Well, here we are again, after the summer’s rest, Winter thought to himself.
He drew an X on the board.
“We’ve got an unidentified woman, approximately thirty years of age, probably strangled, discovered between three thirty and quarter to four this morning by a man whom we’re going to question further over the course of the day. For the moment, this man is not a suspect, but as you’re all aware, you never know.”
Winter fell silent and stared at his X, then began sketching out a rough map as he spoke. “She was found here.” He drew a circle at the spot where the body was dumped. “We’ll take a closer look at the map later, but I just want to mark out the relative positions. If you continue underneath the highway on Old Boråsvägen, you come to a junction that leads toward Helenevik and Gunnebo, but we’ll wait on that. So here’s where she was found,” he repeated, and pointed at his circle.
“That’s where the lodge is,” Halders said.
“That’s right. As most of you know, the police department’s recreation lodge is located a bit farther down the road.”
“That’s where I had my fortieth birthday party,” Halders said. “Wasn’t there something going on there yesterday?”
“Our colleagues over at the investigations department had a little do there in the early evening,” Ringmar said.
“How early?” Janne Möllerström asked.
“The last man walked out of there at around four,” Ringmar said. “Or rather hopped a cab.”
“What the fu—,” Halders began, but was interrupted by Ringmar.
“Naturally we’re going to question our esteemed colleagues on the subject.”
“That lodge can’t be more than a few hundred yards away from the ditch where the body was found,” Bergenhem said.
“Isn’t there a dog kennel just before it?” Halders asked.
“Yes. Right after the intersection. We’re going to question them too.”
“What, you mean the dogs?” Halders asked, putting on an innocent expression.
“If necessary,” Winter said. “There are a lot of houses along that road. The Örgryte shooting range is a few hundred yards farther up and then the Delsjö Golf Club and the GAIS football club’s training facility. There are a number of houses at the intersection of Old Boråsvägen and Frans Perssonsväg. Here.” He drew a few small squares on the board.
“And then we’ve got a bunch of drunken cops,” Halders said.
Winter didn’t answer. He finished sketching on the board and turned back toward his team sitting in the room.
“The site where the body was discovered is not where the murder was committed. She was moved postmortem to the ditch where she was found at least one hour after she was killed. She had been dead for eight to ten hours when we arrived on the scene. That’s where we are now. I’m waiting for the autopsy report.”
“Sexual violence?” Halders asked. He felt rested despite the late night.
“We don’t know yet. But her clothes seemed undisturbed and Pia Erikson Fröberg saw no immediate indication of sexual violence.”
“Any other witnesses?” asked Möllerström. He was Winter’s database expert, a meticulous detective who saw to it that all materials were entered into the preliminary investigation database.
“So far no one’s gotten in touch voluntarily, except for the guy sitting downstairs.”
“We’re looking at four cars,” Ringmar said. “Two of them were reported stolen.”
“That’s good,” Bergenhem said.
Everyone knew a stolen car could lead straight from a murder scene to a dump site.
“We’re scouring the vehicles today,” Ringmar said.
“What do the owners say about it?” Sara Helander asked.
Winter studied her. She had become part of his core group during the last investigation—an agonizing one—and he wanted to hold on to her permanently and not just have her on loan from surveillance. “Two of the owners were very happy that we’d found their cars—at least that’s what they’re saying—and the other two will just have to make the best of it.”
“Why had they parked there in the first place?” Halders asked.
“Yeah,” Veine Carlberg filled in, “why leave your car in that godforsaken parking lot overnight?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
“Did she have any defensive wounds?” Helander asked, eyeing the two photos in her hands. “It’s hard to tell from these.”
“She appears to have fought for her life,” Winter said. “There were injuries to her forearms, but we’ll have to wait for the report to know when they were inflicted. Here are the photos from the autopsy,” he said, and handed her a thin pile. “You can see there.”
“So she’s unidentified, huh,” Halders mumbled.
“She’s also had at least one child,” Winter said. “That could be of help to us.”
No one commented on this last statement. Winter studied the faces in front of him and started to hand out the day’s assignments. The work they did that day could prove to be the most important of the entire investigation.
He already had people sifting through the lists of persons reported missing.
DNA samples were being analyzed, of course.
They would go through the criminal-records database in hope that the woman had previously been arrested and charged, maybe even sentenced, and that her fingerprints would help them find the murderer. But the chances of that were slim.
The photograph on the desk in front of Winter didn’t reveal much of death. The woman looked like she was still part of the world, like she was resting.
They would hope that some fellow human being missed her, but they weren’t going to sit around waiting for that fellow human being to get in touch.
Winter thought about the woman as a mother.
They would knock on the door of everyone who lived in the vicinity of the dump site. They would track down newspaper deliverymen and others who might have been moving around there during the night.
They would check the taxi companies. Halders was assigned that job, and he grimaced despite his interest in cars. It’s pointless, he thought, but he didn’t say it.
“I know you think it’s pointless, but it’s gotta be done,” Winter said.
