Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'Yes please. I need that after all the coffee at the meeting.'

  'Would you like a slice of pie?'

  'No thank you.'

  'Half a baguette with brie and salami?'

  'Non, merci.' 'Smoked mussels.'

  'Erik, I'm not hungry.'

  'How did it go?'

  'There was quite a bit of talk about that . . . that incident. The Waggoner boy.'

  'We're going to try to speak to him tomorrow.'

  'Have you got any leads?'

  'We're checking all the local loonies now. Nothing yet.'

  'What does Pia say?'

  Angela had met Pia Fröberg several times, the forensic pathologist.

  'She can't see any signs of sexual violence,' he said. 'It's probably only your usual violence.'

  'Only?'

  'Didn't you hear the inverted commas? I prefer not to write them in the air.'

  'Where's that tea got to?'

  The wind was blowing rain all over the big windscreen. There was something wrong with one of the wipers: it was out of sync with the other one. Or perhaps it was the other one that was faulty. In any case, it was like watching somebody with a limp, dragging one leg after the other. He'd have to report it.

  Gothenburg glittered as he drove around the city. It would soon be Christmas again. The old man had asked him. He'd said no.

  Hardly anybody in the tram, but he wasn't complaining. Somebody had got off at Vasaplatsen, but nobody had got on. There'd been a woman standing in a doorway, watching him. Didn't people have anything better to do? There was a restaurant on the corner to her left. She could have gone there.

  Several people got on at Central Station, on their way to the northern wildernesses that he was also heading for, of course. Wildernesses with blocks of flats so tall that they looked as if they were trying to fly up to heaven, but they could have asked him about heaven and he'd have been able to tell them the truth about it. There's nobody there.

  He drove alongside the river, which was as black as it always was. He could see the other bridge to the west that was bigger and more beautiful. You could see a lot of beautiful things from here. There were fir trees decorated with a thousand Christmas candles.

  The boy had kicked up a fuss.

  He bit his hand so hard that it hurt.

  Bill was dangling on his string beside him. The parrot was placed in such a way that nobody getting on would be able to see it unless they sort of bent round the driver, and why would anybody want to do that? Besides, it wasn't allowed.

  He stopped the tram, and lots of people got on. Why on earth did they want to be out at this time? It was starting to get late.

  Why hadn't he driven the boy back to where he'd found him?

  He'd intended to do that. He always did that. Assuming that he'd driven away in the first place.

  I don't understand why I didn't take him back. Perhaps because he kicked up a fuss. That was no doubt why. He didn't want to be nice when I was being nice. I tried.

  Somebody to his right said something. The doors were open. He could feel the wind coming in from the outside. This could create a sort of spiral of wind in the tram.

  'Why aren't we setting off?'

  He turned to look at the man standing next to his cab.

  'Sixteen kronor,' he said.

  'Eh?'

  'A ticket costs sixteen kronor,' he said. People ought to know that if they were going to ride the tram. Some didn't pay at all. Cheated. Some of them got caught when an inspector came on board. He never talked to the inspectors, who were known as the Tenson gang because they always wore ugly Tenson jackets. They did their job and he did his.

  'I don't want a ticket,' said the man. 'I've already got one and I've just stamped it.'

  'No ticket?'

  'Why are we standing here? Why don't you set off?'

  'This is a stop,' he said. 'I have to stop so that people can get on and off.'

  'They've already done that, for Christ's sake!' said the man, who appeared to be drunk. There were always drunks on the trams. He could tell you all about that!

  'We got on and off about a hundred years ago, and now we want to set off,' said the man, leaning forward. 'Why the hell don't you start moving?'

  'I'll call the police!' he said, without having intended to say that the second before he did so.

  'Eh?'

  He didn't want to say it again.

  'Call the police? That's a fucking brilliant idea. Then we might get moving at last. They can give us an escort,' said the drunk. 'I can ring them myself, come to that.' He produced a mobile.

  Now I'm off.

  The tram started with a jerk and the man with the mobile was flung backwards and almost fell over but managed to hang on to one of the straps. He dropped his mobile and it crashed to the floor.

  They were off.

