Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'I didn't think it was significant.' He looked at Ringmar, who could see a sort of cold intelligence in his eyes.

  'What do you think now, then?' asked Ringmar.

  Smedsberg shrugged.

  'Why didn't you want to admit that you knew somebody who'd been assaulted in a way that you yourself were very nearly attacked?'

  'I didn't think it was all that important. And I still think it was just coincidence.'

  'Really?'

  'The row I had with Aryan had nothing to do with anything . . . anything like this.'

  'What did it have to do with?'

  'Like I said before. He'd misunderstood something.'

  'What had he misunderstood?'

  'Look, mate, why should I answer that question?'

  'What had he misunderstood?' said Ringmar again.

  'Er, that he had something going with Josefin.' Gustav Smedsberg seemed to smile, or at least give a little grin. 'But he hadn't asked her.'

  'Where do you fit in, then?'

  'She wanted to be with me.'

  'And what did you want?'

  'I wanted to be free.'

  'So why did you have a row with Kaite, then?' Ringmar asked.

  'No idea. You'd better ask him.'

  'We can't do that, can we? He's disappeared.'

  'Oh yes, that's true.'

  'The girl has vanished as well. Josefin Stenvång.'

  'Yes, that's odd.'

  'You don't seem to be particularly worried.'

  Smedsberg didn't answer. His face gave nothing away. Ringmar could hear a voice outside in the hall, a voice he didn't recognise.

  'You and Kaite were such good friends that you both went to your home to help out with the potato picking,' said Ringmar.

  Smedsberg still didn't answer.

  'Didn't you?' said Ringmar.

  'So you've been to my dad's, have you?' said Smedsberg. All I need to do is to mention Die Heimat, Ringmar thought, and the lad's back home again on that God-forsaken plain.

  'Didn't you?' he said again.

  'If you say so,' said Smedsberg.

  'Why didn't you tell us about your friendship with Aryan Kaite?' Ringmar asked.

  Smedsberg didn't answer.

  'What did your dad think about him?' Ringmar asked.

  'Leave the old man out of this.'

  'Why?'

  'Just leave him out.'

  'He's already in,' said Ringmar. 'And I have to ask you about another matter that is linked to this business.'

  Ringmar asked about Natanael Carlström's foster son.

  'Yes, there was one, I guess,' said Smedsberg.

  'Do you know him?'

  'No. He moved out before I – well, before I grew up.'

  'Have you seen him?'

  'No. What are you getting at?'

  Ringmar could see that the lad no longer looked bored stiff. His body language had changed. He was more tense.

  'Do you know his name?'

  'No. You'll have to ask old man Carlström.'

  Ringmar stood up. Smedsberg followed suit.

  'Please remain seated. I just have to stretch my leg for a second. I think it's gone to sleep.' Ringmar sat down again. 'You were the one who mentioned that branding iron. Marking iron. We've looked into it, but didn't get anywhere until we paid a visit to Carlström.'

  'Why did you go there?'

  'It was your dad who thought that Carlström might have owned an iron like that.'

  'Oh.'

  'Which he had.'

  'Oh.'

  'Did you have one on your farm?'

  'Not as far as I know.'

  'You said you did before.'

  'Did I?'

  'Were you making it up?' Ringmar asked.

  'No. What do you mean?'

  'You said you used to have irons like that.'

  'I must have got it wrong,' said Smedsberg.

  'How could you have done that?'

  'It must have come out wrong. I must have meant that I'd heard about irons like that.'

  We'll come back to that, Ringmar thought. I don't know what to think, and I don't think the lad does either. We'll have to come back to it.

  'Carlström had one,' said Ringmar. 'Or maybe two.'

  'Really?'

  'You seem to be interested.'

  'What am I supposed to say?'

  Ringmar leaned forward.

  'It's been stolen.'

  Smedsberg was about to come out with another 'really', but controlled himself.

  'It's vanished,' said Ringmar. 'Just like Aryan Kaite has vanished. And he has a wound that looks as if it might have been caused by a weapon like that. And that wound might be able to tell us something.'

