Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

  'My God,' said Ringmar, 'it's just before it happened.'

  'He must have taken the camera in there with him,' said Winter.

  Another cut, a brief sequence of disturbance, then a steady picture taken on a day that was greyer, wetter, perhaps starker.

  'November,' said Ringmar.

  'The chronology on the cassette is mixed up,' said Winter.

  The picture showed a different playground with children playing. Winter suddenly felt sick: he recognised the building. It was Elsa's day nursery.

  It was Elsa on the swing.

  It was her face that the camera zoomed in on, as close as the DAMN lens could get, her mouth smiling out into the wonderful world she'd only recently been born into.

  The camera followed her as she jumped down from the swing and scampered towards the playhouse.

  Winter could feel Bertil's supportive hand round his arm.

  'She's in Spain, Erik. Spain.'

  Winter tried to breathe, to break the spell. He was here, Elsa was there, Angela, his mother. He felt an overwhelming urge to reach for his mobile and phone Nueva Andalucía.

  He saw himself appear on the screen. The camera followed him from the gate to the door. He vanished. The camera waited, still aimed steadily at the door. Winter turned round in the room where he was standing now. He was in that film! Both here and there at this very moment!

  There is a mound on the other side of the road, in front of the cemetery. That's where he's standing, Jerner.

  The camera waited. Winter and Elsa emerged. He said something and she laughed. They walked back to the gate, hand in hand. He lifted her up and she tried to open it. They went out, and he closed the gate behind them. He lifted Elsa into the front seat of the Mercedes and strapped her into her child seat. I'm a detective chief inspector, but I'm a father as well.

  The camera followed the car as it drove off, signalled right, disappeared round the corner.

  Black screen. Winter looked at the next cassette on the table. We didn't take them in order, he thought. That one will feature Kalle Skarin, Ellen Sköld, Maja Bergort and Simon Waggoner. Before and during. Maybe after. These were future victims. Ringmar had phoned again. Another car to another place.

  'There's more to come,' said Ringmar.

  Another place, swings in the background, a slide, a wooden train, showing its age, that the children could play around in.

  'The playground at Plikta,' said Ringmar.

  Winter nodded, still thinking about Elsa.

  'The conductor,' said Ringmar.

  A little boy of about four was busy checking the tickets. The children sat down. The camera concentrated on the conductor, and followed him when he grew tired and wandered off. Followed him back to the swings, watched him swinging back and forth, back and forth. The cameraman moved the camera in accordance with the swing, and Winter had the feeling that this was the worst he'd been through, one of the worst things he'd ever experienced during yet another day at work. There were more pictures of the same boy, in different places. The sun shone, it was raining, the wind thrashed its way through the trees.

  'Who the hell is that?' said Ringmar, and Winter could hear the desperation in his voice. 'Who's the boy?'

  They watched the little lad slip and fall, and burst out crying after the usual intake of breath before the pain and the surprise. They watched a woman come to bend down over him and console him. Winter recognised her. He even remembered her name. Yes. Ingemarsson. Margareta Ingemarsson.

  'That's the day nursery in Marconigatan,' he said. 'She works there.'

  'Huh,' said Ringmar. 'Well done. We must get hold of her as soon as possible and show her this. She'll know who the boy is.'

  'Ring Peder at the Police Operations Centre. He'll still be there, and he's good.'

  Winter raised his head and saw morning on the other side of the window, a heavy mist. He suddenly heard a million noises in the hall. Everybody had arrived.

  44

  The day nursery manager from Marconigatan was at home; she was switched through from Operations Centre to Winter, who was still in Jerner's living room. He couldn't describe the boy over the telephone. She wasn't going anywhere; to tell the truth she was barely awake.

  Winter drove to her house in Grimmered, following her directions.

  'Can I have my car back one of these days?' Ringmar had asked as Winter was on his way out.

  'I hope so,' Winter had replied. 'Will you phone the Skövde station?'

  'Already done,' Ringmar had said. 'They're on their way to the old man's house.'

  It was a possibility, Winter thought as he drove through the morning. Jerner going back to his old home in the sticks. He could be there already. Natanael Carlström would let him in.

