Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'Not a single one,' said Winter. 'You make enemies later on in life.'

  Ringmar put the finishing touches to the open sandwiches.

  'We should really have a drop of schnapps with this,' he said.

  'I can always take a taxi home.'

  'Right, that's settled then,' said Ringmar, going to fetch the hard stuff.

  'The same man was responsible for all the attacks,' said Ringmar. 'What's he after?'

  'Satisfaction from causing injury,' said Winter, draining the last of his second schnapps and shaking his head when Ringmar lifted the bottle.

  'But not any old how,' said Ringmar.

  'Nor any old victim.'

  'Hmm. You could be right.'

  'We'll have to hear what this lad has to say tomorrow,' said Winter.

  'Attacked from behind in an unlit street. He saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing, knows nothing.'

  'We'll see.'

  'Pia Fröberg will have to make an extra effort to help us with the weapon,' said Ringmar.

  Winter could see the forensic pathologist's pale, tense face in his mind's eye. Once upon a time they'd been an item, or something pretty close to that. All forgiven, forgotten and in the past now. No hard feelings.

  'Always assuming that will help,' Ringmar added, gazing down into his beer glass.

  They heard the front door open and shut, and a shout from a female voice.

  'We're in here,' Ringmar informed her.

  His daughter came in, still wearing her anorak. As dark as her father, almost as tall, same nose, same eyes focused on Winter.

  'Erik needed a bit of company,' said Ringmar.

  'Pull the other one,' she said, reaching out her hand. Winter shook it.

  'Well, do you still recognise Moa?' asked Ringmar.

  'Haven't seen you for ages,' said Winter. 'Let's see, you must be . . .'

  'Twenty-five,' said Moa Ringmar. 'Well on the way to being a pensioner, and still living at home. What do you say to that?'

  'You could say that Moa's in between flats at the moment,' Ringmar explained.

  'It's the times we live in,' said Moa. 'Fledglings always return to the nest.'

  'That's nice,' said Winter.

  'Bullshit,' said Moa.

  'OK,' said Winter.

  She sat down.

  'Any beer left for me?'

  Ringmar fetched her a glass and poured out what was left of the third bottle.

  'I gather there's been another assault,' she said.

  'Where did you hear that?' wondered Ringmar.

  'At the department. He's a student there. Name of Jakob, I'm told.'

  'Do you know him?'

  'No, not personally.'

  'Do you know anybody who knows him?' asked Winter.

  'Hey, what's all this?' she protested. 'I see you're back at work again.' She looked at Winter, then turned to her father. 'Sorry. It is serious. I didn't mean to tease.'

  'Well?' wondered Winter.

  'I might know somebody who knows somebody who knows him. I don't know.'

  Vasaplatsen was quiet and deserted when he got out of the taxi. The street lamps lit up the newspaper kiosk at the edge of Universitetsplatsen. A student of life, he thought as he punched the code to the front entrance.

  There was a faint smell of tobacco in the lift, a persistent aroma that could have been caused by him.

  'You smell of booze,' said Angela when he bent down to kiss her as she lay in bed.

  'Ödåkra Taffel Aquavit,' he said.

  'I thought as much,' she said, turning over to face the wall. 'You'll have to look after Elsa tomorrow morning. I have to get up at half past five.'

  'I've just been in to see her. Sleeping like a log.'

  Angela muttered something.

  'What did you say?'

  'Just wait until tomorrow morning,' she said. 'Early.'

  He knew all about that. Hadn't he just been on six months' paternity leave? He knew all there was to know about Elsa, and she knew all about him.

  It had been a terrific time, maybe his best. There was a city out there that he hadn't seen for years. The streets were the same, but he'd been able to view them at ground level for a change, in his own time, not needing to be on the lookout for anything more than the next café where they could pause for a while and he could sample a bit of that other life, real life.

  When he went back to work after his paternity leave, he felt a sort of . . . hunger, a peculiar feeling, something he almost found a bit scary. As if he were ready for battle again, ready for the war that could never be won, but had to be fought even so. That's the way it was. If you cut an arm off the beast, it promptly grew another one, but you had to keep on cutting even so.

