Frozen Tracks

Frozen Tracks Page 17

by Ake Edwardson

  He might have met somebody he knew.

  There was also the other possibility, that he was together with somebody whose identity he didn't want to disclose. Why? Warum? Pourquoi? Porqué?

  That was always the most difficult question, no matter what language you asked it in. 'Who?' and 'Where?' and 'How?' and 'When?' were the immediate questions that required immediate answers, and when those answers were found, the case was solved. But there was always that 'Why?', often in the form of a little prick in his memory, long afterwards. Something unsolved, or at any rate not discovered. Always assuming there was an explanation. Not everything came together with explanations as an extra bonus.

  But nevertheless. Whenever he could get a better idea of this 'why', and do so quickly, he was more swiftly and more often able to discover the answers to 'who' and 'where' and 'how' and 'when'.

  There was a tap on the door and he shouted, 'Come!' and in came Ringmar. Winter remained in his desk chair, and Ringmar perched on the edge of his desk.

  'It's gloomy in here,' said Ringmar.

  'Are you referring to the light?'

  'What else?'

  'It's serene,' said Winter.

  Ringmar eyed the Panasonic on the floor under the window, and listened for half a minute.

  'Serene music,' he said.

  'Yes.'

  'In tune with the light.'

  'Bobo Stenson Trio. War Orphans,' said Winter.

  'War victims.'

  'Not really. More like kids who have lost their parents thanks to war.'

  'War victims sounds better.'

  'If you say so.'

  Ringmar sat down on the chair in front of the desk. Winter switched on his desk lamp and the light formed a little circle between them. They had sat there many a time and slowly discussed their way forward to solving a riddle. Winter knew he wouldn't have got as far as he had without Ringmar. He hoped it was the same for his older colleague. No, he knew it was. Even so, there were things he didn't know about Bertil, of course. Large chunks of his life. The kind of things he didn't need to know, just as Bertil didn't need to know everything about him.

  But just now he did want to know more about the older man oppo site him, assuming Bertil wanted to tell him. Perhaps it was connected with Winter's own life, his . . . his development. His maturity, perhaps. His journey from being a lonely young man with a lot of power to something different that also encompassed others.

  They needed each other, needed their conversations. The banter that wasn't always merely banter.

  Ringmar's face seemed thinner than usual. There was a shadow behind his eyes.

  'Why does everybody insist on telling lies all the time?' he said.

  'It's part of the job,' Winter said.

  'Telling lies?'

  'Listening to lies.'

  'Take these lads who've been attacked. It's becoming a real mess.'

  'Theirs first and foremost.'

  'But ours as well,' said Ringmar.

  'We can untangle their mess. That's our job. They can't do it themselves.'

  Ringmar nodded, but didn't say anything.

  'Or else it's the truth and nothing but the truth.'

  Ringmar nodded again, but still didn't say anything.

  'But that's not why you came to see me, Bertil. Is it?'

  Ringmar said nothing.

  'To be honest, you don't look all that good,' Winter said.

  Ringmar ran his hand over his forehead and his face, as if trying to wipe away the tiredness and the shadows. It looked as though he was moving his head in time with the jazz coming from the Panasonic without realising.

  'Are you running a temperature?' Winter asked.

  'It's not that,' said Ringmar.

  Winter waited for what was coming next. The music stopped, the CD had finished. It was darker outside now. He could see the car headlights more clearly, and the sounds coming from outside were clearer as well. A few drops of rain tapped hesitantly at the window pane. Soon it might turn into snow, but that didn't seem likely. Snow was a rare gift to Gothenburgers. A surprise to the snow-clearing teams every other winter when chaos descended. Winter had always enjoyed that type of chaos. He liked to walk home over Heden in the eye of the snowstorm, and drink a glass of punch while looking out of the window.

  'It's Martin, of course,' said Ringmar.

  Winter waited.

  'Ah well . . .' said Ringmar.

  'There's something else you want to say,' said Winter.

  'I don't know how to put it,' said Ringmar.

  'Just say it,' said Winter.

  'Its about . . . about fathers and sons,' said Ringmar.

  'Fathers and sons,' said Winter.

