But who the hell would want to splash around in a world like that? as Halders said when the topic came up for discussion some time ago.
Fredrik did his best to keep the banter ticking over, but Winter could see the shadows behind his eyes, even deeper than those behind Bertil's.
Do you need to take time out? Winter had asked in an offhand fashion not all that long ago. Halders had taken time out, but not enough. I listen to what my children have to say, he'd said, and Winter might just have understood him. Fredrik had been condemned by fate to abandon the individual life he'd embarked upon and assume new responsibilities as a lone adult with two children of school age. How serious was it with Aneta? He didn't know. Did she?
'There's still no sign of our black medical student,' said Halders, looking at Djanali. 'Have you made any soundings on your home front?'
'They're on red alert in all the savannahs from Kenya to Burkina Faso,' she said.
'Are there any savannahs in Burkina Faso?' asked Bergenhem, who was interested in geography.
'No,' said Djanali. 'That's the point.'
'It's a matter of interpretation,' said Halders with a smile.
'I don't get it,' said Bergenhem.
'You're not the only one,' said Djanali.
'While you lot are bickering, our man could have escaped to South Africa,' said Winter.
'OK, we'll nail him there, then,' said Halders.
'Come on now, Fredrik,' Winter said.
Halders sat up straight. Winter could see how the pressure on the back of his neck was reflected in his face.
'We nailed Smedsberg late last night before he set off to visit his manure-specialist mates out in the sticks. He confirmed that he'd fallen out with the Aryan, Mr Kaite.'
'About what?' Winter asked.
'A babe.'
'A babe?'
'That's what he said. Kaite thought he had something going with a girl who thought she had something going with Smedsberg.'
'What did Smedsberg think?' Winter wondered. For Christ's sake . . .
'He remained neutral, as he put it.'
'Does this girl exist?'
'We have a name and a telephone number.' Halders gestured with his arms. 'We phoned, but nobody answered. We checked the address and went there, but nobody was in. By hook or by crook, I don't quite remember how . . . we managed to get into the flat. But randy Kaite wasn't there, nor was the girl.'
'Were you involved in this, Aneta?' Winter asked.
She shook her head. 'I was in the car, looking after the radio.'
Winter looked at Halders.
'Did you leave a note on the hall table asking her to phone you when she got back home?' he asked, with acid in his voice.
'That didn't occur to me!' said Halders, raising a finger to the skies.
'Do you believe Smedsberg?'
'I don't believe anybody,' said Halders, 'but he did give us her name. Josefin. Josefin Stenvång.'
'Smedsberg is the only one of those four lads who wasn't injured,' said Ringmar.
'Do you see a connection there, Bertil?' Halders wondered.
'Eh? What?'
'Four students and three injured. Four children and three uninjured. Do you see a connection?'
'What did you have for breakfast today, Fredrik?' Ringmar asked. 'You seem to be just a little bit on overdrive.'
'Doesn't the job we do depend on links, connections?' Halders said. 'I apologise if not, but in that case I've completely misunderstood everything.'
'Fredrik,' said Winter.
Halders turned round.
Is this the moment when the absolutely awful and extreme crisis is going to kick in? Winter thought. Fredrik has managed to keep going until now. Oddly enough.
Is there madness in his eyes? No. Has he started to hyperventilate? Not yet. What can I say now, when I have his full attention? What direction can I point him in?
'Please let Bertil finish what he has to say,' said Winter.
'OK, OK,' said Halders.
'Anyway, we have Smedsberg,' said Ringmar. 'He avoids the blow, or blows. He's not marked by a branding iron or whatever the damned thing is. He has seen a newspaper delivery boy. He's grown up on a farm. He suggests that the wounds might reveal a number that could lead us to a particular farm, or some kind of code or symbol that would have the same effect. He has lived in the same halls as two of the other victims, Kaite and Stillman. Book as well, come to that. So far he has denied knowing any of them, including Book.'
'He's also a Chalmers student,' said Halders.
'Oh, come on, Fredrik, can't you keep your comments to yourself for once?' said Helander. Halders didn't seem to hear.
'We mentioned Jens Book,' Ringmar continued. 'Studying journalism, but not at the moment. He's still in Sahlgren Hospital. He's got a bit of mobility back in his right side. The latest report is positive, very positive in fact. It seems the lad will be able to walk again eventually.'
