Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  Fling wide the gates, Winter thought.

  'What was the name of this farmer who had these unusual methods?'

  'I don't remember, I can tell you that now. I don't have enough memory for that.' It sounded as if he gave a chuckle. 'There are limits.'

  'Do you remember where the farm was? Or is?'

  'It's in the next parish.'

  'As far as we're concerned, that could be in another province,' said Winter.

  'It is in another province, in fact,' said Smedsberg.

  'Could you show us where?' Ringmar asked.

  'Do you mean now?'

  'Is it far?'

  'Yes. It's over twenty kilometres, I reckon. Depends on what route you take.'

  'Do you have time to show us now? We can go right away. We'll bring you straight back, of course.'

  Smedsberg changed the waterproof trousers he'd been wearing throughout the interview. Somewhat hesitantly, he got into Winter's Mercedes. Winter noticed the Escort rusting away peacefully by the big barn.

  The road was as straight as an arrow. Black birds circled overhead, followed them like seagulls shadowing a ship. The light sank down again, into the earth and over remote farms where lamps were starting to glimmer in the windows. They drove through a little village with a grey church and a hall next to it with a dozen or so cars parked outside.

  'Advent coffee meeting,' said Smedsberg.

  'Do you fancy a cup?' said Winter to Ringmar, who didn't reply.

  'We don't have time, surely,' said Smedsberg.

  They passed two girls riding horses that looked as big as houses. So there were in fact horses around here. Winter gave them as wide a berth as he dared, and the girls waved in acknowledgement. The horses looked even bigger in the rear-view mirror. It was a different world out here.

  'We're getting close,' said Smedsberg.

  At a small crossroads he told them to turn left. The road surface was made of uneven and patchy tarmac that seemed to have survived both world wars. Fields were enclosed by tumbledown fences, and the village seemed to have been abandoned. Which it no doubt had, Winter thought. They drove past two farmhouses that were in total darkness. A depopulated area: everybody was moving into the cities nowadays.

  'People've started moving out of this place,' said Smedsberg, as if to confirm Winter's thoughts. 'There used to be lots of young kids in them two farms.'

  They came to another crossroads.

  'Left,' said Smedsberg. It was a dirt road now. He pointed. 'That's where my Gerd came from.'

  Winter and Ringmar looked at the house, which was timber built, still red in the fading light: a cowshed, a smaller cottage, a fence. No electric light.

  'Her nephews and nieces use it as a holiday home, but they aren't there very often,' said Smedsberg. 'They ain't there now, for instance.'

  The forest became more dense. They came to a clearing, then more trees, another clearing. There was a gloomy-looking log cabin at the side of the road.

  'That used to be a village store once upon a time,' said Smedsberg.

  'This really is a depopulated area,' said Ringmar.

  The forest suddenly opened up and they found themselves driving through fields that seemed endless, compared with the concentration of trees they'd just passed through. There was a big house on the other side, set back some fifty metres from the road.

  'That's it,' said Smedsberg, pointing. 'That was the house.'

  There were lights on.

  23

  'How are we going to explain this?' Ringmar asked as they walked towards the house.

  'We don't need to explain anything,' said Winter.

  The wind was gusting in circles around the house. Winter could see only one single light in the distance, like a lighthouse at the edge of the plain. Darkness was closing in fast. It also felt chillier, as if winter was approaching at last. If he were to come back here a month from now, everything would be white on all sides, and it really would look like an ocean. It would be even more difficult to see the difference between sky and land.

  As he raised his fist to hammer on the door, he had the feeling that he would in fact be coming back here. It was a feeling he couldn't explain, but in the past it had led him deep down into the depths of darkness. It was a premonition that foreboded terrible things. Once it appeared, it wouldn't go away.

  Everything is linked.

  He kept his hand raised. Gusts spiralling, a strange hissing in his ears. A faint light in the window to the left. An acrid smell of soil. His own breath like smoke signals, Bertil's breath. Another smell, hard to pin down. He thought of a child on a swing, he could see it. The child turned to look at him and laughed, and it was Elsa. A hand was pushing the swing, and another face appeared and turned to look at him and it was not himself. He didn't recognise it.

