The Shadow Woman

by Ake Edwardson

  They could see two boys climb out, and Halders headed over to them along the path. He returned five minutes later with the two of them, who looked to be in their lower teens. They were carrying at least two fishing poles each, as if they refused to leave anything behind in the boat. Winter had heard Halders ask them why they’d left their boat there. They had said that it was their spot. Their usual spot.

  “There wasn’t a boat there early yesterday morning,” Winter said.

  “No, it was gone,” one of the boys said and both looked down at the ground.

  “What did you just say?” Halders said, and the boys seemed to tremble inside their life vests.

  “When was the boat missing?” asked Winter and discreetly gestured to Halders to back off.

  “This morning,” said the one that was doing the talking.

  “You came here this morning and noticed that the boat was missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was that?”

  “Eigh—quarter past eight, around there.”

  Winter eyed his watch. That was exactly four hours ago.

  “What did you do then?” Halders asked.

  The boys looked at each other.

  “We went looking for the boat, of course.”

  “With all your gear?”

  “What?”

  “All your goddamn fishing gear,” Halders said. “Did you lug all that stuff around with you when you went out looking for your boat?”

  “We left it here,” the talkative one said softly.

  “Where did you find the boat?” Winter asked.

  “On the other side,” the boy said, and gestured toward the water through the branches.

  “So it was just lying there?” Halders said. “With the motor and everything.”

  “No. We always take the motor with us.”

  “How about the oars? Do you take those with you too?”

  One of the boys, the one who hadn’t yet spoken, started to giggle nervously and fell silent after two seconds.

  “So someone could have rowed the boat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you have a lock on it?”

  “It’s busted,” said the boy who had giggled. He had regained his ability to speak.

  “Busted,” Halders repeated. “Does that happen often?”

  “It hasn’t happened to us before. But others,” the boy said, and made a gesture that included all the other boat owners around the Big and Little Delsjö lakes.

  “What did you do when you found the boat?” Winter asked.

  “We rowed back here and put the motor on, and then we went out fishing.”

  “You didn’t notice anything strange or out of place in the boat when you found it?” Halders asked.

  “No. Like what?” the boy said, but Winter could see what he was thinking.

  “Anything that didn’t belong there,” Halders said.

  “Not that we could see.”

  “Nothing lying around, no leaves or anything?”

  “We probably didn’t check that carefully. But the boat’s right over there,” the boy said, and nodded toward the path and the boat beyond.

  “I’m sure you understand that we have to borrow your boat for a while and examine it,” Winter said, and thought of all the time that had passed.

  “No problem,” the boy said enthusiastically, as if he were on the verge a great adventure.

  They walked back to the boat. The bottom of the plastic skiff was covered in four inches of water.

  “Have you bailed out any water since you found it?” Halders asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Where are the fish, by the way?”

  The boys looked at each other again and then at Halders.

  “We threw them back ’cause we felt sorry for them this time.”

  “Good.” Sports fishermen lie in a thousand different ways, Halders thought. Even the young ones are damn inventive. He bent forward and peered along the inside of the gunwale.

  “What’s that under the oarlock?” he said, and pointed. “Come closer so you can see. There. The left one, four inches above the water.”

  The boys looked, but neither of them said anything.

  “It’s not something you recognize?” Halders asked.

  “It looks like some kind of sign,” one of the boys said, acknowledging the little red spot of paint on the boat’s dirty yellow interior. “Or something. But it wasn’t there before.”

  16

  THERE WERE NO WINDOWS DOWN THERE, AND SHE DIDN’T KNOW if it was morning or evening. The light from the lamp sort of stopped halfway up in the air and then a little bit fell on her. She could barely see her hand when she held it in front of her.

  She wasn’t cold anymore because she had been given two blankets and warm water that they had made sweet. After she drank the sugar water she must have fallen asleep, and when she woke up it was as if she didn’t know if she had been asleep. It was so strange, but it was also good because she wasn’t scared when she was sleeping. You couldn’t be scared because you weren’t there.

  Now she was there again and she heard a noise from up on the roof. She would have liked to scream out “I want my mommy!” But she didn’t dare. Maybe the man would come with more sugar water, and then she’d sleep again.

  Nobody had hit her again. She didn’t think about that at all. Now she thought about the summer and that it was warm under your feet when you walked on the street or in the sand. They had walked in the sand when they came over on the boat. When they had driven onto the boat it made such a terrible clanging sound, and some men waved to them to drive deeper into the boat’s belly. Then she had walked in the sand—it wasn’t long after—and Mommy had sat with her awhile, and then she had gone swimming, and Mommy had stood there at the edge of the water, and then Mommy had gone and bought something to drink from a man who was standing on the beach. It was a funny small bottle and the drink tasted like lemon.

  It was ugly down here, she could tell. There were no tables or chairs, and she sat on a mattress that smelled bad. She had first tried to hold her nose up and turn away, but that had been hard, and now it didn’t smell anymore, or only when she thought about it.

