Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

The man nodded and gestured towards Bergenhem's right hand, holding the plastic pocket with his ID.

  'That could be a fake.'

  'Can I come in for a few minutes?'

  'You could be anybody,' said Peters.

  'Have you had bad experiences with people knocking on your door?' asked Bergenhem.

  Peters gave a little laugh, then opened the door fully, turned his back on Bergenhem and went into his flat, which opened out in all directions from the hall. Bergenhem could see the buildings on the other side of the square. The sky looked lighter from inside here, more blue, as if the block of flats soared up above the clouds.

  He followed Peters, who sat down on a dark grey, expensive-looking sofa. A pile of magazines stood on a low glass table. To the right of the magazines was a glass and a bottle, and a misty little carafe with what could have been water. Bergenhem sat down on an armchair that matched the sofa.

  Peters stood up.

  'I'm forgetting my manners,' he said, left the room and came back with another glass. He sat down again and held up the bottle. 'A drop of whisky?'

  'I don't know that I should,' said Bergenhem.

  'It's gone twelve,' said Peters.

  'It's always gone twelve somewhere or other,' said Bergenhem.

  'Hell, it's noon in Miami, as Hemingway said when he started drinking at eleven o'clock.'

  'I'll give it a miss this time,' said Bergenhem. 'I came by car and I have to drive home when I leave here.'

  Peters shrugged, poured a couple of fingers into his glass and topped it up with water.

  'You're missing a pretty decent Springbank,' he said.

  'There might be other times,' said Bergenhem.

  'Perhaps,' said Peters. He took a drink, put down his glass and looked at Bergenhem. 'When are you going to get to the point?'

  'What time was it when Jens Book left you?' Bergenhem asked.

  'A nasty business,' said Peters. 'Will Jens ever be able to walk again?'

  'I don't know.'

  'I can't believe it. Only a couple of blocks away from here.' Peters took another drink, and Bergenhem could smell the spirits. He could always leave the car here and take a taxi home. Hell, it's noon in Torslanda.

  'You were in the vicinity when it happened,' he said.

  'Yes, it appears so.'

  'Jens wasn't especially keen to tell us about that,' said Bergenhem.

  'Tell you about what?'

  'That he'd been to see you.'

  'Really.'

  'That he was together with you shortly before the attack.'

  'Really.'

  Bergenhem said nothing.

  Peters held his glass in his hand but didn't drink from it.

  'I hope you don't think that I beat him up?' he said. 'That I crippled him and he knows I did but is protecting me?' Peters took a drink. Bergenhem couldn't see any sign of intoxication.

  'Is that what you think?' Peters repeated.

  'I don't think anything at all,' said Bergenhem. 'I'm simply trying to find out what actually happened.'

  'Facts,' said Peters. 'Always the facts.'

  'According to Jens, you separated about half an hour before he was clubbed down.'

  'That could well be,' said Peters. 'I don't know exactly when it happened, of course. When was he attacked?'

  'Where was that?' asked Bergenhem. 'Where did you separate?' He glanced down at his notebook, where it said 'just past Sveaplan', as that was what Book had told Ringmar.

  'It was just outside here,' said Peters, gesturing towards the window. 'A little way down the street from Sveaplan.'

  'Exactly where?'

  'I can pinpoint it for you afterwards if it's important.'

  'Good.'

  Peters seemed to be racking his memory.

  'What happened next?' asked Bergenhem.

  'What happened next? You know what happened next.'

  'What did you do immediately after Jens had left?'

  'What did I do? I smoked a cigarette then came back in and listened to a CD, and then I took a shower and went to bed and fell asleep.'

  'Why did you go out into the street with him?'

  'I needed some air,' said Peters. 'And it was a pleasant evening. It was only blowing half a gale at that point.'

  'Did you see anybody else out there?' asked Bergenhem.

  'No pedestrians,' said Peters. 'A few cars came past. In both directions.'

  'Were you watching Jens?'

  'While I was smoking the cigarette, yes. He even turned round at one point and waved. I waved back, finished the cigarette and went inside.'

