Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'Is there long to go before your turn?' she asked.

  'I've no idea,' said Kristina Bergort.

  'I'll see what I can do,' said Serimov, and went over to the desk. Kristina Bergort saw her talking to the nurse, then vanishing through a door behind it. Then she saw her emerge again with a doctor, who gestured towards the little family.

  The doctor examined the girl. He had considered sedating her, but didn't.

  Serimov waited outside. It had struck her how calm the Bergort family was. The husband hadn't actually said a word so far.

  They emerged, and she stood up.

  'The doctor would like a word with you,' said the mother, looking at her daughter sleeping in her father's arms.

  'What was the outcome? What did he find?'

  'Nothing at all, thank God.' Kristina Bergort started walking towards the big glass doors. 'I'll have another word with Maja tomorrow morning.'

  'You're welcome to phone me again,' said Serimov.

  The mother nodded, and they left.

  Larissa Serimov went back to the doctor's office. He finished dicta ting his summary into the tape recorder, then looked up and rose to his feet. This wasn't the first time she'd been in there. Police officers and doctors met frequently, especially in Frölunda, where the hospital and the police station were practically next door, separated only by the trunk road. Just a stone's throw away, she had once thought; and stones had been thrown, but by citizens expressing their views on law and order in the city. Ah well. Perhaps it had helped to make her feel at home in a country she didn't come from, or in the other one that she hadn't asked to live in, but was grateful for having been born in.

  She knew the doctor.

  'What's this all about, Larissa?'

  'I don't really know.'

  'Does anybody know?'

  'The mother was worried, and that's hardly surprising,' said Serimov.

  'The kid has an imagination, and a pretty lively one at times,' he said. 'The mother told me what had happened, and, well, I don't really know what to think.'

  'You don't need to think anything at all. An examination will fit the bill.'

  'Which showed that she hadn't been interfered with, at least.'

  'At least? Are you suggesting there's something else, Bosse?'

  'Some swelling on her arm. And on her back. Hard to say what caused them.'

  'Somebody holding her too tightly? Or something worse?'

  'I asked about them. Didn't get a convincing answer. At first.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'The father looked the other way, it seemed.' He looked at her. 'But perhaps it was just a feeling I had.'

  'What did the mother say?'

  'That the girl had fallen off a swing and crashed into the frame. But then she seemed to remember why they had come here and said maybe this stranger the girl had gone off with had done it.'

  'Is that possible? Falling into the frame of a swing? Could that have done it?'

  'Well . . . The swelling is fresh.'

  'You're being evasive.'

  'It just struck me that it's not all that unusual for parents who beat their children to report such incidents as accidents. Or to dream up stories that would seem to fit, sometimes amazing flights of fantasy.'

  'Like a girl going off with a stranger.'

  'Yes. But that's more your field,' he said, answering the telephone that had just rung. He looked up with his hand over the receiver. 'But I have to say it is possible that it's true.'

  Winter and Ringmar were preparing for the afternoon's interrogations. They were in Ringmar's office, which Winter thought was even gloomier than usual. It wasn't due exclusively to the late autumn weather outside.

  'Have you repapered the place?' he asked.

  'Of course. Last weekend, all on my own. I can do yours for you next Sunday.'

  'It's just that it looks darker,' said Winter.

  'It's my mood. Reflected in the walls.'

  'What's the matter?'

  Ringmar didn't answer.

  'Is it the usual?' Winter asked.

  'It's Martin, of course.'

  'Still no word from him?'

  'No.'

  'But Moa knows?'

  'Where he is? I don't think so any more. If she did, I think she'd have told me.' Ringmar snorted and raised his arm, sneezed once into it, then twice. He removed his face from his arm and looked at Winter. 'He phones her now and then. I think so, at least.'

  Bertil's eyes were watery, and Winter knew that was due to the sneezing attack, but his situation was enough to bring tears to anybody's eyes. Why didn't the boy get in touch? Bertil deserved better than this. Winter knew him well enough to be certain of that.