“This time it could be different,” Halders said. “There must have been a few fares from the recreation lodge. But fuck, man, cabbies never get in touch and they never see anything. It was better back in the old days.”
It was better back in the old days, thought Winter. Back in the day when he could have picked up the phone and dialed 17 30 00, and the central dispatcher would have made an announcement to all cars, “Anyone working last night call Winter,” and the job of an investigator would sometimes be made a little bit easier.
The Migration Board needed to be notified. The woman could be a foreign national. Interpol. Easy does it, Winter.
He looked at the arrows and numbers on the whiteboard—almost nothing there. Just a point of departure.
“Well, welcome back for real now,” Ringmar said. It was eleven o’clock, and they were sitting in Winter’s office.
“I was starting to get bored anyway. Summer vacation.”
“It’s better to have a hobby,” Ringmar said. “Then you make better use of your free time.”
“I went biking and swimming,” Winter said. “And listened to rock. You know, rock could become a hobby for me. Jazz is work but rock is like a hobby. It takes time to learn how to listen to it.”
“Yeah, you said it,” Ringmar said.
Winter heard the sound of engines outside and the jeering shrieks of the seagulls that followed the comings and goings of the radio cars.
“No one reported missing,” Winter said. “That could be good or bad.”
“What’s good about it?”
“She was somewhere less than twenty-four hours ago, was moving around somewhere. Somebody saw her, maybe even spoke to her. And I don’t mea
n the person who killed her. Just maybe.”
“One might come in over the course of the day. Or tomorrow.”
“Until then, her teeth are of no use to us.”
“We need a dentist,” Ringmar said.
“We need a name and a home address and leads,” Winter said. “It feels like—as if it’s indecent to speak about her. Do you feel that way?”
“No.”
“I always feel that way when we have a murder victim with no identity. Well, you know. No peace.”
Ringmar nodded.
“I’d like to hold off on the newspapers and posters for twenty-four hours,” Winter said.
“Posters? We’re gonna start putting up posters?”
“Yes. Our counterparts in London have started working with them, and I want to test it out here.”
“Is it producing any results in London?”
“I don’t really know.”
“I see.”
“I’ll write up a draft tonight.”
“What are you going to use?”
“I don’t really know that either. Can’t we use this?” Winter held up the image of the dead woman’s face.
“Let me see,” Ringmar said, and reached for the photo. He studied the portrait and handed it back.
“Doesn’t really sit well. But I guess we’ll have to if nothing happens soon. Freshly deceased and a reasonably good picture. It’ll probably be the first time it’s been done in Gothenburg.”
Ringmar stood up and stretched his back, then raised his arms above his head and groaned. “It’s evening for me,” he said.
“Pull yourself together,” Winter said.
“And then there’s the press conference,” Ringmar said, and sat back down again with one leg crossed over the other. His khaki pants and short-sleeved gabardine shirt were infinitely more elegant than Winter’s shorts and washed-out hockey shirt.
“Press conference? Who ordered that? Birgersson?”
“No. They tried to get hold of you when you were on your way in from Östra. Wellman.”
Henrik Wellman was district chief of CID. He was the one homicide inspectors had to turn to for money for any trips they had to make. Or new cars.
Above Wellman there was District Police Commissioner Judith Söderberg. After that, God.
“Is Henrik going to be there himself?” Winter asked with a smile.
“You have to understand him,” Ringmar said. “Young woman murdered, unidentified. Parliament isn’t back in session yet. The hockey season hasn’t gotten started. The press is all over this. A summer murder.”
“A summer murder,” Winter repeated. “We’re taking part in a classic summer murder. A tabloid’s wet dream.”
“It’s the fault of this goddamn weather,” Ringmar said. “If it hadn’t been for this unrelenting heat, it would have been a different thing. For the press, that is.”
“A fall murder,” Winter said. “If it is murder. It is murder, of course, but it’s not official yet. Well. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a conference with our friends from the press. I assume I’ll be the only one representing us.”
“At two o’clock. See you later.”
Ringmar stood up and walked out.
They needed a room now, a house or an apartment. If they couldn’t get a name, they needed a space to start in. The possibilities would fade quickly if they didn’t get an address to work from.
He took an envelope from the top left-hand drawer and opened it. Inside were more photographs from the dump site. He tried to imagine what had happened in the minutes leading up to the woman being deposited there. She could have been carried through the forest, across the bog. That was possible for a strong man. She didn’t weigh more than 120 pounds.
She had been carried. So far they hadn’t found any drag marks in the parking lot or on the path or in the grass. The parking lot. Had she been driven to the parking lot and hauled out of the car and carried over to the ditch? That was a possibility. The two stolen cars? Why not one of them? He would soon know. Somebody kills someone and walks down the street and steals a car and carries out the body and drives off? Would you do that if you had murdered somebody, Winter? Would you drive to Delsjö Lake?