  As Winter fell asleep, he was thinking yet again about that remarkable wound on the back of the student's head.

  2

  It was a quiet night at the emergency desk, and felt like the calm before the storm. But there won't be any storm tonight, thought Bengt Josefsson, the duty officer, gazing out at the trees that were also still, like they were before an autumn gale. But it's too late for autumn gales now, he thought. It'll soon be Christmas. And after that maybe we shan't exist any more. They're talking of closing down this station, and Redbergsplatsen will be handed back to the enemy.

  The telephone rang.

  'Police, Örgryte-Härlanda, Josefsson.'

  'Ah, yes. Well. Er, good evening. Is that the police?'

  'Yes.'

  'I phoned the police headquarters and they said they'd connect me to a station close to Olskroken. Er, that's where we live.'

  'You've come to the right number,' said Josefsson. 'How can I help you?'

  'Well, er, I don't really know what to say.'

  Josefsson waited, pen at the ready. A colleague dropped something hard on the floor in the changing room at the end of the corridor.

  'Just tell me what it's about,' he said. 'Who am I talking to?'

  She gave her name and he wrote it down. Berit Skarin.

  'It's about my little boy,' she said. 'He, er, I don't know . . . He told us tonight, if we understood him rightly, er, that he's been sitting in a car with a "mister", as he put it.'

  Kalle Skarin was four, and when he got back home from the day nursery he'd had a soft-cheese sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate – he'd mixed the cocoa and sugar and a splash of cream himself, and then Mum added the hot milk.

  Shortly afterwards he'd said he'd been sitting in a car.

  A car?

  A car. Big car, with a radio. Radio talked and played music.

  Have you and your friends been out on a trip today?

  Not a trip. Playground.

  Are there cars there?

  The boy had nodded.

  Toy cars?

  BIG car, he'd told her. Real car. Real, and he'd moved his hands as if he were holding a steering wheel. Brrrrm, brrrrmm.

  Where?

  Playground.

  Kalle. Are you saying you went for ride in a car at the playground?

  He'd nodded.

  Who did you go with?

  A mister.

  A mister?

  Mister, mister. He had sweeties!

  Kalle had made a new gesture that could have been somebody holding out a bag of sweets, or maybe not.

  Berit Skarin had felt a cold shiver run down her spine. A strange man holding out a bag of sweets to her little boy.

  Olle ought to hear this, but he wouldn't be back until late.

  And Kalle was sitting there in front of her. She'd taken hold of him when he'd jumped up to go and watch a children's programme on the telly.

  Did the car drive away?

  Drove, drove. Brrrrrrmm.

  Did you go far?

  He didn't understand the question.

  Was teacher with you?

  No teacher. Mister.

  Then he'd run off to the television room. She'd watched him go and had thought for a moment, then gone to fetch her handbag from a chair in
the kitchen and looked up the home telephone number of one of the nursery staff, hesitated when she got as far as the phone, but rung even so.

  'Ah. Sorry to disturb you in the evening like this, er, it's Berit Skarin. Yes, Kalle's mum. He's just told me something and I thought I'd better ask you about it.'

  Bengt Josefsson listened. She told him about the conversation she'd had with one of the nursery school staff.

  'Nobody noticed anything,' said Berit Skarin.

  'I see.'

  'Can that kind of thing happen?' she asked. 'Can somebody drive up in a car and then drive off with one of the children without any of the staff seeing anything? Then bring the child back again?'

  Much worse things than that can happen, thought Josefsson.

  'I don't know,' he said. 'The staff didn't notice anything, you say?'

  'No. Surely they must have done?'

  'You'd have thought so,' said Josefsson, but in fact he was thinking differently. Who can be on the lookout all the time? Thinking, who's that man standing under the tree over there? Sitting in that car?

  'How long does your boy say he was away?'

  'He doesn't know. He's a child. He can't distinguish between five minutes and fifty minutes if you ask him afterwards.'

  Bengt Josefsson pondered this.

  'Do you believe him?' he asked.

  No reply.