  'Ah well, I still have contact with my other child,' said Ringmar, looking past Winter at the window, which had a narrow band of condensation across the bottom of it. 'I suppose that's not all that bad an outcome.' He looked at Winter. 'Fifty per cent success in the breeding stakes. Or however the hell you describe it.'

  'He'll come back,' said Winter. 'It's just that he's on a journey, trying to find himself. Young people go searching after all, maybe more than others.'

  'A journey to find himself? That's nicely put.'

  'Yes, I'm glad you think so.'

  'But for Christ's sake, he's nearly thirty. You call that young?'

  'You keep calling me young, Bertil. And I'm over forty.'

  'Are you also on a journey to find yourself?'

  'I most certainly am.'

  'Are you being serious?'

  'I most certainly am.'

  'Searching for the meaning of life?'

  'Of course.'

  'Do you still have far to go?'

  'What do you think?' said Winter. 'You're past fifty. You've got further than I have.'

  Ringmar looked past Winter again, at the window that reflected the fading afternoon light.

  'I think I've found it,' said Ringmar. 'The meaning of life, the whole point of life.'

  'Let's hear it, then.'

  'Dying.'

  'Dying? Is that the only point of living?'

  'That's the only point.'

  'For God's sake, Bertil.'

  'That's the way it feels at the moment, at least.'

  'There's medicine you can take for this.'

  'I don't think I'm suffering from clinical depression.'

  'Well you're not suffering from manic optimism, that's for sure,' said Winter.

  'Everybody has the right to feel depressed now and then,' said Ringmar. 'There are far too many people running around with grins on their faces.'

  'I couldn't agree more.'

  'Far too many,' said Ringmar.

  'Why don't you have a chat to Hanne?' Winter suggested.

  Hanne Östergaard was the vicar who worked parttime in the police headquarters, and she'd been a great help to a lot of officers. She'd been a solid rock of support for Winter in one of his cases that had caused him extreme mental torment.

  'Why not,' said Ringmar.

  Ringmar did have a chat later that afternoon, but it wasn't with Hanne Östergaard.

  Jens Book was propped up by pillows and didn't look especially comfortable, but he shook his head when Ringmar offered to rearrange the bedclothes.

  Here we go again, Ringmar had thought as he entered Sahlgren Hospital, swarming with people in both street clothes and white coats.

  We ought to have an office here. Why has nobody thought of that before? I ought to get a bonus for the idea. We spend lots of our time here. We need some kind of practical and convenient arrangement. Perhaps a dedicated secretary? A whole team of doctors with the word POLICE printed in black on the back of their white coats? Our own gym? Canteen? Conference room complete with smart screen? Vehicles that are a mixture of ambulance and police van? Firing range in the basement? His head was full of ambitious plans when he stepped into the lift. The lad had had his plans rudely interrupted. No journalism studies for him for a while, if ever. Halders had sug
gested he ought to set his sights on the Paralympics, and that was a comment from somebody who had come close to being a prospective competitor himself. If he'd wanted to and had the ability.

  But Jens Book had started to regain mobility, first in his right shoulder and then slowly down through the rest of his body. There was life and hope. He had recovered some movement in his face, which made it possible for them to talk; but Ringmar wasn't sure what they ought to talk about. You don't always get the answers you want from your questions.

  'Do you think he was on a bicycle?' he asked now.

  The lad appeared to be thinking. He had been walking along the pavement at Linnéplatsen, past the video store. Hardly any traffic, dim light, mist over the park veiling the night sky.

  'Perhaps,' he said.

  'How could he do that?' Ringmar asked.

  'It happened so quickly.' He turned his head towards the pile of pillows. 'But I didn't hear, or see, anything to make me think that he was riding a bike.'

  'Nothing at all?'

  'No.'

  The lad moved his head again.

  'How's it going?' Ringmar asked.