  'You're a fucking lunatic,' yelled the man. His posture was most peculiar. A drunk who couldn't stand up straight. Now he was bending down. He was visible in the mirror. 'I dropped my mobile.' It was impossible to hear what he said next. Now he was back by the driver's cab again. It was forbidden to talk to the driver while the tram was in motion.

  'If it's bust I'll fucking report you to the fucking police, you fucking idiot.'

  He decided to ignore the drunk. That was the best way.

  He came to a halt at the next stop. People were waiting to get on. The drunk was standing in the way. The newcomers forced him back. He had to give way. A lady got on. A ticket? Of course. That'll be sixteen kronor, please. Here you are, a ticket and four kronor change.

  He set off, stopped, set off again. It was quiet now. He stopped once more. Opened the doors.

  'You're bloody lucky that my mobile's still working, you fucking idiot,' yelled the drunk as he got off. Good riddance.

  Unfortunately there would be more of them. Some more would get on after he'd turned round and set off on his way back. It was always the same. They were a traffic hazard. He could tell the authorities all about that. Had done, in fact.

  'It's as if I've lost all my enthusiasm for Christmas,' said Angela. 'It was a sort of sudden feeling I had in the lift. Or an insight.'

  'An insight into what?'

  'You know.'

  'You shouldn't have come with me the first time we saw the boy,' said Winter.

  'It was important for me to be there.'

  He didn't reply, listened for a moment to the fridge, and the radio mumbling away in its corner.

  'Is it the twenty-third our flights are booked for?' Angela asked.

  'Yes.'

  'It'll be lovely.'

  'I expect so.'

  'A warm Christmas,' she said.

  'I don't suppose it will be all that warm.'

  'No, there's bound to be sub-zero temperatures on Christmas Eve in Marbella.' She continued warming her hands round the cup she hadn't yet drunk out of. 'Stormy, freezing cold and no central heating.'

  'There might be snow,' said Winter.

  'There is snow,' she said. 'On top of Sierra Blanca.'

  He nodded. The trip would come off. His mother would be pleased. There would be sun there. Five days on the Costa del Sol, and then it would be New Year again and the weather would turn and spring would begin to advance and then summer and there was no need to look any further into the future than that.

  'I met a mum at the day nursery meeting who had something interesting to tell me,' she said, looking at him. 'It was a bit strange.'

  'Go on.'

  'It made me think about that boy. I mean, we had been talking about it during the evening.'

  'We can't keep everything secret,' said Winter.

  'That might be just as well.'

  'What did she have to say?' he asked.

  'That her daughter had . . . met a stranger. She'd evidently been sitting in a car with some grown-up, it seemed. And that's all there was to it.'

  'What do you mean, all there was to it?'

  'I don't know. The girl cam
e home and told her mother about it. That she'd been sitting in a car, I gather, with somebody else for a short while. That was all.'

  'She came home and told her mum about it?'

  'Yes. Ellen. The girl's name is Ellen. She goes to the same day nursery as Elsa. Ellen Sköld.'

  'I recognise the name.'

  'That's who it was. Her mother's called Lena.'

  'And she believed it?'

  'She didn't really know what to believe. Nothing had happened, after all.'

  'What did she do next? When she'd heard about this?'

  'She reported it, or whatever you say. She spoke to somebody at the local police station in Linnéstaden.'

  'What do the staff say?' he asked. 'The nursery staff, I mean.'

  'She had spoken to them but nobody had noticed anything.'

  Winter said something she couldn't hear.

  'What did you say?'

  'You can't expect them to see everything,' he said.

  She stood up, went to the sink and put her mug on the draining board. Winter remained seated. She went back to the table. He was staring into space.

  'A penny for your thoughts.'

  'I was thinking about what you've just said. It sounds a bit odd.'

  'That's what her mother thinks as well. Lena.'

  'But she reported it to the police. So there ought to be a record of it.' He looked at her. 'At the station, I mean.'

  'Yes, I understand. There must be. The police officer she spoke to seemed to take it seriously, at least. He asked her to check if the girl had lost anything, and it turned out that she had.'

  'Something that disappeared when?'

