It was linked to what had inspired him to come here.
Ringmar told Carlström about Georg Smedsberg.
Carlström muttered something they couldn't hear.
'What did you say?' asked Winter.
'It's him,' said Carlström.
'Yes,' said Ringmar.
'Just a minute,' said Winter. 'What do you mean by that?'
'It's his fault,' said Carlström, staring down at the little cup hidden inside his big hand. His hand was twitching. 'It's him. It wouldn't have happened but for him . . .'
Winter saw. It was coming to him now, he knew why they'd had to come out here again. He remembered. He stood up. Jesus CHRIST.
He'd seen it the second time, or was it the first? But he hadn't thought, hadn't realised.
'Excuse me,' he said, and went back into the hall; the ceiling light with no shade cast faint light on to the upper part of the cupboard in the far corner where there was a little collection of photographs in old-fashioned frames gleaming vaguely gold or silver. That was what Winter had seen, only a passing glimpse of something you find in every home, and he'd seen the face, the second from the left, and it was a young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, and the reason why he remembered, why he had recreated this photo in his mind's eye, was her features that he had recognised later, yesterday or whenever the hell it was, on Christmas Eve, in his office. Her face had stuck in his memory, her eyes, they were transfixing him now, that remarkable piercing quality that almost made him want to turn round to see what she was looking at straight through his head.
He went closer. The woman's face had a cautious smile that ought to have vanished by the time the photograph was taken. The similarity to Mats Jerner was astonishing, frightening.
He had seen that face previously as a framed portrait on an escritoire on the other side of the table in Georg Smedsberg's kitchen. He could see that in his mind's eye as well. The woman in that portrait was middle-aged, and smiling a cautious black-and-white smile. It's my wife, Smedsberg had said. Gustav's mum. She left us.
He heard a shuffling sound, Carlström's slippers.
'Yes,' said Carlström.
Winter turned round. Bertil was standing behind Carlström.
'It was many years ago,' said Carlström.
'What happened?' was all Winter could say. Open questions.
'She was very young,' said Carlström. He sank down on to the nearest chair, the only one in the hall. He looked at Winter's face, which was a question mark.
'No, no, I'm not Mats' father. She was very young, like I said. Nobody knows who he was. She never said.'
Carlström made a sort of gesture.
'Her parents were old, and they couldn't cope. I don't know if it killed them, but it all happened quickly. First one, then the other.'
'Did you look after her?' Winter asked.
'Yes. But that was after.'
'After what?'
'After the boy. After she'd had him.'
Winter nodded and waited.
'She came back without him. It was best, she said.' Carlström squirmed on the chair, as if in pain. Winter felt wide awake, as if he'd been resurrected. 'They presumably had some kind of contact, but . . .'
'What happened next?'
'Then, well, you know what happened. Then she met h . . . She met him.'
'Georg Smedsberg?'
Carlström didn't answer, as if he didn't want to utter the man's name.
'He did it,' said Carlström, and now he looked up. Winter could see tears in his eyes. 'It was him. It is him. He ruined the boy.' He looked at Winter, then at Ringmar. 'The boy was damaged before, but he ruined him altogether.'
'What . . . How much did Gerd know?' asked Winter.
Carlström didn't answer.
'What did she know?' said Winter again.
'They'd already had the other boy by then,' said Carlström, as if he hadn't heard the question.
'The other boy? Do you mean Gustav?'
'She was already getting on a bit by then,' said Carlström. 'One came early, the other one late.' He squirmed on the chair again, and it creaked. 'And then . . . and then . . . she vanished.'
'What happened?'
'There's a lake in the next parish,' said Carlström. 'She knew. She knew. She wasn't . . . wasn't healthy. Not before either.'
Carlström bowed his head, as if in prayer. Our father . . . thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven; Carlström's head dipped further. 'I got to look after him, Mats. When she couldn't cope. He came here.' Carlström stood up slowly. 'You know about that.'
