Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'Switch the engine off for a minute, Jerner. What the hell's the matter with you? Didn't you hear that I'd like to have a word with you?'

  Have a word. What word would you like? How about arsehole?

  'If you don't listen to what I have to say, you could find yourself in deep trouble,' said the man, who was still there beside the car. Jerner had switched off the engine. But that person who kept calling himself the boss was still there. What did he want? He was babbling on. 'The woman phoned HQ right away on her mobile and they passed the message on to me. She says you called her disgusting names and acted in a strange way.'

  Disgusting names? Whose behaviour had really been disgusting?

  He drove off, didn't even bother to glance in the rearview mirror.

  26

  Winter kicked off his shoes and dropped his overcoat on the floor where he stood. Angela was watching.

  'Pick it up!' he said, pointing at the coat.

  'Not so loud. Elsa's asleep. She had a touch of stomach ache and was a bit of a handful.' Angela looked at the overcoat, then at him. 'You don't have the right voice for a bully.'

  He headed for the kitchen.

  'Are there any leftovers?'

  'You'll have to go sleuthing in the pantry.'

  'We don't have a pantry.'

  They were sitting at the kitchen table, as ever. Winter was thinking about Smedsberg's kitchen, not to mention Carlström's combi-variation: cowshed and kitchenette.

  'What was it like out in the country?'

  'Flat.'

  'Did that surprise you?'

  'Yes, it did in fact. Sometimes it was like being at sea.'

  'There's an illness you can get out on the prairies,' said Angela. 'Simply by living there.'

  Winter thought about the men they had met that day.

  'That doesn't surprise me.'

  'In the USA they call it "The Sickness".'

  'Not bad. Why can't all illnesses have nice simple names like that?'

  'People go mad in states like Wyoming and Montana. In those enormous prairies there are no reference points. All you can see is a vast flat plain and the horizon.'

  'Like being at sea, as I said.'

  Angela poured more tea.

  'There's nothing to look at, no trees, no houses, no roads with cars or buses. People lose their sense of direction. Lose their senses in the end.'

  'So all you'd need to stay sane would be an outside loo in sight?' said Winter.

  'That would be enough, certainly.'

  'The people living where we were today seem odd, but there are a few outside loos scattered around,' said Winter.

  'Did you find the boy? The medical student?'

  'No. And nobody expected we would.'

  'Why did you go there, then?'

  He didn't answer, poured out some more tea, buttered another slice of rye bread, placed a piece of Stilton on it, cut a wedge from his apple.

  'Did you just need to get away for a while?' Angela asked.

  'Something has happened out there,' said Winter.

  'What do you mean?'

  He took a sip of tea and a bite of his open sandwich. The radio on the work surface was churning out the latest weather forecast: colder, clearer, a probability of snow for Christmas.

  'Something has happened out there,' he said again, sounding serious. 'I had a strange feeling in one of the houses we visited.'

  'What are you basing that feeling on?'

  'The Sickness,' he said, grinning over his tea cup.

  'Are you pulling my leg?'

  'Of course.'

  But he wasn't pulling anybody's leg. Angela had seen that, and later, much later, he had said so, after they had made love and he had got up to fetch two glasses of mineral water. He'd longed for a Corps, but hadn't had the strength to go out on to the balcony.

  'You know that I have a sort of intuitive ability,' he'd said. 'You know that.'

  'What was it, then?'

  'When Bertil and I drove home, we agreed that one of those elderly men, the older one, was lying through his teeth. You can tell. I mean, it's our job to decide if people are telling the truth or lying.'

  'Does it always matter?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'People lie for different reasons. I can see that myself. Some just come out with a lie, without knowing in advance that they're going to lie. But it doesn't change anything. It doesn't turn them into criminals. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are concealing something horrific.'