He thought about the lake. Perhaps she’d come in a boat. He had people combing the entire lakefront. Almost seven miles of shoreline. How did one go about concealing a boat?
Could there have been some jogger out running around the lake at that hour? You never know with joggers.
There’s always a meaning behind the choice of disposal site, even if the murderer himself isn’t always aware of it. There’s a clue hidden somewhere in his choice. Something made him drive there of all places. Something in his past.
The dump site. We’ll start from there. I’ll start from there again. I’ll drive back there.
He put the envelope back in the desk drawer, closed it, and stood up so quickly that he felt dizzy for a split second.
Winter felt hungry earlier but the feeling was gone now. Still, he needed to eat something. He drove his car the short distance to the Chinese restaurant on Folkungagatan and ate a quick lunch and drank a quart of water.
8
WINTER LISTENED TO THE LOCAL NEWS AS HE PASSED LISEBERG Amusement Park. “The police have no leads yet in the . . .” It was true, no matter who it was that told Radio Gothenburg. This afternoon he would clarify what they didn’t know.
Various wheels were spinning around in the amusement park. It struck him that he hadn’t been in there in many years.
The asphalt was soft beneath his tires. Car and road melted into each other, as if both were disintegrating. He passed a sign that measured the temperature of the air and road surface: 93°F in the air, 120°F on the road. Jesus Christ.
After the Kallebäck junction he saw a police sobriety checkpoint on the other side of the road up the hill. A uniformed officer cordially waved drivers over to the curb. Another officer, with a video camera, stood at the roadside a little farther on.
Winter saw him in his rearview mirror. The camera was recording the oncoming traffic. But then he saw the guy train the camera on him. That meant he had been caught on the tape; he and the other drivers headed in the opposite direction were registered, even if they weren’t the ones the police were primarily interested in.
He turned right at the Delsjö junction and continued underneath the highway and past the recreation area. The sweltering heat kept people away—nobody in the parking lot or on the grass.
He was about to turn off to the spot where they’d found the woman when he decided to continue along the old road, underneath the highway that roared right alongside. After barely half a mile he reached an intersection and turned right into a combined parking lot and bus stop. He stopped the car and turned off the engine, got out and lit a Corps, and leaned against the side of the car.
The policeman with the video camera could be an opening. Hadn’t the traffic department been sending out night patrols for a while? Early mornings? Cameras that could see in the dark? Testing out heat-sensitive cameras?
And wasn’t this test supposed to be concentrating specifically on the eastern districts and arteries?
Winter grabbed the phone from its cradle on the dashboard and called traffic. He introduced himself to the watch commander and asked to be connected to the department chief.
“Walter’s busy.”
“For how long?”
Winter could see the shoulder shrug, could almost hear the sigh from the other end: why can’t this guy call somebody else?
“I asked for how long.”
“Who are you, did you say?”
“Inspector Erik Winter. I’m the deputy chief of homicide.”
“You can’t speak to somebody else?”
“We’re involved in a murder investigation, and it’s very important that I speak to Walter Kronvall.”
“Okay, okay, hang on,” the manly voice said, and Winter waited.
“Yeah, this is Kronvall.”
“Erik Winter here.”
“I was busy.”
“You still are.”
“What?”
“You’re busy with this conversation with me now, Walter. And I’ll get straight to the point. I need to know if you had any cameras out around Boråsleden last night, by the Delsjö junction, or anywhere in the vicinity. Early in the morning. While it was still dark.”
“Speed check?”
“You’d know that better than I would.”
“What’s this about?”
“Haven’t you heard about the murder yet? We got a strangled woman this morn—”
“Oh sure, I know about it. Despite the communications in this place, I might add.”
Winter waited for him to continue. He could feel the sweat around his eyes and where the telephone pressed against his cheek. He sat on the car seat in the shade and wiped his forehead with the back of his right hand.
“You want to know if we were filming in the vicinity, when it was dark. Well, it’s possible. Normally we don’t have that kind of equipment, but we got some in on loan from the boys in the copter unit to test it out a bit. Heat-sensitive cameras. I’ll have to check with the local precinct in Härlanda.”
“Can you do that now?”
“Well, I guess I’d better if you’re going to have any chance of seeing the footage. If they’ve been there, that is.”
“How do you mean?”
“Don’t you know how it works, Chief Inspector? The officers in the video cars peruse the tapes and then rewind them, and then somebody else takes over.”
“The tapes are usually recorded over?”
“Sure. We don’t exactly have infinite resources over here in the traffic department.”
“Then call them, please.”
“Where can I reach you?”
Winter told him and hung up, then rose from his seat and walked across the asphalt to the bus timetable. The first departure of the day was at 0500 hours. The final one left at 2343. Yet another lead to add to all the others in the investigation. An investigation is a great big vacuum cleaner that sucks in everything: witness statements and forensic evidence, sound ideas and crazy hunches, most of it completely irrelevant to the case. Eventually you find things that fit together. Then you can formulate a hypothesis.
The Shadow Woman Page 5