Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'It's not my fault,' said Bülow. 'I don't like it either.' Winter could hear voices in the background, a snatch of music that could have been a Christmas carol or some such stuff being played for the dregs of society in the newsroom. 'Are you always happy with your job, Winter?'

  'If I'm allowed to do it,' he said.

  'Carolin Johansson is interviewed in tomorrow's edition,' said Bülow.

  'Words fail me,' said Winter.

  'You see? It only gets worse.'

  'Who's next? Simon?'

  'Who's that?' asked Bülow. 'What's happened to him?'

  'That was only an example.'

  'I don't believe you.'

  'Are you sending out the reporters now?' asked Winter.

  'I'm not the night editor,' said Bülow.

  'How long are you working tonight?'

  'I'm on until four tomorrow morning. So much for my Christmas.'

  'I'll phone.'

  'I've heard that before.'

  'I'll phone,' said Winter again and pressed the red key for the second time, put his mobile down on the desk and picked up the receiver of the main telephone.

  A patrol car drove past in the street below, its siren wailing. That was the first sound he'd heard from outside. He could see the top of the Christmas tree in Vasaplatsen, a lone star.

  The Bergorts' phone was engaged. He considered ringing the Frölunda station, but what would they be able to do? He rang Larissa Serimov's mobile number, but didn't get through.

  He phoned Ringmar at home, but there was no answer. He tried Ringmar's mobile. No contact.

  He was beginning to feel manic, standing in the middle of the quiet, dark room with his fingers hovering nervously over the keys. He tried a number he'd looked up in his address book.

  He waited. Three rings, four. The world was unavailable tonight. A fifth ring, a crackling, an intake of breath.

  'Car-Carlström.'

  Winter said who he was. Carlström sounded worn out when he mumbled something.

  'Did I wake you up?' Winter asked.

  'Yes.'

  'I'm sorry. But I have a couple of questions about Mats.'

  Winter heard a sound coming from somewhere close to Carlström. It could have been a stick of firewood crackling in the stove. Had Carlström had a telephone in the kitchen? Winter hadn't thought about that when he was there.

  'What about Mats?' asked Carlström.

  'I met him today,' said Winter, checking the time. It wasn't midnight yet.

  'And?'

  'Does he know Georg Smedsberg?' Winter asked.

  'Smedsberg?'

  'You know who he is.'

  'I don't think he knows him.'

  'Could they have had any contact at all?'

  'What difference does it make?'

  'Smedsberg's son is one of the young men who've been attacked,' said Winter.

  'Who said that?' asked Carlström.

  'Excuse me?'

  'He's said that himself, hasn't he?' said Carlström.

  'I've been thinking about that,' said Winter.

  'Perhaps not enough,' said Carlström.

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'I'm not saying any more,' said Carlström.

  'Did Mats have any contact with Georg Smedsberg?' Winter asked again.

  'I know nothing about that.'

  'Any contact at all?' said Winter.

  'What if he had?'

  That depends on what happened, Winter thought.

  'What sort of a life did Mats have with you?' Winter asked. I've asked that before. 'How did he get on with other people?'

  Carlström didn't answer.

  'Did he have a lot of friends?'

  It sounded as though Carlström gave a laugh.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'He didn't have any friends,' said Carlström.

  'None at all?'

  'Them round here couldn't stand the lad,' said Carlström, his accent getting broader. 'Couldn't stand him.'

  'Was he ill-treated at all?'

  That same laugh again, cold and hollow.

  'They made a mockery of him,' said Carlström. 'He might have been able to stay, but—'

  'He ran away?'

  'He hated them and they hated him.'

  'Why was he hated?'

  'I don't know the answer to that. Who knows the answer to a question like that?'

  'Was Georg Smedsberg one of those who ill-treated him?'

  'He might have been,' said Carlström. 'Who can keep track of that?'

  'What did his wife think about it?'

  'Who?'

  'Gerd. His wife.'

  'I don't know.'

  'What does that mean?' asked Winter.

  'What I said.'

  'How did you know Gerd?' Winter asked.

