Frozen Tracks

by Ake Edwardson

'This is the country we have built, the New Jerusalem,' said Winter.

  They walked to the car.

  'Let's go to my place and have something to eat,' said Winter, thinking about Angela.

  'Am I hungry?' said Ringmar.

  'You can do the cooking.'

  'Basque omelette?' Ringmar asked.

  'Why not?'

  Winter spoke to Bengt Johansson on the phone again. He could hear the busy traffic in the street below, a stark contrast with the previous day.

  'I can call in on you for a while later this evening, if you like,' said Winter.

  'I spoke to Carolin earlier,' said Johansson. 'It felt good.'

  Aneta Djanali had continued to interrogate Carolin Johansson, but she was unable to add any further details. They might have seen the video by now. Aneta hadn't phoned Winter yet.

  They ate. Ringmar had cut the tomatoes for the omelette the opposite way this time.

  'We need meat,' said Winter.

  'We need a housekeeper,' said Ringmar. 'We need women.'

  Cooking isn't our first priority just now, Winter thought.

  'Are you tired, Bertil?'

  'No. Are you?'

  'No.'

  'He might have driven to the seaside,' said Ringmar. 'Could be on a beach somewhere.'

  Winter had sent all the officers available to scour the coastline.

  They tried to set up checks at Landvetter and other smaller airports. But Winter didn't believe Jerner would be taking a flight anywhere. He thought his own flight would be more likely.

  'How many people do we have at Nordstan?' he asked.

  'Now? Not many. It's empty. None of the shops are open today. But they are supposed to have scoured the place pretty thoroughly.'

  'That was where he collected Micke,' said Winter. 'Is he intending to take him back there?'

  'He's not there, Erik. The place is empty.'

  'He used to go there a lot. You've seen a few of the other films. He seemed to like going there.'

  'He's not there,' said Ringmar again.

  'Perhaps there's something special that draws him there?' said Winter.

  Ringmar made no comment.

  'Something we don't see,' said Winter. 'Something he sees but we don't?'

  'I think I know what you mean,' said Ringmar.

  'When do they open again?' Winter asked.

  'Tomorrow at ten o'clock. The Boxing Day sales.'

  'Is it Boxing Day tomorrow? The second day of Christmas?'

  'Christmas will soon be over,' said Ringmar.

  'And I haven't bought you a Christmas present, Bertil.'

  'I'm afraid I haven't bought one for you either.'

  Winter stood up.

  'I didn't phone Moa either. I promised I would.'

  'Don't even think about it,' said Ringmar. 'No doubt you'd only have made things worse.'

  'I agree,' said Winter. 'Are you coming with me?'

  'Where to?'

  'To Nordstan.'

  'It's EMPTY, Erik.'

  'I know, I know. But it's better than sitting here. Bengt Johansson lives on the other side of the station as well.'

  There was snow in the air again, a light snow shower. Some people out in the streets had their umbrellas up. Winter drove slowly.

  'People shouldn't use umbrellas when it's snowing,' said Ringmar. 'It doesn't seem appropriate.'

  'It was old man Smedsberg who told us that Carlström had a foster son,' said Winter.

  'Do you imagine that I haven't thought of that?' said Ringmar.

  'If he hadn't said anything, we'd never have spoken to Carlström, in all probability.'

  'No.'

  'And we still wouldn't have got Jerner's identity.'

  'No.'

  'So the question is why?' said Winter, turning to look at Ringmar. 'Why?'

  'Yes.'

  'Come on, give me an answer. You've spoken to old man Smedsberg.'

  'Not about that.'

  'But you must have an idea?'

  'Everything will be revealed by forensic psychology,' said Ringmar.

  'I think we've uncovered quite a lot already,' said Winter.

  'That's true.'

  'The father did exactly the same thing as the son did,' said Winter. 'He gave us clues.'

  'Yes.'

  'It's all to do with guilt,' said Winter.

  'Gustav's guilt? What guilt?'

  'Don't you think the son feels guilty?' Winter looked at Ringmar again. 'Don't you think he's been feeling guilty for ages?'

  'Yes.'