  'Yes. I'm trying to work out what the hell the lad's thinking,' said Ringmar. 'How things could have got to this point. What could have caused it.' He ran his hand over his brow again. 'What I've done. What he's done. No, what I've done above all else.'

  Winter waited. Took out his packet of Corps but didn't touch the cigarillos. He raised his head and Ringmar looked him in the eye.

  'That's why I thought about you,' said Ringmar. 'About how it was for you, with your father. How things got to the state they did. Why the pair of you . . . why you . . . didn't have any contact.'

  Winter lit a cigarillo and inhaled deeply. The smoke drifted through the circle of light from the desk lamp.

  'That's a complicated question you're asking, Bertil.'

  'You've seen how much I've been dreading it.'

  Winter took another drag. He could see himself standing on a slope overlooking the Mediterranean when his father was buried after a funeral in a church as white as snow. Sierra Blanca. No possibility of contact any more.

  'He did a runner and took his money with him,' said Winter.

  'I know,' said Ringmar.

  'I didn't approve.'

  'Is that all?'

  Winter didn't answer, took another draw on his cigarillo, stood up and walked over to the window, opened it and saw that it had stopped raining. He tapped the ash from his cigarillo after checking to make sure nobody was marching around on the lawn below. He turned round.

  'I don't know,' he said.

  'How much did you actually know about . . . Bengt's financial affairs?' asked Ringmar.

  'Enough to disapprove.'

  'You are a moral person.'

  'He did something wrong,' said Winter. 'He could have stayed in Sweden and, well, been of some help. He could have afforded to. He could have had his house in the sun even so.' Winter smiled. 'If he'd paid his tax we might have had an extra CID officer.'

  He went back to his desk. He suddenly felt weary. All the things he'd just said to Bertil. What was the point? Everything could have been resolved if only they'd spoken to each other. The only thing that helps is communication with words. That's the only thing that enables us to make progress. Silence begets more silence, and eventually causes a muteness that is like cement.

  'In the end it wasn't possible to say anything,' he said. 'It was as if we'd lost the ability to talk to each other.' He sat down. 'I don't know. I've often thought it must be something further back in time. Something unconnected with – with that money business. Something quite different.'

  Ringmar didn't answer. The shadows behind his eyes had deepened.

  'Good grief, Bertil, I shouldn't be sitting here saying that to you.'

  'That's why I came here.'

  'I don't think you're a self-tormentor. And you're not like him.'

  'We're all different,' said Ringmar, 'but even so we all make the same damned mistakes.'

  'What mistakes have you made?'

  'I must have done something. I have a grown-up son who doesn't want to meet me. He doesn't even want to talk to me.'

  'He'll regret it. He'll change his mind.'

  'Are you speaking from experience?'

  Winter didn't reply. Rain was pattering against the window pane again, coming from a sky that had turned black. It's not five
o'clock yet, but night is upon us.

  'I'm sorry, Erik. It's just that . . . Oh, damn . . .'

  'I could try to talk to him,' said Winter.

  'I don't even know where he is.'

  'But your daughter has some kind of contact with him, doesn't she? Moa?'

  'I don't actually know exactly how much,' said Ringmar.

  'Shall I talk to her as well?'

  'I don't know, Erik. I've tried to talk to her, but she . . . respects her brother's wish.'

  'What about Birgitta?'

  'It's no doubt even worse for her. He seems to have decided that as he doesn't want to talk to me, that includes her as well.' Ringmar sat up straight and smiled, just as Winter had done a couple of minutes previously. 'A sort of package deal, you might say.'

  'Shall I give him a good thrashing if I find him?'

  'At last we're getting down to the nitty gritty. I thought you were never going to ask that.'

  'Violence is the most extreme form of communication.

  When words are not sufficient, it's time for a good thump.' Winter held his fist up in the mixture of light and smoke. 'It's not all that uncommon a way of communicating.' He took down his fist. 'Not in the force, either.'

  'Still, perhaps we ought to try verbal methods first,' said Ringmar.

  There was a knock on Winter's door and Winter shouted in response. Bergenhem came in and walked up to the desk, which was lit up by a circle of light, while the rest of the room was in darkness.