  'The day that it happened.'

  'Children lose things all the time. It's nothing unusual, you know that.'

  'But this seems to have been something she couldn't just lose. Ellen, I mean. It was a charm that was fastened down somehow.'

  'Lena Sköld,' said Winter. 'You said the mother was called Lena Sköld?'

  'Yes. What are you going to do?'

  'Talk to her.'

  'I didn't tell her that I lived with a detective chief inspector.'

  'Well she'll find out now. Does it matter?'

  'No.'

  'I think I've probably exchanged a few words with her when I've dropped Elsa off. I recognise the girl's name. But I don't think her mother knows what my job is.'

  'Does it matter?'

  Winter smiled, and stood up.

  'You knew exactly what you were doing when you told me this, didn't you?' he said.

  She nodded.

  'Have you ever heard of anything like this before?' she asked.

  'I'll first have to find out exactly what it is that I've heard about,' he said.

  He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He thought he would probably be able to recognise the girl when he saw her.

  He allowed the darkness to linger on in his flat after he'd closed the door. He knew his way round it so well, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been blind. In his flat, that is. He wouldn't have managed so well outside.

  Darkness was more attractive indoors than out. A small amount of light trickled in through the venetian blinds even though he had closed them as tightly as possible.

  He sat in front of the television screen. The boy in the video was laughing. At least, it looked as if he was laughing. But something was wrong.

  Why had he stopped? Suddenly he didn't want to touch the boy any more. What was it? Should he go to the doctor and tell him what had happened and ask if it was normal or abnormal?

  He watched all the videos. He had a little collection. Similar videos, but different even so. He was familiar with all the details now. You could see. A little extra step each time. He knew that now. And yet, he didn't really. He was on the way to . . . to . . . He refused to think about it. Refused. I refuse!

  Don't think about the boy. That was something different. No. It was NOT.

  Mum never heard him when he shouted. He had moved in there and didn't need to make a bed for his mum every evening in the house a thousand miles away. Mum was there. He used to shout.

  She had never heard.

  Once he'd emerged afterwards and he'd shouted and she'd been sitting there with her head averted and she hadn't heard him then either. It was as if he hadn't been there. He hadn't dared to stand in front of her. Perhaps she really hadn't heard him before, but if he'd stood in front of her and she hadn't seen him, he wouldn't have existed any longer. He knew that she wasn't blind, and so he wouldn't have existed. He didn't exist.

  Then she hadn't been there any more.

  And then came all the rest of it.

  The telephone rang. He jumped and almost dropped the remote control. He let the phone ring, ring, ring. Five times, six. Then it stopped. He didn't have an answering machine. What use were they?

  It rang again. He wasn't there. Or he was there but he didn't hear the telephone and so he wasn't there. It stopped eventually, and he could busy himself with the films for a bit longer and then get ready for bed. All this without switching on a single light. Anybody passing by outside would definitely think there was nobody at home, or that someone was in bed, asleep. And that was where he was going now.

  19

  Halders and Djanali were back at the halls of residence, in a different corridor. The girl who had heard the argument in Smedsberg's room had identified Aryan Kaite as the young man who had come rushing out. No doubt about it, despite Halders' provocations: don't you think all black people look the same? Aneta Djanali hadn't moved a muscle. Does he beat her? the girl had thought, looking at Djanali.

  They were sitting in Kaite's room. There was a picture of a winter scene on the wall behind the desk, a white field. The room had been cleaned, or seemed to have been cleaned. The desk was neatly arranged: desk tidy, notepad, computer, printer on a stand, books in two neat piles next to the desk tidy, more books in two low bookcases. A Discman, two small speakers on the ledge of the window looking out on to the street where cars were flitting past in the halflight.

  Is this important, Djanali thought, being here? One of those things you never knew.

  'Would you guess that this boy was studying medicine? Simply by looking round this room?' Halders asked.

  'The anatomy poster would seem to suggest that,' said Djanali, pointing to the wall where the bed was located.

  'Everybody has something like that these days,' said Halders. 'People are so interested in themselves that they hang X-rays of themselves next to the china cupboard in the drawing room.'