  'Just like the other boys. Their silence is due to the fact that they were afraid Gustav would be beaten again by his father, or even worse than that. Fear makes you keep quiet.' Winter changed gear. 'And shame also makes you keep quiet. The boys were ashamed of having been attacked. Ashamed, and shocked. That's the way it is with rape victims.'

  'Yes,' said Ringmar again.

  'Gustav led us to his father,' said Winter.

  'And perhaps the father intentionally put us on to Carlström and hoped we would change direction, and understand who it was really all about. Who the guilty one really was.'

  Winter nodded.

  'Guilty of everything,' said Ringmar, thinking of Mats Jerner and Micke Johansson.

  'Do you think Gustav knew?' Winter asked. 'Did he know about Mats? Mats and the children?'

  'No,' said Ringmar. 'We'll find out eventually, but I don't think so. As far as Gustav was concerned, it was all about his father. The old man.'

  'And for old man Smedsberg it was all about himself,' said Winter. 'He turned himself in indirectly the moment he told us about Natanael Carlström and the foster son.'

  His mobile rang.

  'We've found Magnus Heydrich,' said Halders.

  'Eh? Come again?'

  'Bergort. We've got him.'

  'Where is he?'

  'Safe and sound, locked up in a cell.'

  'Has he said anything?'

  'No. But who cares? He's guilty. There's no doubt about that, is there?'

  'No,' said Winter.

  'Bloody chicken shit,' said Halders.

  'What did you say, Fredrik?'

  'The bastard didn't have the guts to drive into a tree.'

  The square in the centre of the Nordstan shopping mall was illuminated by every kind of lights you could think of. The area round the square was silent and glittering. The display windows of the shops and department stores cast shadows on to the stone floor.

  Nordstan was a training area for all rookies joining the Gothenburg police force. Winter had patrolled there. A fair number of those he'd kept an eye on in those days were still around, sometimes inside the mall, sometimes outside in Brunnsparken; they had also been rookies in their own way, alcoholics and junkies who had once been young just like him.

  He stood in the middle of the square, with his back to the travel agency. From there the lights from KappAhl and Åhléns and H & M and the Academy Book Shop looked warm and inviting. He couldn't see any security guards or police officers just now. He could have been the only person in the world. Ulf Silén's sculptures from 1992 were hanging down above his head – the work of art, known as Two Dimensions, comprised figures diving and jumping into the water, flying through the air, changing under the surface of the water, from white to sea green, and turning into other shapes that became a part of the water. He had never really looked at the hanging sculptures in this way before, never given them a thought, just as none of the other passers-by ever did, no doubt, thousands of them every day, going to and from the shops, to and from Central Station via the pedestrian subway. The work of art became a part of the square, and that was doubtless the intention.

  He heard Ringmar's voice behind him:

  'Twenty officers have been through all the basement areas.'

  'OK.'

  'Have you finished here?' Ringmar asked.

  'What time is it?'

  'Just gone eleven.'

  'I'll call in on Bengt Johansson
,' said Winter.

  'I'm going home,' said Ringmar.

  Winter nodded. It was time for Ringmar to go home.

  'But I might turn up later tonight,' said Ringmar. 'If I can't sleep.'

  'You mean you've thought of sleeping?'

  Bengt Johansson was calmer than before.

  'It helped to talk to Carolin,' he said. 'I think it helped her as well.' He was pacing up and down. 'You're not going to persuade me to watch those films.' He held up his hands in Winter's direction. 'Carolin said she was obliged to because it was her fault, as she put it. But I'm not going to watch that shit. Never.'

  'You don't need to see Micke,' said Winter. 'But the man doing the filming. You might see something that strikes a chord.'

  But what would that be? The only help they could get from Bengt Johansson would be if he recognised Jerner from some particular place.

  'I don't want to,' said Johansson.

  Winter noticed the photographs of Micke on the wall and on the desk. There were more now than there had been when he was here last.

  'I'd like to tell you a bit about Micke,' said Johansson. 'About all the new words he's learnt recently. Would you like to hear?'

  Winter was poring over a map of Gothenburg and maps showing the tram routes. It had been past two when he got home from Bengt Johansson's. His car was parked in the street outside, in a space reserved for the disabled because that was how he felt.