How much did the social services know? Winter thought. It was unusual for a lone man to be allowed to take charge of a child. He'd wondered about that before. But Carlström had been regarded as safe. Had he been safe?
'I'd tell you where Mats was if only I knew,' said Carlström.
'There's one other place,' said Ringmar.
They didn't speak as they drove through the fields. The distance seemed shorter this time. Smedsberg's house was hidden by the barn as they approached from this direction. The mixture of dusk and snowfall made it difficult to see. The road was a part of the field that stretched as far as the horizon that couldn't be seen. There were no tracks on the road in front of them. There were no tracks outside the house when Winter turned in and parked some twenty metres away. If there had been any tracks, they'd been covered up by the snow.
There was a light in one of the upstairs windows.
Ringmar opened one of the barn doors and examined the floor, which was covered in bark and sawdust.
'A car was parked here not so long ago,' he said, and he wasn't referring to Smedsberg's Toyota, which was standing to the right.
Winter picked the lock on the front door of the farmhouse. The light from the floor above lit up the stairs at the far end of the hall.
'Did the Skövde boys forget to switch off?' wondered Ringmar.
'I don't think so,' said Winter.
There was a packet of butter on the draining board, and a glass that seemed to have contained milk.
'Only one glass,' said Ringmar.
'Let's hope it was the boy who used it,' said Winter.
'They've been here today,' said Ringmar.
Winter said nothing.
'He managed to get out of Gothenburg,' said Ringmar. 'We didn't have time to seal the place off. How could we have done?'
'There was nothing for him here,' said Winter. 'This was just a temporary refuge.'
'Why not Carlström's place?'
'He knew we'd go there.' Winter looked round the kitchen, which smelled cold and damp. 'He assumed this house would be boarded up and forgotten about.'
'How could he be sure of that?' said Ringmar, and stiffened, just as Winter had stiffened as he spoke.
'Hell and damnation!' exclaimed Winter, whipping out his mobile and barking Gustav Smedsberg's address to a colleague at Police Operations Centre: Chalmers student halls, room number, 'But stay outside, private cars only, he might be there already or he could turn up at any time, he might be on his way there right now. Don't scare him off. OK? DON'T SCARE HIM OFF. We're on our way.'
'I was blind, BLIND,' said Ringmar as Winter drove quickly south. Darkness was falling fast. 'I was distracted by my own problems. When I was out here last night.'
'Old man Smedsberg attacked those boys,' said Winter.
'My God, Erik. I gave Gustav a lift back home! I presented Jerner with somewhere to hide. Two places in fact! Gustav must have told him that the old man was in jail and the house was empty.' Ringmar shook his head. 'I gave him time. That's time he has taken from us.'
'We don't know if he's been at Gustav's place,' said Winter.
'He's been there all right,' said Ringmar. 'He's his brother.'
The information had hit home like a punch to the solar plexus when Natanael Carlström told them. The truth. Winter was convinced that he'd been told the truth. Gustav Smedsberg and Mats Jerner were brothers, or half-brothers.
They hadn't grown up together, but they had the same mother and the same man had destroyed their lives. One of their lives, at least.
Why hadn't Carlström reported Georg Smedsberg to the police long ago? How long had he known? Had Mats told him recently? As recently as Christmas Eve night? Was that why Carlström had telephoned Winter? Was he incapable of saying that over the telephone? He was that sort of man, an odd man.
'I wonder when they discovered that they were brothers,' said Ringmar.
'We'll ask Gustav,' said Winter.
They drove past Pellerin's Margarine factory. There was more traffic now than when they'd left Gothenburg.
People were roaming the streets in the city centre as if it were a normal Saturday night, more than on a normal Saturday night.
'Christmas Day is when everybody goes out nowadays,' said Ringmar in a monotonous tone of voice.
Taxis were queuing up outside Panorama. The glass wall of the hotel was decorated with a star pattern.