  'Mrs Skarin?'

  'I don't know,' she said. 'I just don't know.'

  'Does he have, er, a lively imagination?'

  'He's a child. All children have lively imaginations if there's nothing wrong with them.'

  'Yes.'

  'So what should I do?'

  Bengt Josefsson looked down at the few sentences he'd jotted down on his notepad.

  Two colleagues came racing past his desk.

  'Robbery at the newspaper kiosk!' one of them yelled.

  He could already hear the siren from one of the cars outside.

  'Hello?' said Berit Skarin.

  'Yes, where were we? Well, I've noted down what you said. Anyway, nobody's gone missing. So, if you want to report it, then . . .'

  'What should I report?'

  That's the point, thought Josefsson. Unlawful deprivation of liberty? No. An attempted sexual offence, or preparing the way for one? Well, perhaps. Or the imagination of a very young child. He evidently hadn't come to any harm be—

  'I want to take him to a doctor now,' she said, interrupting his train of thought. 'I take this very seriously.'

  'Yes,' said Josefsson.

  'Should I take him to a doctor?'

  'Have you, er, examined him yourself?'

  'No. I phoned straight after he'd told me.'

  'Oh.'

  'But I will do now. Then I'll see where we go from there.' He heard her shouting for the boy, and a reply from some distance. 'He's watching the telly,' she said. 'Now he's laughing.'

  'Can I make a note of your address and phone number?' said Josefsson.

  There were the sirens again. It sounded as if they were heading east. Chasing the robbers. A couple of thugs from one of the ghettos north of the town, drugged up to the eyeballs. Dangerous as hell.

  'OK, thank you very much,' he said, his mind miles away, and hung up. He made his handwriting clearer in a couple of places, then put the page to one side, ready for keying into the computer. Later on he'd put his notes into the file, if he got round to it. Filed under . . . what? Nothing had happened after all. A crime waiting to be committed?

  There were other things that had already happened, were happening right now.

  The phone on his desk rang again, phones were ringing all over the station. Sirens outside, coming from the south. He could see the flashing blue light on the other side of the street, whirling round and round as if the officers in the patrol car were about to take off and fly over to where all the action was.

  Jakob, the student, was conscious but very groggy and in a world of his own. Ringmar sat by his side, wondering what had happened and how. There were flowers on the bedside table. Jakob was not alone in this world.

  Somebody entered the ward behind Ringmar. Could that be a flash of recognition in Jakob's eyes? Ringmar turned round.

  'They said it was all right for me to go in,' said the girl, with a bunch of flowers in her hand. She seemed to be about the same age as his own daughter. Maybe they know each other, he thought, getting to his feet as she walked over to the bed, gave Jakob a cautious little hug and then put the flowers down on the table. Jakob's eyes were closed now, he'd probably nodded off again.

  'Even more flowers,' she said, and Ringmar could see she would have liked to take a look at the card with the other bouquet, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She turned to face him.

  'So you're Moa's dad, are you?'

  Good. Moa had done her bit.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Maybe we should go to the waiting room and have a little chat.'

  * * *

  'I suppose he was just unlucky,' she said. 'Or whatever it is you say. Wrong man in the wrong place, or however you put it.'

  They sat down on their own, by a window. The grey light of day outside seemed translucent. The room was in a strange sort of shadow cast by a sun that wasn't there. A woman coughed quietly on a sofa by a low wooden table weighed down by magazines with photos of well-known people, smiling. Well-known to whom? Ringmar had wondered more than once. Visiting hospitals was part of his job, and he'd often wondered why Hello! and similar magazines were always piled up in dreary hospital waiting rooms. Maybe they were a kind of comfort, like a little candle burning on the tables of such cavernous barns. All of you in that magazine, who are photographed at every premiere there is, maybe used to be like us, and maybe we can be like you if we get well again and are discovered in the hectic search for new talent. That search was nonstop, neverending. The photos of those celebrities were proof of that. There was no room for faded Polaroids of crushed skulls.

  'It wasn't bad luck,' said Ringmar now, looking at the girl.

  'You look younger than I'd expected,' she said.