  'Isn't it a bit far-fetched for you to meet an old man who's had an iron like that stolen, and that it should turn out to be precisely the one that was used?' said Smedsberg.

  'That's what we're wondering as well,' said Ringmar. 'And that's where you come in, Gustav.' Ringmar stood up and Smedsberg remained seated. 'If it hadn't been for you, we'd never have made that journey out into the country.'

  'I didn't need to say anything at all about a branding iron,' said Smedsberg.

  'But you did.'

  'Am I going to get fucked up for that, then?'

  Ringmar didn't respond.

  'I'll be happy to join a search party for Aryan if that's what you need help with,' said Smedsberg.

  'Why a search party?'

  'Eh?'

  'Why should we send a search party out to look for Aryan?'

  'I've no idea.'

  'But that's what you said.'

  'Come on, that's just something you say. I mean, a search party, for Christ's sake, call it what the hell you like when you're looking for somebody.'

  'Search parties don't work in big cities,' said Ringmar.

  'Oh.'

  'They work better in the countryside,' said Ringmar.

  'Really?'

  'Is he somewhere out there, Gustav?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'Where is he, Gustav?'

  'For Christ's . . . I don't know.'

  'What's happened to him?'

  Smedsberg stood up.

  'I want to leave now. This is ridiculous.'

  Ringmar looked at the boy, who still seemed to be freezing cold in his thin clothes. Ringmar could lock him up for the night, but it was too soon for that. Or perhaps too late. And the evidence was too thin.

  'I'll show you out, Gustav.'

  29

  Winter phoned Anette right away, from the nursery manager's office. She was at home and Winter could hear the humming of the extractor fan in the background. Or perhaps it was a hair dryer. It stopped.

  Camera? Yes, what about it? Yes, she had it to hand. The film wasn't finished. Yes, he could come and collect it.

  Winter sent a car to Anette's flat. The camera really was a very simple one. One of the technical division's labs had the film developed and copied after Winter had returned to his office.

  He had the photographs on the desk in front of him. They hadn't been taken by an expert photographer. Everything was overexposed and slightly blurred. All of them were of children, mostly in a location Winter recognised: the grounds of Elsa's day nursery. Some of the pictures featured members of staff he knew.

  The park, the football pitch. A long line of children.

  A man with a video camera could be seen in the background, perhaps thirty metres behind them. His face was hidden by the camera. That particular picture was sharper than the others, as if it had been taken by a different photographer. The man was wearing a cap. Winter couldn't make out the colour. He was wearing a jacket of the type you often see worn by elderly men who buy their clothes at charity shops. It was impossible to see what kind of trousers he was wearing. More careful copying was necessary, and a bigger enlargement.

  Anette had taken two pictures in which the man was visible in the background, but not in succession.

  In the second on
e he had turned his back on the camera and was evidently walking away. The jacket could be seen more clearly. It could easily have been made in the 1950s.

  Perhaps the trousers as well. You couldn't see his shoes, the grass was up to the man's calves. Nor could Winter see the video camera.

  'Has he still got it glued to his fizzog?' asked Halders, who was poring over the photograph. 'The video camera, I mean.'

  They were meeting in the smaller conference room: Winter, Ringmar, Halders, Djanali.

  'It's not visible in any case,' said Winter.

  'He dresses like an old man, but he's not an old man,' said Djanali.

  'What exactly does an old man look like?' Halders asked.

  'You're not going to goad me into going on about that,' said Djanali.

  'But seriously, what is characteristic of an old man?' said Ringmar.

  'He doesn't have the bearing of an old man,' said Djanali. 'He's just chosen to dress like one.'

  'Clothes maketh the man,' said Halders.

  'The question is what this particular man has done,' said Ringmar, looking at the photograph that could possibly feature the abductor. He felt strangely excited.

  'He was filming the children,' said Winter.

  'That's not a crime,' said Ringmar, rubbing one eye. Winter could see tension in Ringmar's face, more noticeable than usual. 'There are normal people who take films of anything in sight.' Ringmar looked up. There was a red patch over one eye. 'He doesn't have to be a paedophile or kidnapper or child molester.'

