'Is this something to do with Gustav?' asked Ringmar.
Kaite didn't answer.
'Is he the one who threatened you?'
Kaite nodded.
'Have you felt threatened by Gustav Smedsberg?'
Kaite nodded again.
'I want to hear an answer,' said Ringmar.
'Yes,' said Kaite.
Ringmar could see relief in the boy's face now. It was a reaction he'd often seen before. But his face revealed not only relief. There was something else as well. He couldn't quite make out what it was. He recognised it, but he would have to think a bit more about what it stood for.
'Is that why you've been hiding away?'
'What?'
'Why have you kept out of the way? Why have you been in hiding?'
'He was SCARED,' said Stenvång. 'He's already said so.'
'I'm asking Aryan,' said Ringmar calmly. Halders glared the girl into silence. 'Why did you keep out of the way for three days even though you knew we were looking for you, Aryan?'
'I was scared,' he said.
'Were you scared of Gustav?'
'Yes.'
'Why?' asked Ringmar.
'Something . . . something happened out there,' said Kaite.
'Out there? Do you mean at Gustav's place? At the farm?' Talk about leading questions, Ringmar thought.
Kaite nodded.
'What happened out there?' asked Ringmar. Here it comes, he thought. Now we'll solve this business, or parts of it.
'He hit him,' said Kaite. 'He hit him.'
'What do you mean? Who hit who?'
'Gustav's dad. He hit Gustav,' said Kaite. 'I saw it.'
'You saw Gustav being beaten by his father?'
'Yes.'
'How?'
'What do you mean?'
'What happened?'
'He just hit him. On the head. I saw it.' He looked up, at Halders and Ringmar and then at the girl. 'He saw that I'd seen.'
'Who saw?'
'Gustav.'
'Gustav?'
Kaite mumbled something they couldn't hear.
'What did you say?' asked Ringmar.
'I don't know if his father saw,' said Kaite.
'Why do you feel threatened by Gustav then, Aryan?'
'He didn't want it to come out.'
'To come out? That he'd been beaten by his father?'
Kaite nodded.
'Why didn't he want it to come out?'
'I don't know,' said Kaite.
'And you expect us to believe this? That you feel so threatened by him that you disappear?'
'It's the truth,' said Kaite.
'It's not the case that Gustav has hit you, is it?' Ringmar asked.
'Eh?'
'You heard the question.'
'No,' said Kaite.
'No what?'
'Gustav hasn't hit me.'
'He wasn't the one who clubbed you down in Kapellplatsen?'
'No.' Kaite looked up. 'I don't know who it was.'
'You weren't with Gustav at the time?'
'No, no.'
'Or with his father?'
'Eh?' That look of surprise again. And something else. What is it? Ringmar wondered.
'Has Gustav's father hit you as well, Aryan?'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Kaite.
'Let's take it one step at a time,' said Ringmar. 'When you saw Gustav being beaten at home on the farm – were you attacked as well?'
'No.'
'Have you ever been attacked by Gustav's father?'
'No.'
'But Gustav doesn't want you to tell anybody what happened?'
'No.'
'Why?'
'You'd better ask him that.'
'We will do,' said Ringmar. 'We certainly will do.' He looked at Halders. 'Shall we phone?' He looked at Kaite again. 'You don't need to come to the station with us, but we'll wait here until a car comes to pick you up and take you to our doctor so that she can take a look at that wound.'
* * *
Ringmar and Halders drove back to the city centre. It had stopped raining, but it was still just as dark.
'He's holding something back,' said Halders.
'Of course,' said Ringmar.
'You could have leant on him a bit more.'
'I thought I did a pretty good job,' said Ringmar.
'Of course.'
'We'll pick him up tomorrow,' said Ringmar. 'He can think over what he's said. What he's set in motion.'
'You met old man Smedsberg in his element, up to his knees in dung,' said Halders. 'What do you think?'
'Nothing,' said Ringmar. 'I don't think anything.'
'There's nothing to think,' said Halders.
'Was that a philosophical hypothesis?' asked Ringmar.
'No,' said Halders. 'I was referring to this case. Nobody knows what to think.'
Ringmar produced a piece of paper again, read something, then put it away.
'There was one thing you didn't ask about,' said Halders.
'So you noticed?'
'Don't insult me.'
'I was only joking, Fredrik.'
'Why did you hold back on that?'
'As I said, I think he should have a bit of time to think over what he's already said.'
Halders thought about the other boys. If there was a connection, it would have been appropriate to ask Kaite about it now, when he seemed vulnerable. But Bertil had waited. He hadn't asked about them. He hadn't leant on the girl, Josefin. He had chosen not to press ahead. There was one reason above all others:
'Our black friend tells lies like a cow shits,' said Halders.
Ringmar nodded. He was miles away, deep in thought.
'Do you think he feels relieved now?' Halders asked.
'Relieved!' shouted Ringmar, wide awake again.
Halders drove along Per Dubbsgatan. The hospital was glittering faintly, ten thousand windows with Advent candles in a blackish-red wall.
'What?' said Halders. 'What do you mean?'
'When I asked the lad if Gustav Smedsberg had threatened him and he eventually got round to saying that he had, he looked relieved,' said Ringmar.
'Maybe he had it inside him and needed to let it out,' said Halders. 'Maybe it's true, in fact. Or partly true. Or only partly a lie.'
'Perhaps he hasn't been threatened by Gustav,' said Ringmar.
'You mean it was the old man who threatened him?'
'The lad seemed to be relieved, but there was something else as well,' said Ringmar. 'There was something else.'