  Now she crinkled the slip of paper a little inside her pant pocket. She didn’t dare take it out and look at it but she had it, like a secret, and that was scary but it was good too.

  Then she thought that her mommy was dead. She’s dead and I’ll never get to see her again. Mommy would never be away for this long without saying anything, or calling, or writing a note that the men could show her and read to her.

  Her whole body gave a start when the door up above creaked open.

  Now she saw the legs of the man as he came down the stairs. She kept her head down and only saw his legs even when he came up to her and the mattress.

  “We’re leaving.”

  She looked up but she couldn’t see the man’s face because the light was shining right on him. She tried to say something, but it came out like a squawk from a crow.

  “Get up.”

  She pushed off the blankets and first rose to her knees and then stood, and one of her legs hurt because it had been underneath the other one and had fallen asleep.

  Now she tried to say something again. “Are we going to Mommy?”

  “You don’t need to bring that with you,” the man said, and took away the blanket that she had under her arm. “Let’s go.”

  He pointed toward the stairs, and she started walking, and he followed behind her. She had forgotten how high the steps were, and she almost had to use her hands and feet to ascend them, like a mountain climber. Her eyes hurt from the sunlight that poured through the open door. She closed them and then looked again, and it became darker and easier to see because someone was standing in front of the light in the doorway.

  17

  STURE BIRGERSSON HAD BEEN DISCREET. HE’D STAYED IN THE background, as usual, and directed his gaze upward, for vertical contact with
the powers above. But now the department commander was calling on his deputy.

  Winter knew Sture had delayed his trip into the unknown: when he took off on vacation he always disappeared somewhere, but nobody knew where. Many wondered, but Birgersson himself never said a word. Winter had a telephone number, but he would never even consider using it.

  With the window open, the boss’s smoke drifted outside and polluted the area all the way to the Heden recreation grounds. His face was carved out of stiff cardboard, spotted by the sun where the light came in from the left. His desk was empty except for the ashtray. It’s just as fascinating every time I come here, Winter thought. Not a single shred of paper. The computer is never on. The cabinet looks like it can’t even be opened anymore. Sture sits there smoking and thinking. It’s gotten him far.

  “I’ve finished reading it now,” Birgersson said. “There are a lot of leads.”

  “You know how it is, Sture.”

  “I can only remember one previous case where we didn’t know the victim’s identity within the first twenty-four hours.”

  Winter waited, pulled out his cigarillos, lit one, and took a first drag while Birgersson looked like he was searching through memory files in his brain. You can’t fool me, Old Man, Winter thought. You know damn well if there’s been one case or more than that.

  “Maybe you know better than I do?” Birgersson said, looking his immediate subordinate in the eyes.

  Winter smiled and leaned forward over the desk and tapped off the ash from his Corps. “There’s only one case, as far as we can tell.”

  “In living memory, I mean,” Birgersson said.

  “If we’re both thinking about that guy at Stenpiren, I hope that was a one-of-a-kind event,” Winter said.

  A man had fallen into the water and drowned, and when they tried to find out who he was, they discovered he hadn’t been reported missing anywhere in the country. He’d been wearing a tracksuit, had no money in his pockets, no keys, no ID card, no ring with an inscription—nothing. They barely managed to get his fingerprints after all the time he’d spent in the water, but that didn’t do them any good either. He was, though buried now, still unknown to the world.

  “That one also took place during the Gothenburg Party,” Birgersson said. “Reason enough alone to pull the plug on the damn thing, stop the madness.”

  “Some quite enjoy the party.”

  “Don’t give me that, Erik. You detest the sight of big groups of people drinking beer out of plastic cups and trying to convince themselves they’re having a good time. Or letting themselves be convinced they’re giving a good time. And look what happened to our Aneta. The Gothenburg Party! How’s she doing, by the way?”

  “She’s having a little difficulty chewing, I guess.” Winter had tried to block out any thoughts of Aneta. But that was the wrong way to go about it. “I’m planning to pay her another visit soon as I can.”

  “Humph. I hope she comes back soon, for the sake of morale. Her own, that is. And I like her. She’s not easily spooked, especially not by me, and that shows moxie.”

  “Yeah, you’re pretty scary, Sture.”

  “What’s all this about a mysterious symbol?” Birgersson was a boor about changing the subject.

  “I don’t know.” Winter perched his cigarillo on the edge of the ashtray. “I really don’t know. Earlier I guess I had pretty much set it aside, but then Fredrik and I were down by the lake, and, well, you read the report.”

  “That must have strengthened your belief in the importance of intuition when working on an investigation,” Birgersson said. “That you were on the scene when the boys appeared.”

  “I literally was on the scene. I had a sudden impulse to head out there and it led me to the right spot.”

  “How do you explain, then, that Halders went there too? I don’t think our good friend Fredrik can even spell intuition.”

  “It’s not an easy word to spell. Have you ever tried it yourself?”

