Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'But the way of going about it is very different,' she said instead. 'It might not be the same person at all.'

  'It isn't different,' said Winter. 'Or needn't be. He might have followed Carolin and Micke from the day nursery. He might have been standing outside there day after day, waiting for an opportunity. There and at the other places as well.'

  'And filming,' said Ringmar.

  'Or he might have been roaming around Nordstan,' said Djanali. 'It's no accident that everything happened there, OK? Not just a coincidence. He may have stood day after day outside a playground or a day nursery. And it's just as likely that he wandered around Nordstan. For instance. Maybe the same days, the morning here, the afternoon there.'

  'Good, Aneta,' said Winter.

  'He might live out in the sticks,' said Ringmar, looking at Winter. 'As far away as possible from Nordstan, which is the image mentally deficient people have of a big city.'

  'We live in a big country,' said Winter.

  'How many people do we have on the case?' said Djanali.

  'Not nearly enough,' said Ringmar. 'The Christmas holiday presents problems with regard to overtime, not to mention law and order and neighbourhood policing.'

  'But for Christ's sake, this is more important than Christmas dinner!' said Djanali. 'A boy has gone missing, kidnapped, but no kidnapper has announced himself. We could be looking at a matter of hours.'

  Kidnapping, Winter thought. A kid napping. A little snooze. Fast asleep when Father Christmas arrived with his presents. If only.

  40

  Ringmar had received a telephone call that he wanted to take in his own office. Winter could see how nervous he was when he left, and the shadows under his eyes. What was he going to hear now? What would he say?

  'I'll pay a visit to Ellen Sköld again,' said Aneta Djanali. 'I know what I'm going to say, and how to say it.'

  Winter looked at the clock. The traditional Donald Duck cartoon on the box would be over. The long night had fallen outside the window. It was too late to drive through the streets with Simon Waggoner to follow tramlines.

  'Ellen has probably already said what we need to know,' said Winter.

  'I want to be certain.'

  'Go home to your family,' said Winter. 'Celebrate Christmas.'

  'That will be at Fredrik's,' she said.

  Winter nodded and started gathering together some papers.

  'Are you surprised?' asked Djanali.

  'Why should I be surprised?'

  'Well . . . Fredrik and I.'

  'The odd couple?' he said with a smile. 'Oh, come on, Aneta.'

  She hesitated in the doorway.

  'You're welcome as well,' she said.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'You can come round for a bit if you like. We'll be eating later on, so the Christmas buffet is still waiting.' She smiled and looked up at the heavens. 'Fredrik has made something based on polenta. He said it was the nearest he could manage to yam porridge.'

  'Fredrik Halders, always keen to build bridges between cultures,' said Winter.

  Aneta Djanali burst out laughing.

  'Unfortunately, I'll have to work,' said Winter.

  'Where?'

  'Here. And at home.'

  'Erik, it's Christmas Eve and you're on your own. A bit of company won't hurt you.'

  'I'll see,' he said.

  'You can call us late this evening, no matter what.'

  'I'll ring,' he said. 'Say hello to Fredrik. No matter what.'

  She smiled again, and left. He went over to the CD player and switched it on. He stood by the window, lit a Corps, and opened the window slightly. The smoke was whisked away by a wind he hadn't noticed until now.

  The room behind him was filled with 'Trane's Slo Blues', Earl May's bass and Arthur Taylor's drums, doom doom doom doom doom doom, then Coltrane's tenor saxophone creating calm and restlessness at the same time, the difficult simplicity he still hadn't found anywhere else in jazz, even if he had discovered different music that he liked and that he could make use of in his life.

  'Lush Life' now, the beautiful introduction, like a soundtrack to the smoke wafting in a shiny silver cloud from his cigarillo and out into the evening glowing in gold from all the Christmas lights. It was music to dream to, but he wasn't dreaming.

  His mobile rang on the desk. He turned down the volume of the music and picked up the mobile with his free hand.

  'Merry Christmas, Daddy!'

  'Merry Christmas, my lovely!'