  But Carlström couldn't know.

  Winter remembered Carlström's telephone number. He rang from the car. After six rings he hung up, then rang again, but there was no reply this time either.

  He met three taxis on the motorway, but no other traffic at all. A solitary bus stood in Kungsten in a cloud of steam and exhaust fumes, waiting for nonexistent passengers. Nobody crossed the streets. Snow was still lying as a thin layer of powder that would be blown away by the slightest breeze, but at the moment there was no sign of any wind in the city.

  He saw three police cars emerging from the tunnel. He heard a snatch of siren and saw another one approaching from Högsbo höjd.

  The police radio was rapping out instructions regarding the hunt for Jerner and the boy.

  He turned off Grimmeredsvägen and found the house. The Christmas tree in the garden was tastefully lit up. Winter thought of Ringmar's neighbour. Had Ringmar murdered him yesterday?

  The sky behind the timber-built house was alternating between bright yellow and wintry blue. Christmas Day was going to be fine. It was cold. The time was just turned nine.

  She was dressed when she opened the door. The man beside her had tousled hair, bloodshot eyes and a hangover.

  'Come in,' she said. 'The video player is in here.'

  He found the sequence with her and the boy. The man smelled of alcohol and looked as if he were going to throw up when he saw the scene.

  'It's Mårten Wallner,' she said without hesitation.

  'Where does he live?'

  'They live at – just a moment, I have the address list on the fridge. It's not far from here.'

  Winter phoned from the kitchen.

  'Mårten's at the playground,' said his mother. 'He's an early bird.'

  'On his own?'

  'Yes.' He heard her intake of breath. 'What's going on?' she asked, a new sharpness audible in her voice.

  'Go and fetch him immediately,' said Winter, replacing the receiver and hurrying into the hall.

  'I heard,' said Margareta Ingemarsson. 'The playground – assuming it's the one near here – is on the other side of the hill. That's the quickest way.'

  She pointed, and he ran through the undergrowth. You could never be certain. NEVER. He could see Elsa's face in Jerner's recording.

  There were some fir trees on the top of the hill, and there was a playground a bit further on and a little boy in a woolly hat walking away from it hand in hand with a man in a thick jacket and a cap. Winter could only see the man's back, and he started sliding down the slope and scraped his shin on the frozen ground under the thin layer of snow and he shouted and the boy turned round and the man turned round and they stopped.

  'It's only us,' said the man. The boy looked at Winter, then up at his father.

  Ringmar was making a Basque omelette in the kitchen, Winter had explained how to do it before sitting down in the living room and phoning Angela.

  He wouldn't say anything about the video. Not now.

  'My God,' she said. 'But you've got to find him, surely?'

  She meant the boy.

  It was a big ask. They knew who the abductor was, but not where he was. Winter was very familiar with the opposite situation: the body of a victim but no identity f
or the killer. Sometimes they didn't know the identity of either.

  Children disappeared and never came home again. Nobody knew; they would never know.

  'We're trying to think of every possibility,' said Winter.

  'When did you last get some sleep?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Forty-eight hours ago?'

  'Something of the sort.'

  'Then you're not functioning now, Erik.'

  'Thank you, Doctor.'

  'I'm being serious. You can't keep going for another day on nothing but cigars and coffee.'

  'Cigarillos.'

  'You must eat. For God's sake. I sound like a mother.'

  'Bertil's making a Basque omelette at this very moment. I can smell paprika burnt black.'

  'It's supposed to be burnt black,' she said. 'But Erik. You have to get some rest. An hour at least. You have colleagues.'

  'Yes. But just now I have all the details in my head, everything, that's how it feels. So has Bertil.'

  'How is he?'

  'He's spoken to his wife. He doesn't want to tell me what they said. But he's, shall we say, calmer now.'

  'Where's Martin?'

  'I don't know. I don't know if Bertil knows. I haven't asked yet. He'll say when he wants to say.'

  'Pass on greetings from me.'

  'I will.'

  Winter heard Ringmar shout from the kitchen, which was a long way away.

  'Lie down for a few hours,' she said.

  'Yes.'

  'What are you going to do then?'

