Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  She looked at the girl, who had left the armchair now. It was almost a miracle that she had sat on it for so long.

  Would Dad come back to the Sköld family, or what was left of it?

  'You told Mum that you went for a ride with a mister,' said Djanali.

  'Not ride,' said Ellen.

  'You didn't ride in the mister's car?'

  'Didn't ride,' said Ellen. 'Stood still.'

  'The car stood still?'

  She nodded.

  'Where was the car?' asked Djanali.

  'In the woods.'

  'Was it a big forest?'

  'No! At the playground.'

  'So the woods were at the playground?'

  'Yes.'

  'Was Victoria with you when you sat in the car?'

  Ellen nodded again.

  'Did Victoria want to drive the car?'

  'No, no.' Ellen burst out laughing. 'The car was big!'

  'Was the mister big as well?'

  The girl nodded.

  'Tell me how you met this mister,' said Djanali. Ellen was now standing next to the brightly coloured armchair. A split had developed in the cloud cover that lay like paper over Gothenburg as it waited for Christmas to arrive, and the split let through a beam of sunshine that shone in through the window and on to the back of the armchair. Ellen shouted in delight and pointed at the sunlight, which suddenly disappeared again as the clouds closed.

  'Tell me about when you met the mister with the car,' said Djanali.

  'He had sweeties,' said Ellen.

  'Did he give you some sweets?'

  She nodded.

  'Were they good?'

  She nodded.

  'What kind of sweets were they?'

  'Sweeties,' she said dismissively. Sweets were sweets.

  'Did you eat all the sweets?'

  She nodded again. They had vacuumed the place looking for sweet wrappings, but had naturally realised before long that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. This was a playground, a park, children, parents, sweets . . .

  'What did the mister say?'

  Ellen had started to dance around the room, like a ballerina. She didn't answer. It was a difficult question.

  'What did the mister say when he gave you the sweets?'

  She looked up.

  'You want a sweetie?'

  Djanali nodded, waited. Ellen performed a little pirouette.

  'Did he ask you anything else?'

  Ellen looked up again.

  'Ca-ca-ca-ca,' she said.

  Djanali waited.

  'Swee-swee-swee-swee,' said Ellen.

  Time for a break, Djanali thought. Past time, in fact. The girl is tired of all this. But Djanali had intended for Ellen to look at a few different men from around police headquarters – a twenty-year-old, a thirty-year-old, a forty-year-old, a fifty-year old and a sixty-year-old – and point out the one that looked most like the man in the car. If that was possible. This collection of Swedish manhood was so vain that the fifty-year-old wanted to be forty, and the forty-year-old would have looked devastated if she'd guessed his age correctly. Only the twenty-yearold and the sixty-year-old were unconcerned. That must mean something. Perhaps most for men. But men were only people. She must try to remember that.

  She'd also hoped that Ellen would be persuaded to draw something, including a car in some trees.

  'Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa,' said Ellen now, and danced around the room again.

  'Do you mean your papa, your dad?'

  The girl shook her head and said 'PA-PA-PA-PA!'

  'Did the mister say that he was your dad?'

  She shook her head again.

  'We-we-we-we,' she said.

  Djanali looked at the camera, as if seeking help.

  'Why did you say that?' she asked.

  The girl didn't understand the question; or perhaps it was Djanali who didn't understand if she'd understood.

  'Co-co-co-co,' said Ellen.

  Djanali said nothing. She tried to think.

  'Had a radio,' said the girl now. She'd moved closer to Djanali.

  'This man had a radio?'

  Ellen nodded.

  'Did he have a radio in the car?'

  Ellen nodded again.

  'Was the radio switched on?'

  Ellen nodded again.

  'Was the radio playing a song?'

  Ellen didn't answer.

  'Was there somebody singing on the radio?' Djanali asked.

  'The mister said rude words,' said Ellen. By now she was standing next to Djanali, who was sitting on the floor, which was colder than it looked.

  'Did the man in the car say rude words to you?'

  Ellen shook her head. But her expression was serious.

  'Who said rude words?' Djanali asked.

  'The radio,' said Ellen.

  'The radio said rude words?'

  Ellen nodded, solemnly.

  'Did a mister on the radio say rude words?'

  Ellen nodded again. That's not allowed.

  A man on the radio says rude words, Djanali thought. It's afternoon. Somebody is sitting in the studio and swearing. Does that happen every day? Can we trace the programme? And what do children think is a rude word? Often the same ones as we do. But children are so much better at picking up on them. But I won't ask her now what the words were.

  'I held my hands over Victoria's ears,' said Ellen.

  'So Victoria didn't hear anything?' asked Djanali.

  Ellen shook her head.

  'Has she said anything about it to you?'

  She shook her head again, more firmly this time.

  Djanali nodded.

  'Rude words,' said Ellen.

  'What did the mister in the car say about these rude words?' asked Djanali.

  Ellen didn't answer.

  'Did he think they were rude words as well?'

  Ellen didn't answer. There must be something in the question that's too subtle, Djanali thought. Or in her failure to answer. She's not answering because the man didn't make any comment about the rude words. He didn't hear them.

  'Bi-bi-bi-bi-bi-bi,' said Ellen.

  He made a cup of hot chocolate for the boy using the old-fashioned method: first he mixed the cocoa with milk and sugar, then he added the hot milk and stirred it with a spoon. In fact he had made an extra effort, and mixed the cocoa and sugar with cream!

  But the boy didn't want it. Would you believe it? He must be both hungry and thirsty, but he drank nothing, ate nothing, he cried and he shouted and it had been necessary to tell him that he had to be quiet because the neighbours needed to sleep.