'If the blow stops him from working as a journalist in future, the report certainly is very positive,' said Halders. He turned to Helander. 'I don't like journalists, you see.'
'Jens Book had been with his friend Krister Peters about half an hour before he was attacked in Linnéplatsen outside Marilyn's, the video store.'
'His homosexual friend,' said Halders.
'Do you have a problem with that, Fredrik?' Ringmar had looked up from his file.
'Not at all. I only mentioned it for clarification.'
'Peters is gay,' said Bergenhem. 'I've met him, as you know. He makes no attempt to hide the fact.'
'Why was he secretive about his meeting with Book, then?' asked Djanali.
'It wasn't Peters who was secretive. It was Book himself,' said Ringmar. 'We had to drag it out of him. It took time.'
'Not unusual behaviour,' said Bergenhem. 'If he doesn't want to tell anybody, that's up to him. Don't you think? There are lots of people who don't want to. We've talked about it before.' Bergenhem could see that Halders wanted to say something but was holding back. 'Do you have a comment to make about that, Fredrik?'
Halders shook his head.
'So Book's possible relationship with Peters doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this business,' said Bergenhem.
'But Peters doesn't have an alibi,' said Ringmar.
'There again, the plain fact is that Book is the one we know most about when it comes to what they were doing immediately before they were attacked,' said Bergenhem. 'If we believe Peters, we know more or less what Book was up to all evening, apart from a short time before he was bashed.'
'Yes,' said Winter, who hadn't spoken for some time, just listened and made a few notes.
'But it's quite different when it comes to Kaite, for instance. What was he doing in the hours before he was attacked in Kapellplatsen?'
Nobody answered.
'Kaite is very vague about that, and now he's run off to God only knows where,' said Bergenhem. 'He's also had a row with Smedsberg, who lived in the block next door. There's a link for you, Fredrik.' Halders gave a start. As if he'd woken up out of a short coma, Winter thought.
'And our friend the law student Jakob Stillman is no longer as silent as he was forced to be at first, but he doesn't have a very good memory either,' said Bergenhem. 'Unless it's the blows that have knocked the memories out of his head. Which I don't believe. I think he was somewhere that he doesn't want to tell us about, and then he walked across Doktor Fries Torg and was attacked in the same way.'
'What took him to Doktor Fries Torg?' said Djanali.
'What took Kaite to Kapellplatsen?' said Bergenhem.
'Is there a link?' wondered Halders.
'Perhaps nothing more than the fact that they were on their way home,' said Winter.
'On their way to the same place but from different directions,' said Ringmar.
'At different times,' said Bergenhem.
'Stillman seems to be a full-blooded heterosexual,' said Halders. 'If you can believe Bertil's daught
er's friend, that is.' He looked at Bergenhem. 'Talking of non-links.'
'The link here is that three of them were attacked by the same person,' said Ringmar. 'Or all four, in fact, since the intention was that Smedsberg should get the same treatment.'
'If we can believe him,' said Halders.
'He reported it to the police,' said Djanali.
'So did that family out at Önnered,' said Halders. 'Possibly for the same reason as Gustav Smedsberg.' Halders looked at Winter. 'By the way, shouldn't we be on our way there now?'
'Soon.'
'Speaking of getting underway, perhaps we should pay a visit to the Smedsberg family farm,' said Bergenhem. 'Out in the sticks, as Fredrik put it.'
'Why?' asked Winter.
'The weapon. The branding iron. If we follow through with the hypothesis that all of the victims actually did the opposite of what they said they did, it's Gustav Smedsberg who clubbed down the other three, and he did it with a branding iron like the one he said was back at home on the farm.'
'Hang on,' said Djanali. 'If we shortly get hold of the identity number or whatever it's called, and on that basis can find the farm the weapon comes from, well, if Smedsberg half-kills people with a weapon that can be traced back to him, and he puts us on the right track . . . Do you see what I'm getting at?'
'You're suggesting that people's actions are rational and based on sound logic,' said Halders. 'That we should use that as our starting point. The day we start doing that we might just as well pack up here and start selling roasted almonds in Slottskogen.' He looked at Bergenhem. 'Roasted almonds! Where did I get that from?'