Winter parked outside the student halls, where most of the windows were just as dark as the façade.
Bergenhem slipped into the back seat.
'Nobody has come out or gone in through this door,' said Bergenhem.
'Nobody at all?'
'No.'
'OK, let's go in,' said Winter.
45
Winter knocked on Gustav Smedsberg's door. The boy opened it after the second knock. He let go of the handle and went back in without greeting them or saying anything at all.
Why had he been left alone? Ringmar wondered. It wasn't the intention that he should be on his own.
They followed Gustav into his room, which looked out over Mossen. The high-rise buildings on the hill opposite towered up towards the heavens. The field in between was deserted and flecked here and there with black snow.
Gustav Smedsberg remained standing without speaking.
'Where's Mats?' Winter asked.
Smedsberg gave a start.
'It's urgent,' said Winter. 'A little boy's life is at stake.'
'How do you know about Mats?' asked Smedsberg.
'We'll tell you,' said Winter. 'But just now this is URGENT.'
'What's all this about – a boy?'
'Has Mats been here?' asked Ringmar.
Smedsberg nodded.
'When?'
'I don't kn . . . This morning some time. In the early hours.'
'Was he alone?'
'Yes. What's all this about a boy?'
'Haven't you read the newspapers or watched television or listened to the radio?'
'No.'
Winter could see that his ignorance was genuine.
'Didn't Mats say anything?'
'About WHAT?'
Winter explained, briefly.
'Are you absolutely certain?'
'Yes. We've been in his flat.'
'Oh, shit.'
'What did he say?'
'That he was going away. A long way away.'
'On his own?'
'He didn't mention anybody else. No boy, nobody at all.'
'A long way away? Did you tell him about me?'
Ringmar asked. 'About what happened at your father's place? Last night?'
'Yes. He cried. He said he was pleased.'
'Where might he be, Gustav? Where can he have gone?'
'He could have gone there, I suppose.'
'He has been there, but he isn't there now,' said Ringmar. 'We've just come from there.'
Smedsberg looked weary, or worse.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know where he is. You have to believe me. I don't want anything to happen either.'
'Could something happen?' Winter asked. 'What could happen? You've seen him recently. You know him.'
'I don't know him,' said Smedsberg, 'I don't kn—' Then he looked at Winter and said: 'He . . . he said something about flying.'
'Flying? Flying to where?'
'I don't know.'
'Where from?'
'He didn't say.'
'Where might it be? You know him.'
'No, no.'
'You've met him more often than I have,' said Winter.
'He's never said anything about this to me,' said Smedsberg, looking up. 'Nothing at all. But . . .'
'Yes?'
'He has seemed, I don't know, creepy. I don't know how to put it. As if everything was coming back to him. I can't explain it.'
You don't need to explain, Winter thought.
'We have to leave now, but one of our officers will stay here, and then somebody else will come to help you,' he said. 'We can continue talking later.'
Gustav didn't seem to hear. He was still standing there in his room when they left. The lights on the staircase went out as they were walking down it. From the outside Winter could see his silhouette through the window.
'This is the country we have built, the New Jerusalem,' said Ringmar.
Winter made no comment.
'He told me about something in the car,' said Ringmar. 'Gustav.'
'What?'
'That fake newspaper boy was Aryan Kaite. Aryan was following him.'
'Why?'
'He suspected it was Gustav who had attacked him.'
'He was wrong.'
'And he had confirmation of that,' said Ringmar. 'He saw the old man trying to club down his own son.'
'Have you had time to check this with Kaite?'
'Yes.'
'Good God. Did Gustav know?'
'He didn't see who it was. But Kaite did.'
'And Gustav saw Kaite?'
'Yes, but he didn't recognise him.'
'So it was Kaite who told Gustav?'
'Yes.'
'And Gustav didn't want to believe him,' said Winter.
'It's complicated,' said Ringmar.
Frozen Tracks Page 53