  'No, but that was precisely the feeling I had out there. That there was something – something major that was being concealed. Something horrendous has happened. Do you understand? The old man we spoke to had something in his past that he didn't want us to know about.' Winter took a drink of the mineral water. 'But I also think the other one, young Smedsberg's father, was lying. I don't know what to think about it. I don't even know if it's relevant. Presumably not.'

  'He probably got nervous when two upper-class chief inspectors turned up from the big city.'

  'We're not upper class.'

  'Really? Were you wearing overalls?'

  'Of course. Bought them in the village shop.'

  He emptied his glass. He could see her profile.

  'Do you think he had that boy Kaite shut up somewhere?'

  'Hidden away? No.'

  'What, then?'

  'I don't know, like I said. But I do know we need to talk to the other old man again, Carlström. Before that, though, I need to speak to young Smedsberg.'

  He noticed that she nodded slightly.

  'At the same time we need to talk to these children, and have another word with their parents.'

  'It's awful,' she said.

  'It could be even worse than we think,' he said.

  She didn't answer.

  'I've tried to think this one through, looking for a possible pattern that might become clearer if we get some more facts, memories. Pictures. Objects. Things. If there is a pattern, it probably won't make matters any easier. And if it gets more complicated it will also become . . . more horrendous.' He stretched out his hand, rubbed her shoulder, which was firm but soft. 'Can you see the way my thoughts are going?'

  'That it will get worse,' she said.

  'Yes.'

  'That it could run and run.'

  'Yes.'

  'What can be done, though?' she asked. 'Lock up the children? Have armed guards posted at day nurseries and children's playgrounds, and schools?'

  'It might be enough if there were more staff.'

  'Ha!'

  'But there's no hundred per cent certain way of stopping anybody who's determined to hurt somebody.'

  'So all you can do is wait?'

  'Certainly not.'

  'What would happen if the press announced that there was somebody out there? Waiting. Or preparing himself.'

  'It wouldn't be good,' he said.

  'But what if you have to inform the press? What if you're forced to put the general public in the picture?'

  'There are various ways of doing that.'

  'I've seen that little boy, Waggoner.' He could hear her breathing. 'How is it possible? Eh? What makes somebody do something like that?'

  How is it possible to be rational and clear in reply to a question like that? he thought.

  'I know there simply isn't a rational and clear answer to a question like that, but it has to be asked, don't you think?' He could see that she was looking at him now. He could see a glint in her eye. 'Don't you think? Why? You have to ask why?'

  'The answer to that question is what we're always looking for,' he said.

  'Is it enough?'

  'Discovering why? I don't know. Sometimes there is nothing.'

  'No reason, you mean?'

  'Yes. What is the reason why somebody commits a serious crime? Is there only one reason? Is it a series of different reasons? Are they linked? Is it possible to analyse them logically? Should one even try to think logically if the crime, or c
rimes, is driven by chance and a lack of logic? Or calculated chaos, if there is such a thing.' He looked at her again. 'There could be so many possibilities. It could be pure lunacy, acute mental illness. Bad memories. Revenge.'

  'Is that usual? Revenge?'

  'Yes. Revenge on somebody who has treated you badly. Directly or indirectly. Yes, it certainly is usual. It can go a long way back.'

  'A long way back in time?'

  'A long way back,' said Winter again. 'The past casts shadows. You know that. It happens so often. To find the answers you have to pin down a then. What happens now has its origins in that then.'

  'So that could apply in this case as well? With the assaults on those students? As well as the abuse of the boy?'

  'Yes, certainly.'

  'They are two different things, but still.'

  'Hmm.'

  'You mean they're not two different things?'

  'Well . . .'

  'You're hesitating.'

  'No, I'm thinking about this searching backwards through time. Digging. Looking for answers.'

  'You and your colleagues are acting like investigative journalists, you mean?'

  'No. More like archaeologists. Archaeologists of crime.'

  27

  The 'Wanted' message sent out in connection with Aryan Kaite attracted a big response, but none of the tips led them to him, nor him to them.

