Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'Then I'll ask it again. Have children been picked up by a man at playgrounds? Or simply approached? Are the police aware of any such cases?'

  'I can't answer that question at this moment for reasons connected with the case,' said Winter.

  'Well that's a pretty clear answer, isn't it?' The male reporter looked at Winter. He was wearing a leather jacket and had long black hair and a black moustache, and his whole body language expressed an attitude that Winter often came across in journalists, a sort of rueful arrogance that suggested that the truth wouldn't make anybody happier, just as lies wouldn't make people all that much unhappier. Perhaps in fact it was better to take lies with you on a journey that wasn't anything special, and life wasn't anything special.

  'So there is a link?' the reporter persisted.

  'No comment,' said Winter.

  'Have children been kidnapped from day nurseries here in Gothenburg?' asked another reporter, a woman Winter didn't recognise as an individual, but was familiar with as a type.

  Winter shook his head.

  'What kind of a bloody cover-up is this?' shouted a young man who seemed to have wandered into the room from a film. With exaggerated gestures he started making his way towards the stage where Winter had hitherto been the only entertainer. 'What are you trying to conceal from the general public?'

  'We are not concealing anything,' said Winter.

  'If you'd placed your cards on the table from the start, Micke Johansson might not have been kidnapped,' said the young reporter, who was now only a metre away from Winter, and looked up at him. Winter could see that the man's eyes were bloodshot, and it might not have been only from excitement.

  'Cards on the table? This is not a game of cards,' said Winter.

  He also thought about the man in the checked cap who had been filming the children as they crossed the football pitch. They had good enlargements now, but he had waited before making the pictures public. Had that been a mistake? He hadn't thought so thus far. The flood of tip-offs would be even more overwhelming and difficult to oversee, running off in all directions. Who would be able to absorb all this, sort it, filter it? He didn't have the resources, the staff. Perhaps he could borrow this group of people in front of him, a one-off measure. No, he didn't have the time to coach them.

  'I declare this press conference closed,' he said, and turned his back on the flood of questions that always came when the event was over.

  33

  Winter tried to talk to Bengt Johansson. There was a framed photograph of Micke on the desk, and also a PC.

  Micke was climbing up a frame with an expression on his face suggesting that he wanted to climb up, up, up. There was wind in his hair and in the trees behind him. He was wearing a jumpsuit, blue or possibly black. His tongue was visible between his narrow lips.

  Johansson sat on his swivel chair swaying back and forth, back and forth as if he were merely a part of an intricate balancing system. Which was what he was, in a way, Winter thought. He's swaying on that chair in order to keep his balance, whatever good that might do him.

  Johansson had only just come home from hospital.

  It hadn't been easy to talk to him, but it had been necessary.

  Now more was expected of him.

  Johansson looked up.

  'Is it true that this has happened before?' he asked.

  'What do you mean?'

  'That Micke isn't the first.'

  He's forgotten, Winter thought. Repressed it.

  'I told you at the hospital about another boy. Simon Waggoner. And about our suspicions regarding a man who makes contact with children.'

  'Hmm.'

  'I asked you if you'd seen or heard anything that you maybe didn't think twice about at the time, but that stayed in your mind. Anything suspicious.'

  'Yes, yes.' He sounded very weary.

  Now he had seen the newspapers. Winter saw a newspaper on the floor, folded up, or rather scrunched up behind Johansson. The words of the press weigh more heavily than mine. It becomes clearer when it's written down.

  'And now I want to ask you again,' said Winter. 'Is there anything that has occurred to you?'

  Open questions. He felt that to some extent he was in the same interview position as with a child. Bengt Johansson was traumatised, his own private hell had fallen in on him.

  'What might that be?' asked Johansson.

  'Well, for example, have you noticed a stranger talking to Micke? Or trying to talk to him?'

  'You'll have to ask the day nursery staff about that.'

  'We have done.'

  'And?'

  'No. Nobody noticed anything.'

  'I'm with Micke for nearly all the rest of the time,' said Johansson. 'It's him and me.' He looked up. 'The one you should talk to is Car . . . Carolin. My ex-wife.' He looked again at the photograph. 'Jesus Christ . . .' He buried his face in his hands. 'If only I'd known, if only I'd realised. Oh God!'