  'And you didn't see anybody else in the street?'

  'No.'

  'Nobody else walking down the road?'

  'No.'

  Bergenhem could hear sounds from the street down below, which was one of the busiest in Gothenburg. Suddenly he heard an ambulance siren. The hospital was not far away. Then he recognised the music Peters was playing.

  'The Only Ones,' he said.

  Peters bowed in acknowledgement. 'Not bad. You ought to be too young for The Only Ones.'

  'Has Jens been here on more than one occasion?' Bergenhem asked.

  'Yes.'

  'Have you been exposed to threats?'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'Has anybody ever threatened you?'

  Peters said nothing. He took another drink, just a sip. Bergenhem could smell the high-quality malt again. The Only Ones continued their dark 1980s journey through the world of drugs; a heavy mass of music hovered over the room.

  'Of course there have been threats,' said Peters. 'Once people find out that you're gay, you're always exposed to that risk.'

  Bergenhem nodded.

  'Do you understand what I'm talking about?' asked Peters.

  'I think so,' said Bergenhem.

  'I'm not sure you do,' said Peters.

  'Do you understand what I'm getting at?' asked Bergenhem.

  Peters thought it over. He held on to his glass but didn't drink. The music had finished. Bergenhem saw a black bird fly past the window, and then another. A telephone rang somewhere in the flat, and again, and again. Peters didn't move a muscle. The music started again, something Bergenhem didn't recognise. The telephone kept on ringing. Eventually the answering machine took over. Bergenhem could hear Peters' voice, but no message afterwards.

  'Surely you don't mean that whoever hit Jens was really after me?' said Peters in the end.

  'I don't know.'

  'Or that he was after Jens because of, well, for some special reason?'

  Bergenhem didn't reply.

  'That it wasn't Jens as an individual who was being targeted? That it was because he's gay?'

  'I don't know,' said Bergenhem.

  'Well, I suppose that could be the case.' Peters held up his glass. It was empty now. 'Nothing of that sort surprises me any more.'

  'Tell me about when you've felt threatened,' said Bergenhem.

  'Where shall I start?'

  'The latest occasion.'

  Aneta Djanali parked by the kerb and they got out of the car. Halders was massaging the back of his neck as he watched Djanali lock the doors. She turned round.

  'Does it hurt?' she asked.

  'Yes.'

  'I could give you a massage this evening.'

  'I'd like that,' said Halders.

  Djanali checked her notebook, and they walked to the entrance of the student halls. There was a bicycle in the stairwell. A noticeboard was plastered with layer upon layer of messages, and a big poster at the top advertised the autumn ball at the student union – which had taken place ages ago.

  There was a vague smell of food, an aroma that had accumulated over decades of fast and intensive cookery applied to cheap ingredients. Halders had lived on such a corridor while he was at Police College in Stockholm. He recognised the smell immediately.

  'It smells just like the corridor where I lived as a student,' he said.

  'Snap!' said Djanali. 'Toasted san
dwiches and bolognese sauce.'

  'Baked beans,' said Halders.

  Aneta Djanali laughed out loud.

  'Was it as funny as all that?' asked Halders.

  'On my corridor we had a girl whose diet was made up exclusively of baked beans, and she used to eat them straight out of the tin, with a spoon, without heating them up.'

  'Yes, that is funny,' said Halders.

  'It made me feel sick.'

  'Don't baked beans always have that effect?' wondered Halders.

  Djanali breathed in the aroma again.

  'Isn't it strange that we seem to have memory chips that kick in as soon as we come across a particular smell?' she said. 'That smell is familiar, and so all the memories come flooding back.'

  'I hope it doesn't make you feel too ill,' said Halders. 'We're out on business after all.'

  'But do you know what I mean?'

  'Only too well,' said Halders. 'There are things I thought I'd forgotten all about, but now they come tumbling out of memory's cupboards, just like you said.'

  'I hope they don't influence you too much,' said Djanali with a smile.