  'Aren't you going to knock?' Ringmar asked.

  After the third salvo of hammering they could hear somebody moving inside, and a voice said:

  'What's it about?'

  Yes, what is it about? Ringmar looked at Winter. Two stupid chief inspectors belting on the door of a solitary house in the middle of nowhere. In the back seat of our car is a hillbilly who has tricked us into coming here with his cock-and-bull story. Inside the house his psychopathic brother is waiting with an elk rifle. Our bodies will sink down under all the pigshit and never be recovered. Our coats will keep the brothers warm on their tractors.

  You've got me covered, Erik?

  Uh . . . sorry, no, Bertil Boy.

  'We're from the police,' said Winter. 'May we come in and ask you a few questions?'

  'About what?'

  The voice was gruff and seemed to be in several layers, an old man's voice.

  'May we come in?' Winter said again.

  'How do I know you're not thieves?' The voice was muffled by the door, which looked battered but substantial.

  'I have my ID in my hand,' said Winter.

  They heard a mumbling and a clanking of bolts. The door opened and the man inside appeared as a silhouette, illuminated by a low-octane light from the hall and perhaps also the kitchen. Winter held out his ID. The man leaned forward and studied the text and photograph with his eyes screwed up, then looked at Winter and nodded at Ringmar.

  'Who's he?'

  Ringmar introduced himself and showed the man his ID.

  'What's it about?' asked the man once more. He was slightly hunched but even so of average height, his head shaved, wearing a whitish shirt, braces, trousers of no particular style and thick woollen socks. Classical rural attire from head to toe. Winter could smell a woodburning stove and recently cooked food. Pork. It was damp and chilly in the hall, and this was not entirely due to the air coming from the outside.

  'We just have a few questions we'd like to ask,' said Winter again.

  'Are you lost?' asked the man. He appeared to be pointing at the ceiling. 'The main road's that way.'

  'We'd like to ask you about a few things,' said Winter. 'We're looking for somebody.' Best to start there.

  'There's a search party out, is there?'

  'No. Just us.'

  'What's your name?' Ringmar asked.

  'My name's Carlström,' said the man, without offering to shake hands. 'Natanael Carlström.'

  'Could we sit down for a bit, Mr Carlström?'

  He made a sort of sighing noise and ushered them into the kitchen, which was reminiscent of Georg Smedsberg's but smaller and darker and much dirtier. Winter thought about Smedsberg sitting in the back seat of his Mercedes as it got colder and colder, and regretted leaving him there. They had better make this short.

  'We're looking for this young man,' said Ringmar, handing over the photograph of Aryan Kaite. It was simple, probably taken in a photo booth. Kaite's face looked like soot against the shabby background wall. Nevertheless, he had gone to the trouble of having it enlarged and framed, and hung it in his room, Winter had thought earlier.

  'You'd better get a move on before it gets dark out there, or
you'll never see him,' said Carlström, and the sighing noise dissolved into a rattling breath that could well have been a laugh.

  'Have you seen him?' Winter asked.

  'A black man out here in the sticks? That would be a sight worth seeing.'

  'So he hasn't been seen round here?'

  'Never. Who is he?'

  'Has nobody else you know spoken about him?' Winter asked.

  'Who could that be?'

  'I'm asking you.'

  'There is nobody else here,' said Carlström. 'Couldn't you see that for yourselves? Did you see any other houses near here?'

  'So you haven't spoken to anybody else about a stranger in the vicinity?'

  'The only strangers I've seen for a very long time are you two,' said Carlström.

  'Do you know Gustav Smedsberg?' Ringmar asked.

  'Eh?'

  'Do you know anybody called Gustav Smedsberg?'

  'No.'

  'His mother grew up round here,' said Winter. 'Gerd.' He hadn't asked Smedsberg senior about her maiden name. 'She married Georg Smedsberg from the neighbouring parish.' Although it's hardly the right name for it, Winter thought. It's too far away.