  'If only you'd known what?' Winter asked.

  'What she . . . what she intended to do.' He looked up again at Winter with his bloodshot eyes. 'That she'd intended . . . that she wanted . . .' And he burst out crying. His shoulders started to shake, slightly at first, then more and more violently.

  Winter stood up and walked over to him, kneeled down and embraced the man as best he could, and it was sufficient. He could feel the man's movements echoing in his own body, his spasms, his noises close to his own face. He could feel the man's tears on his own cheek. It's part of the job. This is the work I've chosen to do. This is one of the better moments. It's not much of a consolation, but it's an emotion shared with a fellow human being.

  Bengt Johansson gradually calmed down. Winter continued to embrace him, waist-hold, half-nelson, whatever – he didn't need any macho excuse. The man snorted loudly.

  Neither of them spoke. Winter could hear the sound of passing cars. There was an overhead street light outside and something had broken and the light was flashing at intervals through the open venetian blinds.

  Johansson disentangled himself.

  'I'm . . . I'm sorry,' he said.

  'For what?' Winter asked, rising to his feet. 'Would you like something to drink?'

  Johansson nodded.

  Winter went to the kitchen that was next to the bedroom they had been sitting in: Johansson's king-size bed, the desk, the photograph of Micke.

  Winter took a glass from the draining board, waited until the tap water turned cold, filled the glass and took it in to Johansson, who drank deeply and said:

  'I don't think I can cope with this.'

  'I understand that you are going through hell,' said Winter.

  'How can you understand? Nobody can understand.' Johansson shook his head. 'How can you understand?'

  Winter stroked the right side of his head with his right hand. His hair felt cool, like something that was a secure part of himself. Something of that sort. He could see Angela's face seconds after they had hacked their way into that horrific flat where she'd been held captive. His thoughts when she had disappeared, his thoughts about her thoughts when she was held there. Not knowing what she had been feeling, what she had been thinking. That had been the worst part of all.

  'I've been there,' he said.

  It was Halders who took the call, via Möllerström.

  'I gather you are looking for me.' It was Aryan Kaite's voice at the other end of the line.

  'That was a hell of a long piss break you took, milad,' said Halders. 'Three days.'

  Kaite mumbled something.

  'Can you reveal where you are?' asked Halders. 'Or are you still straining away somewhere?'

  'I'm at Josefin's place.' Halders heard a voice in the background. 'Josefin Stenv—'

  'Stay where you are,' said Halders. 'I'm coming.'

  'There's some . . . something else as well,' said Kaite.

  'Well?'

  'I have a mark. A mark on my head. I thought it was just a scar but Josefin says it looks like something.'

>   'Stay where you are, or there'll be all hell to pay,' said Halders.

  * * *

  Aneta was trying to interview a child, Bergenhem was trying to interview a child, Winter was trying to interview a missing child's father. Halders and Ringmar were in a police car. The heavens had closed again, or opened up if you preferred: rain was pelting down, whipped up by a northerly wind.

  'This is also what I'd call a hell of a long piss break,' said Halders, indicating the rain being swept off the windscreen by the wipers.

  'Break?' said Ringmar.

  'Ha ha.'

  Ringmar took a piece of paper out of his inside pocket. Halders saw something that looked like a crude drawing, which was what it was: Natanael Carlström's sketch of his farm's symbol.

  'Do you think it will be possible to detect a similarity?'

  Ringmar shrugged. Halders looked at him, at the streets flashing past them, then at Ringmar again.

  'How are you, Bertil?'

  'Eh?'

  'How are you feeling?'

  Ringmar didn't answer. He seemed to be perusing his notes, but when Halders looked more closely at the piece of paper he couldn't see any notes.

  'You give the impression of being extremely worried about something,' said Halders.

  'Drive straight through the roundabout, don't turn right,' said Ringmar. 'It's quicker that way.'

  Halders concentrated on driving. He continued in a southerly direction after the roundabout. They could see the blocks of flats on top of the hill. Josefin Stenvång lived in one of them.

  'Perhaps he's been there all the time,' said Ringmar.

  'No,' said Halders. 'The girl has also been uncontactable.

  You know that.'