  'Speaking of that girl's diet,' said Halders, 'you should have seen what me and my mates used to eat.'

  'I'm glad I didn't,' said Djanali, and rang the bell of the corridor where Gustav Smedsberg had lived before transferring to Chalmers. Jakob Stillman had a room in the corridor directly above, when he wasn't in Sahlgren Hospital. He'd soon be back here again.

  Aryan Kaite lived in the block next door. That didn't necessarily mean that the boys knew one another, or even would recognise one another if they met in the street. This is a pretty anonymous environment, Djanali thought. Everybody minds their own business and studies away and occasionally slips out into the communal kitchen to prepare something to eat, then slips back into their room with a plate, and the only time they look at anybody else is when there's a party. Then again, there can be a lot of parties. In my day it was Saturday every day of the week, every week. Maybe it's still like that today. If it's always Saturday, good luck to 'em. For me nowadays it always seems to be Monday. Well, maybe not any more.

  Halders read the list of residents.

  'Maybe one of these guys harbours a grudge against his neighbour?' he said.

  'Maybe.'

  'Here comes one of them,' he said, as a girl appeared on the other side of the glass door. Halders held up his ID, and she opened the door.

  'I remember Gustav,' she said.

  They were sitting in the communal kitchen. Halders' and Djanali's memories were all around them, a swarm of baked beans. Everything was familiar; time had stood still in there just as it had in all other student corridors in every city in the land. It smelled like it always had done. If I opened the fridge door, I'd be back in my prime, Djanali thought. Or in my youth, at least.

  'So he was clubbed down, was he?' asked the girl.

  'No,' said Halders. 'He was attacked, but he escaped uninjured and hence he is a very important witness for us.'

  'But . . . why have you come here, then?'

  'He lived here not long ago.'

  'So what?'

  It wasn't an impertinent question. She doesn't look the impertinent type, Halders thought.

  'This whole business is so serious that we're trying to pin down everybody the victims might have come into contact with,' said Djanali.

  'But you said Gustav wasn't a victim?'

  'He might easily have been,' said Djanali.

  'Why did he move out of here?' asked Halders.

  'I don't know,' said the girl, but he could see she wasn't telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  'He didn't exactly take a step up by moving to the Chalmers halls,' said Halders.

  She shrugged.

  'Did he have a row with anybody here?' Halders asked.

  'A row? What kind of a row?'

  'Anything from a minor difference of opinion to allout war with air raids and anti-aircraft fire,' said Halders. 'A row. Some sort of row.'

  'No.'

  'I'm only asking because this is such a serious case,' he said. 'Or series of cases.'

  She nodded.

  'Is there any special reason why Gustav moved out of here?' Halders asked again.

  'Have you asked him?'

  'We're asking you. Now.'

  'Surely he could tell you himself?'

  Neither Halders nor Djanali said anything. They just kept on looking at the girl, who gazed out of the window that was letting in the mild November light. She turned to look at them.

  'I didn't know Gustav all that well,' she said.

  Halders nodded.

  'Not at all, really.'

  Halders nodded again.

  'But there was something,' she said, and stared out of the window again as if looking for that something so that she could show it to them.

  'What, exactly?' Halders asked.

  'Well, a row, to use your word.' She looked at Halders. 'Not quite anti-aircraft fire, but there were a few occasions – several occasions – when he yelled down the telephone, and sometimes there was shouting, sort of, coming from his room.'

  'What kind of shouting?'

  'Well, the sort of shouting you come out with when you're having a row, as it were. You couldn't hear what they were shouting. It was just a few occasions.'

  'Who is "they"?' asked Djanali.

  'Gustav, and the person in there with him.'

  'Who was that?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Was it a he or a she?'

  'A he. A bloke.'

  'Was there more than one?'

  'Not as far as I could see.'

  'You mean you saw him?'

  'I don't know for sure if it was the one who was shouting. But a bloke did come out of his room shortly after I'd heard them. I was on my way to the kitchen and he came out of the room and headed for the stairs.' She nodded in the direction of the landing. 'From the corridor.'