  'But he could be,' said Djanali. 'We have a crime on our hands. And he could be the one who did it.'

  'We'll have to work on the picture,' said Winter. 'Or pictures, rather. Perhaps it's somebody we can recognise from the archives.'

  'The camera looks new. It doesn't fit in with the dress code,' said Halders.

  Nobody was sure if he was being serious or not.

  It was so crowded that it was difficult to move your feet. A teeming mass of people, and he was sweating, and if it hadn't been for that woman with the pushchair ten metres ahead of him, he wouldn't have been here at all, no, certainly not. He'd have been at home, on his own.

  It had looked as if the child was sleeping when they were outside Nordstan. Then they entered the shopping mall, the black sea of people walking, walking, walking, shopping, shopping, shopping.

  'The day before the day before the day before the day!' somebody yelled, or something of the sort. But what did he care about Christmas? Personally? Christmas was a time for children. He wasn't a child. But he had been one, and he knew.

  It was a good idea. He'd had it before, but now it was stronger than ever. Christmas was a time for children. He was on his own and wasn't a child. But he knew what children liked at Christmas time. He was nice and he could do everything that would make Christmas really enjoyable for a child. Really enjoyable!

  He wasn't at all sure that the woman in front of him could do that. He didn't think that the child lying asleep in an awkward position found the woman fun. She didn't look fun. He'd seen her before, when she had come to the day nursery and he'd been standing there, watching, or maybe just walking past. In fact he'd seen her several times.

  He had seen the boy. And he'd seen a man who might have been the boy's father.

  He'd filmed the boy.

  He'd filmed all of them.

  The woman had paused outside Nordstan to smoke a cigarette. He didn't like that. She had jerked her head back and looked as if she were drinking the smoke. He didn't think that she lived with this child. It might have been her boy, but he wasn't sure.

  Somebody bumped into him, then somebody else. He couldn't see the pushchair, but then it came into view again. He wasn't bothered about the woman at all, to be honest.

  He'd followed them when they left the day nursery. He could collect his car later.

  The weather had turned colder, but he didn't feel cold. He thought the boy was cold: the woman hadn't tucked him up properly.

  That didn't matter so much now, it was warm indoors. She was standing in front of one of the big stores that sold everything it was pos-sible to sell. The doors were open and as wide as sluice gates and people were flooding in and out like torrents of black water, out and in, out and in.

  He saw the sculpture, the one he admired. It looked so . . . so free, so liberated. Sculpted figures flying down from the sky. They were free. They were flying.

  He looked round and noticed that she'd parked the pushchair next to where they sold perfume and hair lotion and lipstick and all that kind of stuff, or maybe it was clothes, but he hadn't checked very carefully. Yes, it was clothes in fact, perfume was a bit further on. He knew that really.

  He could see the boy's feet sticking out, or one of them at least. She seemed to be standing there looking at the boy or maybe at something on the floor next to the pushchair. Maybe it didn't make any difference to her. He moved to one side, out of the way of people flooding in and out. He was standing ten metres away from her. She didn't see him. She moved the pushchair closer to one of the counters. She looked round. He didn't understand what she was doing.

  She walked away. He saw her go to another counter, and then he lost sight of her. He waited. He could see the pushchair, but nobody else was looking at it. He was standing guard while the woman was away doing God only knows what.

  He kept watch. People walking past no doubt thought the pushchair belonged to somebody at one of the nearby counters. Maybe someone who worked there. He looked round but there was no sign of the woman. He checked his watch, but he didn't know what time it had been when she left and so he didn't know how long she'd been away.

  He took a few paces towards the pushchair, and then a few more.

  When Ringmar got home, he could feel that there was something seriously wrong. Even as he took his shoes off in the hall he could sense that the silence was heavier than usual. He hadn't heard a silence like that before in this house. Or had he?

  'Birgitta?'

  No answer, and there was nobody there when he went to the kitchen, up the stairs, through the rooms. He didn't switch on the lights upstairs as the neighbour's illuminations were quite enough to fill the rooms with a yellow day-before-the-day-before-the-day-beforethe- day glow.