  'That's only because we haven't felt up to looking for her,' said Ringmar.

  'Felt up to looking for her?' said Halders. 'I have.'

  'I haven't,' said Ringmar.

  'For Christ's sake, Bertil. What's the matter?'

  Ringmar put the piece of paper back in his inside pocket.

  'Birgitta's done a runner,' he said.

  'Done a runner? What do you mean, done a runner?'

  'I don't know,' said Ringmar. Did Fredrik know about Martin? he wondered. What did it matter? 'I'll have to prepare the Christmas ham myself.'

  Halders gave a laugh.

  'Sorry, Bertil.'

  'No, it's OK. I think it's funny as well. And I haven't even bought it yet.'

  'So you can relax,' said Halders. 'All the good ones have gone. You have to order six months in advance.'

  They drove into the rectangular car park. Ringmar unfastened his seatbelt.

  'You're right, that means I can relax,' he said.

  Aryan Kaite's face was shadowed with fear, if that was possible in a face like his, Halders thought. There were scars on the back of his head from his wound. But why not? There were always scars after wounds. This one could be a brand or an owner's mark, but it could also be part of the natural healing process, as far as Halders could see. Pia Fröberg had better take a look at it. The weapon might have come from Carlström's farm, but it might not. Still, Kaite had been out there in Godforgetmeland. Perhaps the old bloke didn't like darkies, and so he flew to Gothenburg on a broomstick and dived down from the sky and branded those bastards with his seal. That sounded logical enough, didn't it? Even without the broomstick bit.

  There is a connection between these frisky students, Halders had thought in the car on the way there. And the same thought occurred to him again.

  Josefin Stenvång was sitting next to Kaite and looked guilty, even more guilty.

  'It's a CRIME to fail to appear for an interrogation,' said Halders without bothering to sugar his words.

  Kaite said nothing.

  'Why?' asked Ringmar. He was standing beside Halders, who was sitting down.

  'I'm here now,' said Kaite. He looked up. 'I phoned you, didn't I?'

  'Why?' asked Halders.

  'Why what?'

  'Why did you phone? Why did you get in touch with us?'

  'It was these marks, Josefin said that they—'

  'Don't give me that CRAP about it being because of some marks on the back of your head or on YOUR ARSE,' said Halders. 'Perhaps you know that we are busy just now with a case concerning a missing child and WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME to sit here listening to you telling us A LOT OF SHIT.' He stood up. Josefin flinched; so did Kaite. 'I want to know HERE and NOW why you did a runner.'

  Kaite said nothing.

  'OK,' said Halders. 'You're coming home with us.'

  'Ho . . . home with you?'

  'To jail,' said Halders. 'On with your gloves and woolly hat.' He headed for the door. 'You'd better have a pee first, to be on the safe side.' He turned round and looked at the girl, who looked at Kaite. 'You as well, miss. You're coming as well.'

  She was the one who replied to the big question WHY:

  'He was scared,' she said.

  'Josefin!'

  Kaite started to stand up. Ringmar took a step forward. Stenvång looked at Halders. Halders saw that she had made up her mind. She looked at Kaite again.

  'Are you going to tell them, or shall I?' she said.

  'I don't want to finger anybody,' he said.

  'You're just being stupid,' she said. 'You're only making things worse for yourself.'

  'It's private,' said Kaite. 'It's got nothing to do with THAT.'

  'Will one of you kindly tell us what this is all about?' said Halders. 'If not, we're going to the station.'

  Kaite looked up, at something halfway between Halders and Ringmar.

  'I was out there,' he said. 'At . . . at Gustav's place.'

  'We know,' said Ringmar.

  'W . . . what? You know?'

  He looked genuinely surprised.

  'We've been there,' said Ringmar. 'We've spoken to Gustav's father.'

  Kaite still looked just as surprised. Why does he look like that? Ringmar thought. What's so surprising about our going to see old man Smedsberg? Or could it be that we have been talking to Smedsberg and still don't know? What don't we know?

  'He said that you and Gustav had been on the farm. And helped with the potato picking.'

  Kaite nodded. His face was different now.

  'Is that where you were when you disappeared?' asked Ringmar.

  Kaite looked up. Yet another expression: How the hell could you think that?