  Birgersson smiled and waved it off. “So you were on the scene. But what good did it do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The daub of paint in the boat doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Of course not. But it’s the same paint as on the tree.”

  “Maybe the boys did it themselves.”

  “Then they’re good liars.”

  “More and more people are getting better at lying. That’s what makes police work so variable, so fascinating. It keeps you on your toes at all times, don’t you find? Everyone lies.”

  “The boys may have done it,” Winter said. “Or more likely other boys, or anyone at all who wanted to leave a sign behind. Or someone who’s just pulling our leg.”

  “Or else it’s something a hell of a lot more sinister.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’ll be either a lot more difficult or a lot easier,” Birgersson said. “Know what I mean?”

  “A maniac.”

  “Either a maniac with a purpose, who’s satisfied and lost interest and is waiting for us, or a maniac who has only just gotten started.”

  Winter said nothing. He heard no sounds from the courtyard or from within the building. Birgersson’s face was hidden in a patchwork of shadows and blinding light.

  “I cannot stress enough how important it is that we identify this woman,” Birgersson said.

  Helene, Winter thought to himself. Mother and murder victim.

  “And where the hell are her children?” A mind reader, Birgersson. “If there are any.”

  Winter cleared his throat cautiously, suddenly disgusted at the taste of smoke in his mouth, as if the stuff had shown its character as toxic gas.

  “I could release photos of her dead face. I’m considering doing that, by the way.”

  “What? How do you mean?”

  “A public appeal, like a poster.”

  “With her dead face?”

  “That’s all we have.”

  “Out of the question. How the hell would that look? Imagine what people would say.”

  “They might say something that would help us.”

  “We’re going to find her anyway,” Birgersson said. “Find out who she is.”

  “We’re doing everything we can.”

  “I know, I know. But it’s—I don’t quite know how to put it, Erik. It’s as if you have too many lines of investigation from the get-go. Too many directions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, maybe sometimes you’re too conscientious, Erik. Maybe you see too many alternative solutions during the initial phase. Your brain springs into action, and the manpower gets spread thin.”

  “So what you’re saying is that it would be better to have a more plodding, dull-witted cop in charge of this?” Winter crossed his legs.

  “No no.”

  “Well what do you mean, then? We’re following up the lead on the car and the marking on the tree, and we’re questioning people who either live or have been in the vicinity. We’re checking up on the cars that were parked there during the night, and we’re devoting all our resources to finding the woman’s name.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “I could issue a public appeal, but you think that would be inappropriate.”

  “Not me, primarily.”

  “No. It’s primarily those biggest and most insurmountable of obstacles that we come up against in this line of work—namely, timorous superiors who don’t know and don’t understand. And I’m not talking about you.”

  “You’re a superior yourself. Next in line to the throne, some say.”

  “Not for much longer. I’m not dull witted enough.”

  “Just forget I said that, Erik. All I meant is that we simply have to move forward. But you said something about the cars. That’s good—it’s concrete.”

  “A hundred thousand identical models of Ford. Yeah, that’s concrete.”

  Birgersson didn’t hear. Maybe the meeting was over. Then, “You had a good idea the
re. The night camera, the car.”

  “Don’t start buttering me up now.”

  “But it could lead somewhere.”

  “We’re doing the best we can. And one way or the other we’ll solve this. I can feel it. Intuitively.”

  Birgersson looked up from fiddling with his pack of cigarettes. “I don’t suppose any of our fellow officers partying up at the lodge heard or saw anything? The guys from investigations?”

  “Bergenhem hasn’t reported back yet. But if so, someone ought to have been in touch by now—on their own, I mean.”

  “Don’t try to fool me into thinking you’ve suddenly gone naive, Erik. How long does it usually take to get your memory back after a night at the lodge?”

  “Don’t ask me. I’ve never had one.”

  18

  THERE’D BEEN FOUR CARS IN THE PARKING LOT DOWN BY THE lake. The thefts of the two reported stolen—both out of gas—seemed to have been carried out in accordance with standard rules of the industry, except that the spot where they’d been dumped was an anomaly. The owners claimed not to have any connections to eastern Gothenburg. They also had alibis.

  Then there was the problem of the other vehicles. One of the owners had contacted the police just yesterday. The other they had to go find.

  Bergenhem drove through the Högsbo industrial zone and parked outside the Högsbo Hotel.

  It smelled of bread and burnt flour from the Pååls baking factory a bit farther on. Feeling sick to his stomach at the enveloping aroma, he set his foot down on the asphalt and silently tapped a rhythm.

  When a man emerged from the building and walked down the half flight of steps to the parking lot, Bergenhem climbed out of the car. The man walked the twenty paces up to him. Bergenhem took off his sunglasses, and the man’s face brightened up along with everything else around him. The smell of bread returned. It got stuck between his fingers. Bergenhem reached out, and they shook hands. The man’s name was Peter von Holten. He was a few years older than Bergenhem—maybe a bit over thirty, with sharp features, but it may have been the light.