  'Sl-sl-sl-sl,' he said. He tried again: 'Sl-sl-sleep. You must sleep.'

  He pointed at the chocolate, which was still quite hot.

  'Cho-cho-cho-chocolate.'

  He could hear his voice. It had to do with the excitement. He could feel a hot force gushing through his body.

  The boy had been asleep when he carried him into the building and then into the flat. He had driven him around the main circular roads and through the tunnels until he was so fast asleep that nothing would wake him up.

  The pushchair was in the car boot. It was safe there, just as the boy was safe here, he thought, nodding at the chocolate once again. Now he felt calmer, as if he had found peace and knew what was going to happen, maybe not right now, but shortly.

  He knew that the boy was called Micke.

  'Micke Johansson,' the boy had said. His pronunciation was good.

  'Drink now, Mick,' he said.

  'My name's Micke,' the boy said.

  He nodded.

  'Want to go home to Daddy.'

  'Don't you like it here?'

  'Want to go home to DADDY.'

  'Your dad's not at home.'

  'I want to go home to DADDY,' the boy said again.

  'It's not good, being at home with your daddy,' he said now. He wondered if the boy understood. 'It's not good at all.'

  'Where's Mummy?' asked Micke.

&nb
sp; 'Not good.'

  'Mummy and Daddy,' said Micke.

  'Not good,' he said again, because he knew what he was talking about.

  The boy was asleep. He'd made up a bed for him on the sofa. He had a Christmas tree that he was decorating. It was made of plastic, which was good because it didn't drop any needles. He was longing for the boy to wake up so that he could show him the pretty Christmas tree.

  He had phoned work and told them he was ill. He couldn't remember what he'd claimed was wrong with him, but the person who received his call simply said, 'Hurry up and get better,' as if it didn't matter if he was at work or not.

  He had shown the boy how you drive a tram, drawn the tracks, and the route he was most familiar with.

  That was where he always went back to when he wanted to talk to children and look after them. He had seen the places from his driver's window, and thought, this is where I want to come back to.

  Just as he liked to go back to the Nordstan shopping centre when there were a lot of people around, the brightly lit-up windows looking festive, the families, the mums and dads with children in pushchairs who THEY DIDN'T LOOK AFTER PROPERLY but just left in any old place, IN ANY OLD PLACE, as if the pushchair and its contents were a sack of rubbish that didn't matter. What would happen if he were not there? Like on this occasion? What would have happened to Micke?

  It hardly bore thinking about.

  When most of the Christmas holiday was over, he and Micke would go back there, like everybody else would be doing, Micke in his pushchair and him pushing it.

  He'd shown Micke his Billy Boy.

  The press conference was chaotic as usual, but worse than ever on this occasion: Winter could smell the stench of fear that would spread once the idio . . . the journalists assembled here had published their articles.

  There were honest people here. But what could they do? The moment they had left this room their influence would be over. Come to that, it was over even before they entered it.

  He saw Hans Bülow two rows back. So far Bülow had behaved honourably. It could be that his colleagues would consider him to be a traitor, but his willingness to compromise had made his articles better than the others, and more truthful, if such an expression still existed.

  Winter was dazzled by three flashbulbs going off simultaneously.

  He was on the stage once again. The show must go on.

  Birgersson had backed out at the last moment. An important meeting with the Chief of Police. At the same time as the press conference. I wonder what that means.

  'What traces have you found of the boy?' asked a woman who always asked the first questions at shows like this, and always wrote articles without an ounce, without a single gram of fact or credibility.

  'At the moment we are working on information we have received from the general public,' said Winter. 'A lot of people contacted us as a result of our appeal.'

  Far too many, he thought. Thousands of Gothenburgers had seen men with small boys in pushchairs, in cars, on the way into and out of buildings, into and out of shops, department stores, cars, trams, buses, even more than usual because so many people were out doing lastminute Christmas shopping.

  'Do you have a suspect?' asked the same woman, and somebody in the pack of journalists smirked in the same cynical way that Halders sometimes did.

  'No,' said Winter.

  'You must have a long register of paedophiles and others who interfere with children,' said the woman. 'Who abduct children.'

  'We don't know if Micke has been abducted,' said Winter.

  'Where is he, then?'

  'We don't know.'

  'So are you saying he got out of the pushchair and wandered off on his own?'

  'We don't know.'

  'What do you know?'

  'We know we are doing all we can to make sure this boy returns home,' said Winter.

  'So that his mother can abandon him again?' asked a male journalist sitting next to Hans Bülow.

  Winter said nothing.

  'If she hadn't left the boy, this business would never have happened, would it?'

  'No comment,' said Winter.

  'Where is she now?'

  'Any other questions?' said Winter without looking at the man.

  'How are you ever going to be able to find this boy?' asked a woman who was young and wore her hair in pigtails. It's a long time since I last saw an adult wearing pigtails, Winter thought. They make everybody look younger.

  'Like I said, we are doing everything we can,' he said.

  A man on the fourth row raised his hand. Here it comes, Winter thought. Until now this has been kept away from the public, but not any more. I can see it in his face. He knows.

  'What connection does this disappearance have with the other children who have been interfered with by a strange man this last month?' asked the man, and several heads turned to look at him.

  'I don't understand what you mean,' said Winter.

  'Isn't it a fact that several children have been approached by a man at playgrounds in various parts of Gothenburg?'

  'There have be—'

  'In one case a little girl was actually kidnapped and was eventually found with injuries,' said the man.

  Boy, Winter thought. Not girl. He said nothing.

  'Why don't you answer my question?'

  'It sounded more like a statement to me,' said Winter.