  Carlström didn't answer. Winter repeated the question. Carlström coughed. Winter could see that he wasn't going to say anything else about Gerd, not at the moment.

  'Would Mats have been up to attacking those boys?' he asked. 'As some sort of revenge? An indirect revenge? In return for what the others had done to him?'

  'That sounds like sheer madness,' said Carlström.

  'Has he ever said anything along those lines? That he wanted to get his own back?'

  'He's never said much at all,' said Carlström, and Winter detected a touch of tenderness in his voice. Unless it was tiredness. 'He didn't want to say much. Avoided anything hard. That's the way he was when he first came here.'

  'Have you spoken to him this Christmas?' Winter asked.

  'No.'

  Winter said good night. He checked his watch again. Almost midnight now. He could still hear Carlström's voice echoing in his ears.

  Carlström could have done it, Winter thought. He could have taken revenge on old man Smedsberg, for instance, and everything associated with him. For something Smedsberg had done to Mats. Or to himself.

  There was something else Carlström had just said. Winter hadn't thought about it at the time, but now, a minute later, he was going over the conversation again, in his head.

  He didn't want to say much, Carlström had said about his foster son. That's the way he was when he first came here. There was something else. Avoided anything hard. What did he mean by that?

  Winter dialled Carlström's number again and listened to the ringing. This time nobody answered.

  Winter hung up and thought. He lifted the phone again and rang Mats Jerner's number. He listened to the ringing just as he'd listened to the ringing at Jerner's foster father's house.

  He hung up, went to the kitchen and made a cup of double espresso. He drank the drug while standing by the kitchen window. The courtyard down below was glistening from a thin layer of snow and frost. The outside thermometer showed minus four degrees. The light from the Christmas tree in the courtyard shone all the way up to Winter's flat. He was reminded of Bertil's neighbour, the mad illuminator, and of Bertil. He took his cup back into the study and phoned Bertil again, but there was no answer from any of the numbers. He left a message on Bertil's mobile. He phoned Operations Centre but they had no information about Ringmar. Nor any other kind of information. No car accident, no boy, no abductor.

  He could hear his stomach. A bit of Thai curry a week ago, or whenever it was, and since then nothing but whisky and coffee. He went back to the kitchen and made an omelette with chopped tomatoes, onion and quick-roasted paprika. The telephone rang as he was eating. He could reach the kitchen telephone from the table, and answered with his mouth full.

  'Is that Winter? Erik Winter?'

  'Mmm . . . yes.'

  Winter could hear the sound of an engine – the call seemed to be coming from a car.

  'Ah. Good evening, er good morning, er, Janne Alinder here. Linné—'

  'Hello, Janne.'

  'Er, we've just emerged from the forest. No mobile in the world gets through to our cottage. I saw you'd been trying to contact me.'

  'Good that you rang.'

 
'No problem. We had some trouble with the electrics in the cottage, so we had to pack up and go home in the end. I'm not a hundred per cent sober, but luckily the wife is.'

  'Can you remember if Lena Sköld mentioned anything about her girl saying that the man whose car she sat in stuttered?' Winter asked.

  'Stuttered? No, I can't remember anything about that off the top of my head.'

  'Or if she spoke about a parrot?'

  'A what?'

  'A parrot. We've just sent out a message to all the Gothenburg police stations about that. We think the abductor had a mascot or something hanging from his rear-view mirror. A parrot. A bird in any case. Green, or green and red.'

  'A parrot? No. Have the witnesses seen a parrot or something?'

  'The children have,' said Winter.

  'Hmm.'

  'It feels reliable,' said Winter.

  'You're certainly doing overtime on this case,' said Alinder.

  'You will be as well,' said Winter. 'Right now, and maybe more later. If you're prepared to.'

  'Overtime? Of course, for Christ's sake – I know what's involved.' Winter could hear a slight slurring, but Alinder wasn't so drunk that he wasn't thinking straight. 'What do you want me to do?'

  'Check your notes one more time.'

  'Have you checked with any of the others?'

  'I've tried to contact Josefsson at Härlanda, but I haven't got hold of him yet.'