  'I haven't a clue, Angela. I have to think about it over the food. We're looking everywhere.'

  'Have you cancelled the ticket?'

  'What ticket? Tomorrow's flight?'

  His ticket for the late-afternoon flight to Málaga, return two weeks later. It was lying on the hall table, as a sort of reminder.

  'Of course that's what I mean,' she said.

  'No,' he said. 'I'm not going to cancel it.'

  'Where the hell are they?' asked Ringmar over the kitchen table, but mostly as a muttering to himself.

  They were trying to contact any of Jerner's friends, colleagues, nonexistent relatives. He didn't seem to have any friends.

  Jerner had been off sick for the last few days. When he came to see Winter it wasn't after work. He drove straight back there, Winter thought when he heard.

  And then possibly left immediately for somewhere else. Where?

  Winter looked up from his plate. He'd felt slightly dizzy when he sat down, but that was gone now.

  'Let's drive out to the old man,' he said.

  'Carlström? Why? The Skövde boys have already been there.'

  'It's not that. There's something . . . there's something to do with Carlström that's linked with this business.'

  Ringmar said nothing.

  'Something else,' said Winter. 'Something different.' He pushed his plate to one side. 'Are you with me? Something that can help us.'

  'I'm not sure I understand,' said Ringmar.

  'It's something he said. Or didn't say. But there's also something in that house of his. It was something I saw. I think.'

  'OK,' said Ringmar. 'There's nothing more we can do in town at the moment. Why not?'

  'I'll drive,' said Winter.

  'Are you up to it?'

  'After this restorative meal? Are you kidding?'

  'We can always fix a driver,' said Ringmar.

  'No. We need every single officer for the door-to-door.'

  The telephone rang.

  'Press conference in an hour,' said Birgersson.

  'You'll have to take it yourself, Sture,' said Winter.

  Winter smoked before they set off. The nicotine bucked him up. He didn't look at the headlines outside the newsagent's.

  The city streets seemed to be deserted. Normal for Christmas Day, perhaps. Now that was drawing to a close as well. Where was it going? Dusk was lying in wait over Pellerin's Margarine factory.

  'I checked with Skövde again,' said Ringmar. 'No sign of anything at Carlström's place, no tyre tracks, and they'd have seen those in the newly fallen snow.' Ringmar adjusted the two-way radio. 'And old man Smedsberg is saying nothing in his cell.'

  'Hmm.'

  'And now it's starting to snow,' said Ringmar, looking skywards through the windscreen.

  'It's been looking dull for ages,' said Winter.

  'The tracks will disappear again,' said Ringmar.

  They'd discovered a new, faster way of getting to Carlström's farm. It meant that they didn't need to pass Smedsberg's house.

  It seemed to have been snowing quite heavily on the plain.

  Winter hadn't announced their visit in advance, but Carlström seemed to take it for granted.

  'Sorry to disturb you again,' said Winter.

  'Leave it,' growled Carlström. 'Would you like a cup of coffee?'

  'Yes please.'

  Carlström went to the wood-burning stove, which seemed to be on all day long. It was warmer in the little kitchen than anywhere else Winter could imagine. Hell perhaps, but Winter thought that was a cold place.

  The heat in this kitchen could induce him to fall asleep in mid- sentence.

  'It's a terrible business,' said Carlström.

  'Where could Mats be now?' Winter asked.

  'I don't know. He's not here.'

  'No, I've gathered that. But where could he have gone?'

  Carlström tipped coffee into the saucepan straight out of the tin, which was covered in rust.

  'He liked the sea,' he said eventually.

  'The sea?'

  'He didn't like the plain,' said Carlström. 'It looks like a sea, but it isn't a sea.' Carlström turned round to face them. Winter noticed a warmth in his eyes that could have been there all the time, but he hadn't detected it. 'He could go and fantasise about the sky up there, the stars and all that, and the sea-like plain.'

  'The sea,' said Winter, and looked at Ringmar. 'Do you know of any place he used to go to sometimes? A person?'

  'No, no.'

  Carlström came with the coffee. There were small cups on the table that looked out of place, elegant. Winter looked at them. They told him something.