  In the morning they would cast the fine-meshed net further afield, concentrating in the first place on the number 3 tram route. It was an enormous task. He fell asleep halfway through a stroke of the pen. He dreamt about a child's voice shouting 'Daddy', and then again, 'Daddy', but further away now, faint, and toneless. He woke up in the armchair, staggered into the bedroom and collapsed into bed.

  He was woken by a noise. He sat up with a force that startled even himself. He checked the clock on the bedside table: nine thirty. He'd slept for five hours.

  Nobody had woken him up, nobody had phoned. He knew they were aware at headquarters that he was working all round the clock, and perhaps they were simply trying to prevent him from burning himself out. He almost smiled. But his mobile? Where was it? He looked for it in the bedroom. It felt as if he were still asleep. He looked for it in the other rooms, in the kitchen. He rang the number from his landline telephone in the kitchen. No ringing. He eventually found it on the washbasin in the bathroom, switched off. He had no recollection of taking it there, or of switching it off. Why had he switched it off? But if there had been any developments, he would have been phoned by Halders, who was back on duty now. So nothing had happened. He checked the answering machine. Then took a cold shower.

  As he was drinking coffee he thought again about Nordstan. Jerner had kept visiting Nordstan. There were usually so many people there that they merged into one another. He looked at the clock. The shopping mall would be open now.

  On the way there Aneta Djanali phoned.

  'Ellen Sköld said a name.'

  'Have you spoken to her again?'

  'Yes, just now, this morning. She keeps saying the name Gerd. It must be Gerd she keeps saying.'

  'Jerner's mother,' said Winter.

  'He's told Ellen about her,' said Djanali.

  There were plain-clothes police officers in all the arcades, Postgatan, Götgatan, in the department stores. All the entrances and exits were under observation.

  People were thronging in there now. The Boxing Day sales had exploded in everybody's face. Winter could barely move as he tried to make his way over the square. Yesterday he'd been the only person on earth; today there were thousands there.

  The headlines outside the newsagent's were screeching at top volume.

  Ringmar was waiting outside H & M, as agreed.

  'Did you get any sleep, Erik?'

  'Yes, but it was not intentional.'

  'I've spoken to Martin,' said Ringmar.

  'About time.'

  'He wants to meet me.'

  'What does he have to say?'

  'That he's never got over the fact that I hit him once. Once. That was it. That was all it was. But it just grew and grew on him.'

  'Did you?'

  'Hit him? Not in that sense.'

  'What other sense is there?'

  'I haven't hit him,' said Ringmar, and Winter could see that the relief in Bertil's face was that of an innocent man. I haven't even done that, was what he wanted to say.

  'Where is he?' asked Winter as he observed people moving slowly around in clumps.

  'In New York.'

  'NEW YORK?'

  'Yes. He's left that damned sect he was a member of.'

  'Deprogrammed?'

  'He sorted it out himself.' Ringmar looked at Winter. 'Perhaps this is only the beginning, of course. Such things take time.'

  'What's he doing?'

  'Working in a restaurant.'

  'Is he coming home?'

  'Next week.'

  'When's Birgitta coming home?' Winter asked, watching a man sitting on the ground with people stepping round him.

  'She's already home. So's Moa.'

  'Who's checked out that guitar player?' said Winter, pointing in the direction of the plinth in the middle of the square.

  'Eh? What guitar player?'

  'Who's the GUITARIST?' said Winter. He stepped quickly forward, collided with a woman, apologised, and continued barging his way forward like a rugby player forcing his way through tackling backs. He reached the guitar player, who was sitting underneath the hanging and whirling bodies of Two Dimensions, strumming away at some tune or other, and came up behind him, saw the checked cap and knew that it was possible and that anybody could hide himself away like this for as long as they liked. It was a devilishly clever disguise, a disguise that would hold good in any public place, and Winter's hand was shaking as he reached out for the man, who strummed a chord, and Winter pulled off his cap and found himself staring at a mop of black hair and an unknown, terrified face staring up at him.

  'Oh, I'm sorry,' said Winter.