  'What are you doing, Daddy?'

  'I was standing here thinking it was time to phone Elsa,' he said, letting a little column of ash fall into the tray.

  'I was first!'

  'You are always first, my lovely,' he said, and was glad that Angela couldn't hear him saying that. What was he doing here when they were there? 'Have you opened your parcels yet?'

  'Father Christmas hasn't been yet,' she said.

  'He'll turn up at any moment, I'm sure.'

  'Did you find the Christmas present?'

  My God, he thought. The Christmas present.

  'I'll open it later tonight,' he said.

  'When are you coming, Daddy?'

  'Soon, my lovely.'

  'You must come NOW,' she said and he could hear other voices on the line. Perhaps they all had the same message tonight.

  'I'll be there before Christmas is over,' he said.

  'I want Christmas to go on for ever,' she said.

  'Oh, I'll be there long before that. We'll be able to go swimming.'

  'It's cold,' she said. 'It's freezing cold.'

  'What have you been doing?'

  Open questions, he thought.

  'Played with a pussy cat,' she said. 'She's called Miaow.'

  'That's a good name for a cat.'

  'She's black.'

  Winter heard an echo and her voice disappeared, then came a different voice:

  'Hello?'

  'Hello,' he said.

  'It's Angela. Where are you?'

  'In my office at police headquarters,' he said.

  'Lucky for you,' she said.

  'Merry Christmas,' he said.

  'How's it going?'

  'Progressing, I think.'

  'How are you?'

  'It's . . . a bit difficult. It's a difficult case.'

  'No news about the boy?'

  'I don't know. We might be getting closer. But we haven't found him.'

  'Be careful, Erik.'

  'We're close. I can feel it.'

  'Be careful,' she said again. 'You have to be careful with this case.'

  'I know.'

  'You must think about it all the time, Erik. Being careful.'

  'I promise. I heard from Elsa that—'

  His office phone rang on the desk.

  'Excuse me a moment, Angela.'

  He picked up the other phone.

  'Hello, Winter, it's Björck in the front office. You have a visitor. A Mr Jerner, Mats Jerner.'

  Winter looked at his watch. Jerner was an hour late. He'd forgotten about him, forgotten about him altogether. Had anything of the sort ever happened before? Not as far as he could remember. All that flashed through his mind before he said:

  'I'll be right down.'

  He spoke into his mobile again. 'I'll ring you back a bit later, Angela. Say hello to Mother in the mean time.'

  'I can hear that you're working.'

  'It's not in vain,' he said. 'I love you.'

  The visitor was still standing in the waiting room. He could be around Winter's age, possibly a bit older. I know roughly how old he is. Carlström told us.

  Winter opened the glass door.

  'Mats Jerner? Erik Winter.'

  Jerner nodded and they shook hands in the doorway. His hair was blond and his eyes blue. He was wearing a brown Tenson jacket and blue jeans, and heavy shoes suitable for the current weather. He was carrying a briefcase under his left arm. His hand was cold. Winter saw that he was carrying his gloves in
his left hand. Jerner's eyes had a transparent intensity that almost made Winter want to turn round in order to see what the man was looking at straight through his head.

  'We'll take the lift up,' said Winter.

  Jerner stood beside him without speaking. He avoided looking in the mirror.

  'Are there any passengers at all at this time on Christmas Eve?' Winter asked as they stepped out of the lift.

  Jerner nodded again, straight ahead.

  'No problems with snow on the lines?' Winter asked.

  'No.'

  They entered Winter's office.

  'Would you like coffee or something?' asked Winter.

  Jerner shook his head.

  Winter walked to his desk chair and gestured towards the visitor's chair opposite. He had recently had a sofa and armchairs installed in one corner, but this was better for the moment.

  'Well,' said Winter, 'we're trying to solve a series of attacks on young men here in Gothenburg, as I explained on the telephone.'

  Jerner nodded again.

  How shall I put this, Winter thought. You haven't by any chance nicked a branding iron from your foster father's farm, have you? Or two?

