himself as if he were asleep.
But there were clear indications of feigned amnesia. Winter had read what the researchers said about it—how you had to be on your guard if the amnesia started right after the crime, or if it varied from one interrogation session to the next.
That’s the way it was with Bolger.
No two sessions were the same. But he was now certain that he wouldn’t be able to remember what happened even if he had more time or more clues to help him out.
It’s like permafrost that covers the whole world, Winter thought. Only a huge explosion in the brain can save us and rescue the victims from the scourge of their assailants’ willful ignorance.
“You still there?” Macdonald asked.
“I’m still here.”
“No turning back, then.”
“It’s our only chance.”
“Do you know how much it’s going to cost?”
“Money is no object for me.”
“I forgot about that.”
Winter was scouring his brain for one particular event, and if he could remember what it was, the answer would be there. Everything would be over.
How many hours had he devoted to thinking about the past? The early years, when he and Bolger had spent so much time together . . .
What had it been like?
There was the rivalry. He hadn’t thought about it much at the time, but it was always there. And he had always turned out to be right. Or he had won the game, which perhaps was the same thing.
He surrounded himself with silence that night. The intermittent cries of the city were his only link to the years he had spent there, beyond the balcony.
Bolger had been briefly committed for mental problems. It had all been hush-hush. His father was like barbed wire coiled round and round the family secrets.
Bolger had always walked one step behind him and slightly to the side, and Winter had rarely turned around. How must that have felt?
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