  'Are you interrogating each other?' Bergenhem wondered.

  'When you haven't got a suspect, you have to make do with what you do have,' said Winter.

  'Count me out,' said Bergenhem.

  'But you're in,' said Winter. 'You knocked on that door and came into this office.'

  'I checked up on that marking iron or whatever it's called. Smedsberg's farm-union babble.'

  'I had noticed that we don't have any details about that,' said Winter.

  'They're coming now.' Bergenhem sat down on the chair beside Ringmar. He seemed to be exuding an air of excitement. Winter switched on a standard lamp next to the Panasonic. It was all so cosy. All that was missing was a few candles.

  'I spoke to a woman at the Ministry of Agriculture,' said Bergenhem. 'Prevention of cruelty to animals section.'

  'Where else?' said Ringmar.

  Winter couldn't help laughing.

  'It's about to get even funnier,' said Bergenhem.

  'Sorry, Lars,' said Ringmar. 'The interrogation I've just been through has exhausted me.'

  'Branding irons like that actually exist in Sweden, not just in Wyoming and Montana.' Bergenhem had a notebook open in front of him, but didn't need to consult it. 'But it's no longer allowed in Sweden to burn symbols on to animals. Not with hot irons, that is.'

  'What do they do, then?' asked Ringmar.

  'They use so-called freeze branding,' said Bergenhem.

  'Carbon dioxide snow, also known as dry ice,' said Winter.

  Bergenhem looked at him. He seemed almost disappointed.

  'Did you know about that?'

  'No, but it's possible to guess.'

  'That wasn't guesswork, come off it.'

  'Go on,' said Winter.

  'Anyway, they can freeze the branding iron using dry ice, or liquid nitrogen, it seems, and then brand the animals.'

  'And that still happens today?' asked Ringmar.

  'Yes, apparently. It's used mostly on trotting horses, as a sort of ID. And the woman at the ministry reckons it's also used on cattle.'

  Ringmar nodded. Bergenhem eyed him acidulously.

  'You knew that already, didn't you, Bertil?'

  'Farmers aren't satisfied with a number clipped on to a cow's ear,' said Ringmar. 'If they're milking a lot of cows at a time, they can't see the label on the ear when they're messing about with the lady's udder.'

  'Good God, what is this?' Bergenhem wondered. 'Have I landed in a boardroom meeting of the Federation of Swedish Farmers?'

  'The new EU regulations are a pain in the arse,' said Winter.

  'Why is it forbidden to brand cattle with a hot iron?' Ringmar asked, looking serious again.

  'Well, I suppose it's for humanitarian reasons, if you can use that expression in this context. In any case, the cruelty to animals law was revised in 1988 and as a result it was legal to brand cattle with a cold iron, but it says nothing about a hot one, which means that it's forbidden.'

  'But you can use the same branding iron for both methods?' asked Winter.

  'It seems so.'

  'Did you ask about that specifically?'

  'Yes.'

  'OK. Go on.'

  'The most interesting bit is the symbol itself,' said Bergenhem. 'They use a combination of numbers.' Now he was reading from his notebook. 'It's usually three digits, but it can be more.'

  'What do the numbers mean?' Ringmar asked.

  'It's a number allocated to a particular farm, and applied to each product.'

  Ringmar whistled.

  'Does this apply to every farm in Sweden?' Winter asked.

  'Every farm with cattle and sheep and goats and pigs.'

  That could apply to the police station we're in at this very moment, Ringmar thought. The staff – and our clients.

  'What about the ones who don't?' asked Winter.

  'What do you mean?'

  'The ones who no longer keep animals? That's not exactly uncommon nowadays. Are they still on the list? Or have they been removed?'

  'I don't know yet. I couldn't get through to anybody from the registration department.'

  'So our young men might well have a combination of numbers underneath their scabs,' said Ringmar. 'A sort of tattoo.'

  'Is it possible to accelerate the healing process?' Bergenhem wondered.

  'I'll have a word with Pia,' said Winter.

  'In which case we've solved the case,' said Ringmar.

  Bergenhem looked at him.

 

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