  'The fact is, weapons that could have been used in these assaults have been stolen from your foster father's farm. Natanael Carlström.' Winter looked at Jerner. 'He is your foster father, is that right?'

  Jerner nodded and said, 'One of them.'

  'Did you have several?' Winter asked.

  Jerner nodded.

  'Living in that area?'

  Jerner shook his head.

  He's the silent type, Winter thought. But you've met your match.

  He hasn't said a word about turning up over an hour late for an interview at police headquarters. Doesn't even seem to be aware of the fact. Some people are like that. Lucky them.

  'Have you heard your foster father say anything about a robbery?'

  'No.'

  Jerner crossed his legs, then re-crossed them in the other direction. He had put his gloves on the table in front of him. Something was bulging in the left-hand pocket of his jacket. Perhaps a hat of some kind.

  Perhaps he gets a discount on Tenson jackets, Winter thought. The Tenson League has threatened its way to a deal.

  The Tenson League was the popular name for the inspectors working on Gothenburg's trams, sullen men and women who had a lot to put up with as they rode the trams looking for fare dodgers. Halders had once been caught, and spent the whole afternoon on the telephone trying to convince the man in charge of his innocence, pleading absent-mindedness, police business – no, not that – taking the kids to day nursery, taking his car to Mölndal for repairs or whatever. But he failed. He had never set foot on a Gothenburg tram after that.

  'Did you ever see one of those branding irons?' Winter asked.

  Jerner shook his head.

  'But you knew about them?'

  Jerner nodded.

  We'll have to put a stop to this, Winter thought. He doesn't want to speak.

  'When were you last at home?'

  Jerner looked confused.

  'I mean at Carlström's.'

  'I d-don't know,' said Jerner.

  'What month?'

  'No-November, I think.'

  'What did he say about the theft?'

  Jerner shrugged.

  'He told me he mentioned it to you.'

  'Possibly,' said Jerner. Nothing else.

  Winter stood up and went to the ugly filing cabinet he tried to hide behind the door. He collected a folder, returned to his desk and took out the photographs.

  'Do you recognise this person?' he asked, holding out a photograph of Aryan Kaite.

  Jerner shook his head.

  'He's one of the young men who were attacked.'

  Jerner seemed uninterested, as if he were looking at a stranger.

  'He's also visited your home village,' said Winter. 'He knows Gustav Smedsberg.' Winter looked at Jerner. 'Do you know anybody called Smedsberg?'

  The man seemed to be thinking that over. He brushed his thin blond hair to the side. It was long.

  He looks as if I'd asked him a perfectly normal follow-up question, Winter thought. No 'Who's Gustav Smedsberg?' He recognises the name, or he's trying to look uninterested. It's been a long day. For him, for me. This conversation is getting nowhere. He can go home, I can go home. He has nothing to do with this. Or maybe he did steal the irons, maybe even used them. No. Not him. The only odd thing is that he seems to be able to sit here for as long as you like without getting annoyed. He was annoyed before, irritated, on the telephone. But now. Now he's shaking his head.

  'Georg Smedsberg?' said Winter.

  'No.'

  'A neighbour.'

  Jerner's calm face moved slightly to one side, perhaps as a protest: Smedsberg isn't a neighbour. Too far away.

  'Gerd,' said Winter.

  The man gave a start. He looked at Winter, raised his head slightly. His eyes still had that same transparency.

  'When did you meet Gerd?' Winter asked.

  'Wh-what Gerd?'

  'The Gerd who was one of your neighbours.'

  What has she got to do with this business? He doesn't ask that. He doesn't say: Who's Gerd? His face is exactly like it was before again. I'll put a stop to this now. I have to devote my energies to Micke Johansson.

  'I won't take up any more of your time on Christmas Eve,' said Winter. 'But I might be in touch again if I need some more details.'

  Jerner stood up and nodded.

  'When do you have to work again?' Winter asked.

  Jerner opened his mouth and looked as if he were swallowing air, then he closed it again.

  'When's your next shift?' Winter asked.