  'I've never heard anything about that,' said Carlström.

  'The Smedsberg lad knows this Aryan Kaite who has disappeared,' said Ringmar.

  'Really?'

  'And these boys have both been violently attacked,' said Winter. 'That's why we're here.'

  He tried to explain about the branding iron. They were very curious to see what one looked like. And they'd heard that he might have one. It would help them to decide on the plausibility.

  'The plausibility of what?'

  'Of the assumption that it was used as a weapon.'

  Carlström looked as though he very much doubted that.

  'Who's said that I mark my animals with an iron?'

  'We asked around a bit in the village.'

  'Was it Smedsberg?'

  Does he mean the young one or the old one? Ringmar and Winter looked at each other. He remembered the name he'd never heard of before.

  'Georg Smedsberg thought he'd seen you using one of those irons ages ago,' said Winter.

  'Is that him in the car outside?'

  The old man sees more than you'd think. Winter was very tempted to turn round and look out of the window to see if Smedsberg's silhouette could be seen in the car.

  'Why doesn't he come in?' said Carlström.

  'He only showed us how to get here,' said Winter.

  Carlström muttered something they couldn't catch.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Winter.

  'Yes, that could well be,' said Carlström.

  'What could?' asked Winter.

  'That I branded a few cattle.' He looked up, straight at Winter. 'It wasn't illegal.' He gestured with his hand. 'They don't like it nowadays, but nobody said anything then.'

  'No, no, we only wanted to see what—'

  'I don't have the iron any more,' said Carlström. 'I had two at one time, but not now.'

  'Have you sold them?'

  'I sold one twenty-five years ago to an auctioneer, so you can try and track that one down.' One of his eyes glinted, as if the very thought amused him.

  'What about the other one?'

  'Pinched.'

  'Pinched?' said Winter. 'You mean it's been stolen?'

  'This autumn,' said Carlström. 'That was why I was a bit cautious just now when you came knocking at my door. I was going to ask if that's what you'd come for, but then I thought it was better to be a bit cautious.'

  'What happened?' asked Ringmar. 'The theft.'

  'I don't know. I went out early one morning and tools were missing from the shed.'

  'Several tools?'

  'Quite a few. New and old.'

  'Including your marking iron?'

  'Who would want that?'

  'So the marking iron was stolen, was it?'

  'That's what I've just said, isn't it?'

  'When exactly did this happen?'

  'This autumn, like I said.'

  'Do you know what day it was?'

  'I think probably not. I was going to go into the village that day, I think, and it's not every day I do that . . .'

  They waited.

  'I'm not sure,' said Carlström. 'I'll have to think about it.'

  'Have you had any break-ins before?' Winter asked.

  'Never.'

  'Did you report it to the police?'

  'For a few old tools?' Carlström looked surprised, or possibly just bored stiff.

  'How many tools?'

  'Not many.'

  'Do you know exactly?'

  'Do you want a list?'

  'No,' said Winter. 'That's not necessary yet.' Ringmar looked at him but said nothing.

  'Have you heard if anybody else has been burgled?' Ringmar asked.

  'No,' said Carlström.

  We'll have to check with the neighbours, Winter thought. The problem is, there aren't any neighbours.

  'Do you live alone here, Mr Carlström?'

  'You can see that, can't you?'

  'But we can't know for sure,' said Ringmar.

  'All on my own.'

  'Have you got any children?'

  'Eh?'

  'Have you got any children?' Winter asked again.

  'No.'

  'Have you been married?'

  'Never. Why are you asking that?'

  'Thank you very much for your time, Mr Carlström,' said Winter, getting to his feet.

  'Is that it, then?'

  'Thank you for your help,' said Winter. 'If you hear anything about your tools I'd be grateful if you could let us know.' He handed over a business card. 'My number's on the card.'

  Carlström handled it as if it were an item of china a thousand years old.

  'Especially if you hear anything about that branding iron,' said Winter.