'Maybe he needed a piss,' said Halders, and Ringmar laughed out loud.
'Was it that funny?'
'I needed to laugh,' said Ringmar. He laughed again.
'You'd better make another trip out into the country,' said Halders.
'If one is enough,' said Ringmar.
'We're going to crack this now,' said Halders. 'We'll sort it out rapido and then we have other things to think about.'
'We have other things to think about at the same time,' said Ringmar.
'I'm going to grab young Mr Smedsberg right away,' said Halders. 'Young Mr Cowboy.'
They were approaching the crossroads.
'Can you drive me home, please, Fredrik? I need to check something.'
'Er . . . yes, of course.'
'Left here.'
They drove past Slottsskogsvallen. Dusk fell during the six minutes it took Halders to get to Ringmar's house. The symphony of light in the neighbour's garden was magnificent.
'Now I've seen everything,' said Halders.
'He's mentally defective,' said Ringmar, getting out of the car.
'You don't need to switch any lights on in your place, Bertil.' Halders looked sympathetic. 'Look at it like that.'
But Ringmar had to switch the hall light on as it was shielded by the living room. That didn't help, though. No message on the answering machine on the hall table. No message in the mail he'd picked up from the box on the way in. He dropped the c
rap on the floor. Silence everywhere. No kitchen fan buzzing away at full pelt. No voices. No Christmas ham boiling on the stove.
34
Pia Fröberg had a furrow between her eyebrows that seemed to grow deeper the longer she examined the injury on Kaite's head. There was something there she was scrutinising between her spread-out hands.
Kaite appeared to be lost in thought, gazing out of the window, head on one side.
'Hmm,' said Fröberg.
'What?' asked Ringmar.
'Well, you can see something, but you can also choose not to.'
'Great. Thank you for that.'
'But Bertil, I can't say here and now if this is a special mark, or just... just a mark. A scar. A wound in the process of healing.'
'OK, OK, I'm with you, Pia.'
'But it could be an imprint.'
'Which in that case would represent something?' said Ringmar.
'In that case, yes.'
'Could it be this?' said Ringmar, holding up a copy of Carlström's drawing.
'It could be. It's not possible to say here and now.'
'Let's go,' said Halders.
They headed for the door.
'What am I supposed to do?' said Kaite, raising his head.
'I've no idea,' said Halders without turning round.
'Shouldn't I go with you?'
'Do you want to?' asked Halders, turning to face him.
'N . . . no, no.'
'Go home and take it easy,' said Ringmar, who had also turned round. 'We'll be in touch.'
'What will happen to this thing, then?' said Kaite to Pia Fröberg, moving his head slightly. 'Will it leave a permanent mark?'
'It could do.'
'Oh my God.'
'It's not possible to say yet,' said Fröberg, feeling sorry for the lad.
They drove towards the city centre. There were more and more lights and lamps and glittering garlands hanging over the streets.
'Ring young Smedsberg and check if he's at home,' said Ringmar.
There was an answer after the third ring.
'This is Detective Inspector Fredrik Halders.'
Smedsberg came up to Ringmar's office after the hour it had taken him to get there. He won't run away, Halders had said.
'Please sit down,' said Ringmar.
Smedsberg sat down on the modest visitor's chair.
'Shouldn't we go to another room?' said Halders.
'Oh yes, of course,' said Ringmar. 'Please come this way, Gustav.'
'What's this all about?' asked Gustav Smedsberg.
'What was that?' said Halders.
'I don't underst—' 'Why are you still sitting down?' said Halders.
'It's only two floors down,' said Ringmar.
Neither of the police officers spoke in the lift. Smedsberg looked as if he were on the way to the electric chair. Either that or he's the type who always looks worried, Halders thought.
It was not a cosy room. It was the opposite of the interview rooms prepared to make children feel secure. There was a nasty lamp on the desk and an even worse one hanging from the ceiling. There was a window, but the view of the ventilation duct was hardly likely to raise anybody's spirits. The room seemed to be fitted out for its purpose, but everything was accidental – a window in the wrong place, a ventilation duct in the wrong place.
'Please sit down,' said Ringmar.
Smedsberg sat down, but cautiously, as if he expected a different instruction from Halders, who he was looking at now. Halders gave him a friendly smile.
Ringmar switched on the tape recorder that was standing on the table. Halders was fiddling with the tripod for the video camera, which was making a humming noise, the cosiest thing about the room.
'Will you be celebrating Christmas at home this year, Gustav?' asked Ringmar.
'Er . . . what?'
'Will you be celebrating Christmas at home on the farm, with your dad?'
'Er . . . no.'
'Really?'
'What difference does it make to you?' asked Smedsberg.
'It's just standard interview technique,' said Halders, who was still next to the camera but leaning over the desk. 'You start with something general and then come round to the heavy stuff.'
'Oh.'
'Why have you been threatening Aryan Kaite?' asked Ringmar.
'The heavy stuff,' said Halders, gesturing towards Ringmar.
'Er . . .'
'You seem to have a limited vocabulary for a student,' said Halders.
'We have been informed that you threatened Aryan Kaite,' said Ringmar.
'W-what?'
'What do you have to say to the accusation that you threatened him?'
'I haven't threatened anybody,' said Smedsberg.
'We have been informed that you did.'
'By whom?'
'Who do you think?'
'He would never da—' Ringmar looked at him.
'What were you going to say, Gustav?'
'Nothing.'
'What's happened between you and Aryan, Gustav?'
'I don't understand.'
'Something has happened between the two of you. We want to know what. We might be able to help you.'
Frozen Tracks Page 39