  'Well . . .'

  'I heard that you're on the mend.'

  'It seems so.'

  'Can you move your right hand?'

  'A little bit.'

  'Soon you'll be able to wiggle your toes.'

  Book smiled.

  'We're still not absolutely clear about where you'd been that night,' Ringmar said.

  'Er, what do you mean?'

  'Where you were coming from when you were attacked.'

  'What difference does it make?'

  'Somebody might have followed you.'

  'From where I'd been? No, I don't think so.'

  'Where had you been, Jens?'

  'Haven't I said that I'd been to a party in, er, Storgatan I think it is? Just past Noon.'

  'Yes.'

  'Well then.'

  'But you weren't there all evening,' Ringmar said.

  'What do you mean?'

  Ringmar looked down at his notebook. The page was empty, but sometimes it was a good idea to look as if you were checking information you already had.

  'You left that party about two hours before the attack at Linnéplatsen took place.'

  'Who says that?'

  Ringmar consulted his notebook again.

  'Several of the people we've spoken to. It wasn't a secret.'

  'It sounds almost as if I'm being accused of something.'

  'I'm not saying that.'

  'It sounds almost like it.'

  'I'm only trying to establish what you were doing. Surely you can understand that? If we're going to find this attacker, we have to walk in your footsteps, so to speak,' Ringmar said.

  Pure bullshit, he thought. I'm thinking like my daughter speaks.

  The boy didn't answer.

  'Did you meet somebody?' Ringmar asked.

  'Even if I did, it's got nothing to do with this.'

  'In which case there's no harm in telling, surely?'

  'Telling what?'

  'If you met somebody,' Ringmar said.

  'Yes and no,' said Book. His eyes were wandering all round the room.

  Ringmar nodded, as if he understood.

  'What year are you in?' asked Winter.

  'My second.'

  'My wife's a doctor.'

  'Really?'

  'A hospital doctor. General medicine.'

  'I suppose that's what I want to be.'

  'Not a brain surgeon?'

  'It would be useful to be one, after this,' said Aryan Kaite, grimacing slightly and touching his head with his left hand: the big bandage had been replaced by a smaller one. 'The question is whether I'll be able to carry on studying.' He put his hand down again. 'Thinking. Remembering. It's not certain that everything will still work.'

  'How do you feel now?' Winter asked.

  'Better, but not good.'

  Winter nodded. They were in a café in Vasastan, chosen by Kaite. I ought to come here more often, Winter thought. It's relaxing. Interviewing people and drinking coffee at the same time. There ought to be a sign outside: Coffee and Questions.

  'I live just round the corner,' Winter said.

  'Work within walking distance, then,' said Kaite.

  'Yes, again,' said Winter, and told him about the case he'd worked on a few years previously, the couple in the flat fifty metres down the street who had been sitting so still. The odd circumstances regarding their heads. But he didn't say anything about that particular detail.

  'I think I read something about that,' said Kaite.

  'The alarm was raised by a newspaper boy,' said Winter. 'A young lad who became suspicious.'

  'They see quite a lot,' said Kaite.

  'You didn't see a newspaper boy that morning, did you, Aryan?'

  'When I had my head bashed in? I couldn't see anything at all.'

  'When you came up to Kapellplatsen, or just before you were attacked. You didn't notice a newspaper boy in the vicinity? Or on the other side of the square? Near the buildings?'

  'Why do you ask?'

  'Did you see anybody carrying newspapers?'

  'No.'

  'OK. I'll tell you why I'm asking. You've heard I suppose that another lad was, er, attacked, in the same way? At Mossen?'

  'Yes.'

  He says he saw a newspaper boy shortly before it happened, but there was no newspaper boy there that morning. The usual person was ill.'

  'So it must have been a replacement.'

  'No. The usual one cried off at the last minute, and they hadn't had time to find anybody else.'

  'How does he know it was a newspaper boy he saw, then?'