  'Anything new from the African clubs?' asked Fredrik Halders as they drove up through the hilly eastern suburbs to his house.

  'No,' said Aneta Djanali. 'He's not a member. They know who he is, of course, but he's not on the membership rolls.'

  'Are you a member?'

  'Am I a member of what, exactly?'

  'The Ougadougou Club.'

  'What about if I were to take you to Ougadougou, Fredrik? I sometimes think you dream about Ougadougou. You're always talking about the place.'

  'Isn't everybody?' asked Halders.

  Aneta Djanali was born in the Eastern General Hospital in Gothenburg of African parents, immigrants from Burkina Faso who had left their homeland when it was still called Upper Volta. Her father had trained in Sweden as an engineer, and had returned home when Aneta was about to become an adult. She had chosen to stay in Sweden. Of course. Her father now lived alone in a little house in the capital, and his house was the same bleached colour as the sand surrounding the city. Everything there was hot, biting air (or blue frozen air), and people always cherished the same dreams about water that never came. Aneta had been back, if that was the right expression. It was a foreign country as far as she was concerned. She had immediately felt at home, but no more than that – as if the expression East, west, home's best had lost its meaning. She knew that she would never be able to live there: but nevertheless, it would always be home.

  She parked outside Halders' house, where Advent candles were illuminating one of the windows.

  'If you like I could collect Hannes and Magda,' she said as he got out of the car.

  'I thought you had lots to do?'

  'That can wait.' She gave a laugh. 'It was mainly tapioca roots and dried bananas, and I've got enough to last me anyway.'

  'But what if your club's going to throw a party tonight?'

  'But what if people start taking your racist jokes seriously, Fredrik?'

  'I daren't even think about that,' he said.

  'Would you like me to collect them, then?'

  'Yes please. I can make dinner for you.' He turned round with the door half-open. 'I've got sand cakes.'

  'Yes, OK,' said Djanali, and drove off.

  Winter was in Birgersson's office. His boss was smoking in the semi-darkness.

  The pillars holding up Ullevi Stadium were splayed out behind him, against a clear evening sky. Winter could see a star.

  'What are you going to do at Christmas, Erik?'

  'Spain. Costa del Sol. If I can get away.'

  'I hope you can't.'

  'I know what you're saying, but even so I don't understand.'

  Birgersson grunted and tapped the ash off his cigarette.

  'When are you going to start interviewing the children?' he asked.

  'Tomorrow.'

  'It's going to be hard.'

  Winter didn't answer. He leaned forward and lit a Corps with a match, which he let burn for a few seconds. Birgersson smiled.

  'Thank you for the Christmas atmosphere,' he said.

  'They speak pretty well,' said Winter, letting the smoke float up. 'More or less like adults.'

  Birgersson grunted again.

  'We've got quite a lot to go on,' said Winter.

  'In the old days, which were not so long ago, we'd have said that a child was burnt out after one interview,' said Birgersson. 'It wouldn't be possible to extract any more information after that.' He studied the smoke from Winter's cigarillo. 'But let's allow the memories to mature. The images.'

  'Mmm.'

  'Let's assume for the moment that all this actually occurred,' said Birgersson. 'That what the children say is true. That these incidents did happen as described.'

  'Simon Waggoner hasn't said anything,' said Winter.

  'But in his case, we know,' said Birgersson. 'There's no doubt about it.'

  Winter thought.

  'He has something that entices them,' he said.

  'Is it just one thing? The same thing every time?'

  'Let's assume that for the time being,' said Winter.

  'Go on.'

  'And they have something that he wants.'

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'He's out to get something from these children. A thing. A souvenir he can take with him.'

  'He wants them for himself, is that it? He wants . . . the children.'

  'Let's leave that for the moment,' said Winter. He drew at his cigarillo again. He could still see the star, and another one. It was as if he could see more clearly when he thought as he was thinking now. 'He takes something from them. He wants to take it home with him. Or to have it in his possession.'