'We'll see,' said Winter. 'Perhaps we ought to drive out into the country.'
'It occurred to me that Kaite might be there,' said Bergenhem. 'And the girl, perhaps.' He looked at Halders. 'Bearing in mind what you just said about logic. Smedsberg and Kaite might have fallen out, so what could be more natural than Kaite relaxing at Smedsberg's home?'
'Precisely,' said Halders. 'But he won't be able to hide away from us out there in the Wild West.'
'Who said he's trying to hide away from us?' asked Ringmar.
'He did a runner when we tried to have a chat with him, didn't he? We were in his room, and he vanished.'
'Hmm.'
'What are you getting at, Bertil?'
'He might be more afraid of something else than you, Fredrik.'
Halders said nothing.
'You as a police officer, I mean.'
'Yes, I'm with you. You could have a point there.'
'How long was he away?' asked Ringmar. 'When you were sitting in his room, waiting?'
'He still hasn't come back,' said Djanali with a smile.
'I'll rephrase my silly question,' said Ringmar.
'We understand what you're getting at,' said Halders. 'We waited for ten minutes, and then it dawned on us that he couldn't be in the bog all that time and we found he was gone with the wind. Gone with the monsoon.' Halders pointed at the window, where the pale light of morning had turned into the darkness of aggressive winter rain. 'Listen to that. I'll be buggered if we don't have a northern monsoon up here at the edge of the universe.'
'Have you questioned all the others living in the corridor?' asked Bergenhem.
'Of course. And we didn't leave until we'd checked all the rooms to make sure he wasn't there.'
'There is one thing,' said Djanali.
Everybody waited.
'We've been waiting for the wounds on the victims' heads to heal sufficiently for us to see if there is a brand of some kind. But it didn't work with Stillman and Book. The scab has fallen off, but we haven't seen anything. We were waiting for Kaite, or however one should put it.' She looked up but not at anybody in particular. 'Was there somebody else waiting as well? Or somebody who couldn't wait?'
22
He fried two eggs, slid them on to a plate, looked at them and decided that he wasn't hungry any more. He stood up, scraped them into the rubbish bin and realised that he would have to throw them down the rubbish chute later.
He had collected eggs, turned his jumper into a carrier bag and taken them to the kitchen. But that was then. They'd had a special smell, which seemed to force its way through the shell. Put them in the dish, the old man used to say. You could break them, carrying them like that.
The smell was no longer there when he put them in the dish. One of the eggs had broken even though he'd been as careful as he could possibly be.
What the hell are you doing, you little bastard? Come here. Come here, I said!
We'd better send you back to where you came from.
He opened the cupboard door again and sniffed at the rubbish bag. Fried eggs didn't smell like raw eggs in the country, certainly not. It seemed they were still warm, and that made the smell even stronger.
He sealed the rubbish bag and sent it sliding down the chute on the landing. The resulting thud below was muted, which meant that they would soon be coming to empty the big bin down in the cellar.
It was sunny outside.
He went back in, put on his jacket and emerged into the sunshine, which seemed to be less bright than it had appeared through the window. The sun was hidden behind the high-rise blocks – it didn't have the strength to rise above them at this time of year.
It was different out in the fields. There were no high-rise blocks there for the sun to hide behind. The neighbouring farms were so far away that they seemed to be just a minor blot on the landscape. He could well have been standing in the middle of an ocean. There was no end to it. The plain was as boundless as the ocean, and he was standing in the middle of it next to the island he lived on. It was a desert island that he longed to escape from, but no ships passed by to take him away. He could swim, but not as far as that. He wasn't big enough. When he grew up.
He walked round the high-rise building and saw the sun. He could look straight at it without going blind; it was like a low-voltage bulb up there in the heavens.
A tram clattered past down below. He raised a hand in greeting. Perhaps the driver was somebody he knew who would recognise him.
The tram stopped a bit further on and people got off carrying bags and parcels containing Christmas presents. Parcels wrapped in fun, colourful paper. They had to be Christmas presents.
He shook his head.
The old man had shaken the iron in his face. Shaken, shaken. He could detect the smell of singed hair, and something more. Singed flesh.
Great stuff, these irons, the old man had said. Look out! he'd said, and the iron had only just missed him.
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