  'When do you want this done?'

  'As soon as possible.'

  'I can instruct my chauffeur to drive me to Tredje Långgatan. Even if I can't find the station, she will.'

  The silence after the phone call was like a short pause that takes you by surprise. He stood up and shovelled the remains of the Basque omelette that had been his Christmas dinner into the rubbish bin. It was gone midnight now. He switched on one of Angela's CDs that had become his as well now, and ended up by chance somewhere in the middle. He opened the balcony door, breathed in the night air and contemplated the Christmas tree and its star that seemed to be reflecting images of the city all around. The stars in the bright sky. Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. He thought about Carlström, his barn, and lit a ciga rillo, the music from U2 behind him.

  The telephone rang.

  42

  Winter recognised Natanael Carlström's breathing, heard the rush of air in the wood-burning stove, the wind howling round the God-forsaken house, all that solitary silence.

  'Sorry to disturb you so late,' said Carlström.

  'I'm up,' said Winter. 'I tried to phone you not long ago. Nobody answered.'

  Carlström didn't answer now either. Winter waited.

  'It's Mats,' said Carlström eventually.

  'And?'

  'He phoned here, not long ago.'

  'Mats phoned you?' Winter asked. He could hear Carlström nod. 'What did he want?'

  'It was nothing special,' said Carlström. 'But he was upset.'

  'Upset? Did he say why?'

  'What he said didn't . . . didn't make sense,' said Carlström. 'He talked about the sky and heaven and other things that I couldn't understand. I was terribly upset.'

  It sounded as if he'd been surprised to hear himself say that, Winter thought.

  Things I couldn't understand, Carlström said.

  'When I tried to phone you again it was regarding something you'd said about Mats earlier on. You said he avoided anything hard. What did you mean by that? What exactly was it that he avoided?'

  'Well, er, it was sort of everything that he found hard to say. And it was harder for him when he was upset. Like he was when he rang now.'

  Winter could picture Mats Jerner in his office in police headquarters. The calm, the few seconds of uncertainty, which was normal. The impression that he had all the time in the world in a very unusual place on Christmas Eve.

  'Are you saying that he found it hard to pronounce words?'

  'Yes.'

  'That he stuttered?'

  'He stuttered then, and he stuttered now, just now, when he phoned.'

  'Where did he phone from?' Winter asked.

  'Where? He must have phoned from home, surely?'

  'Can you remember what he said? Tell me as exactly as possible.'

  'I couldn't make head nor tail of it.'

  'The words,' said Winter. 'Just tell me the words. Don't bother about the order.'

  Ringmar parked behind a copse on one of the narrow dirt roads that skirted the fields. Dark shapes were flying across the sky, like bats. He seemed to be walking over a frozen sea. The plain was white and black in the moonlight. He could feel the wind blowing through his body. The wind was the only sound.

  There was a light and it came from Smedsberg's farm. It was flickering, moving back and forth in the wind. It grew as he approached, acquired an outline and became a window. He went closer, but not before picking up a handful of mud and dropping it into a plastic bag inside another one, which he then put in the pocket of his overcoat.

  He stood next to a bush five metres from the window, which was at eye level. He heard his mobile vibrating in his inside pocket, but he didn't touch it.

  He recognised the kitchen, a late-medieval version of old man Carlström's iron-age room. Georg Smedsberg was leaning over his son, who sat with his head bowed, as if expecting a blow. His father's mouth was moving as if he was shouting. The whole of his body was a threat. Gustav Smedsberg raised an arm, as if to protect himself. For Ringmar it was a scene that said everything, that confirmed what had brought him here, Georg Smedsberg's words that first visit: they mebbe got what they deserved.

  He remembered what Gustav had said the first time they interviewed him:

  'Maybe he didn't want to kill us. The victims. Maybe he just wanted to show that he owned us.'

  Ringmar suddenly felt colder than he had ever been in his fifty-four years. He stood there as if frozen fast in the sea.

  Then he found the strength to walk towards the house.

  Winter rang Mats Jerner's number again.