Morelius hurried out of the room, into the bathroom, and sat down on the seat. Images were flashing through his head. Bits of conversation intruded, movements, faded, there again. The conversation he’d had with Hanne ... when was that? Weeks ago? Two weeks? It had been a mistake to go to her. It was only a few of the young cops who went to see the vicar, and then only when ... when ...
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he’d said.
“It takes time,” Hanne Ostergaard had said.
“I have to be patient, is that it?”
“That’s not the word I would use.”
“I try not to think about it, but sometimes it’s too ... hard.”
“Is there nobody you can ... talk to about ... your experiences?”
“No. You mean, am I living with somebody? No.”
“What about your colleagues?”
Morelius thought about Bartram and Vejehag. Neither had been with him at the time. They wouldn’t understand. The others? The ones who arrived on the scene later? No. They’d been too late.
“No,” he said again. “I was with a new recruit and he was useless after no more than a minute. Just leaned against the car and threw ... didn’t feel well.” He looked at her. “I don’t know why I didn’t do the same.”
“We all react in different ways,” she’d said.
“I had a job to do,” was his reply.
He really did have a job to do.
They’d arrived at the scene just a couple of minutes after the crash. It was another occasion, not the one in the tunnel.
Glass and metal thrown fifty yards in all directions. Sleet, early for the time of year. Slippery road surface. His colleague had stood on a foot as he got out of the car. Just one foot. In a shoe. Rendered him totally incapable of anything. He’d radioed in and could hear the ambulances and fire engines in the distance even before he’d finished the call.
Somebody might have been screaming from inside the pile of twisted metal on the highway. Screaming louder and louder. Louder than the ambulances that still hadn’t arrived. Where the hell were the ambulances? This was their job. He couldn’t do anything, but he’d rushed over to the screams to see if he could help. Then he couldn’t hear them anymore.
The nearest car had been hit head-on and the driver thrown out. Possibly across the road and behind the protective barrier. Morelius couldn’t see any bodies in the wreck.
Next to it was a smaller car wedged between the others and it had been sliced in two. There was no roof. Two people sat in the front seats.
That was the image. That was the image he couldn’t stop thinking about. He kept waking up in the middle of the night with a freight train plowing through his brain and he was still dreaming about the bodies in that sliced-through car.
He told Hanne all about it. Tried to.
At first he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. He’d moved closer, but from behind, to see why they were lean ... why they were leaning so strangely. A man and a woman. You could see that from behind because one was wearing a jacket and the other a short-sleeved dress. It had been warm in the car, so they hadn’t needed coats.
He stood at the side of the car and saw that neither of them had a head. He couldn’t stop himself from looking, and then he saw ... the man’s head was in the woman’s lap.
Morelius had heard the ambulances, and the voices of the doctors and the paramedics and all the other thousands of rescue workers swarming around the scene of the accident. He was frozen to the spot, as if welded to the chassis, glued to the tarmac.
He closed his eyes again and heard the knocking on the door.
‘Are you okay, Morelius?“ Bartram was standing outside. ”We ought to be on our way now.“
He flushed the toilet.
“Yes, I’m coming.”
“I’ll be in the car.”
9
When Winter arrived at the intensive care ward, he found his father’s bed empty. His mother wasn’t there either.
“What the hell has happened?” he asked a male nurse who came over to him.
“Your father is operating,” the man said.
That was a pretty rapid recovery, Winter thought. His father was back on his feet and working as a surgeon.
“Where’s the doctor?” asked Winter. “A ... dónde está? Dr. Alcorta?”
“He is operating.”
“My father? Is he operating on my father?”
The man nodded. Somebody came in through the door. Winter turned around.
“I tried to phone you but I couldn’t get through,” his mother said.
“I was stuck behind a damned crane truck for miles. It was impossible to hear a thing.”
“He took a sudden turn for the worse. Again.”
“Oh God. What is it this time?”
“I don’t know. Oh, Erik,” she said and burst into tears. He went over to her and gave her a hug.
“I’ve brought your things.” He didn’t know what else to say. “In the bag here.”
“Dr. Alcorta will come and talk to us when he’s finished.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ve no idea, Erik. I know no more than you do.”
“Does he know any more? Alcorta?” She looked at him. “I’m sorry. I’m just ... frustrated by all this uncertainty.”
“You must be used to waiting, Erik. Being patient. No ... I suppose ... this business is something quite different.”
He thought about what she’d just said. Did he have the patience to wait, in his job as a detective? That was what it was all about, but he never felt he had the placid temperament to just wait for something to be solved. His impatience always got the upper hand. Sometimes that turned out badly, but most often it had proved to be no bad thing. His impatience had pushed investigations forward. An opening always appeared, but now he wasn’t sure, not this time. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even arrange a conversation with Dr. Alcorta.
This business is something quite different, his mother had said.
“Shall we go and have a coffee?” he suggested. “Downstairs.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea.” She said something in Spanish to a male nurse, and nodded at his brief reply. “They’ll call us immediately if anything happens. But we’ll only be gone for ten minutes, in any case.”
10
Angela closed the door behind her and tried to take off her raincoat without dripping water onto the parquet floor in the hall. Her face was wet, and despite sprinting from the tram to the front door, her hair had gotten wet as well.
What a day! Patients lying on gurneys in the corridors. No time for anybody. One visitor had called her “mysterious,” as he’d been trying to contact her for two days, or was it three? I’ve been here all the time, working, she told him, but he seemed skeptical. She had been furious, but hadn’t shown it. Of course. She was tired, and felt sick again.
She kicked off her boots and went to the kitchen. Rain pattered on the windows. The scarcely audible swish of trams in the square down below. Her new home. The big apartment building in Vasaplatsen.
It hadn’t been completely straightforward. She still had her apartment at Kungshöjd. She smiled. Erik would come home and she’d tell him she wanted to keep her apartment. He might well believe her. At times she felt he was prepared to agree to anything. But at others nothing escaped his critical attention, not the slightest detail.
No. They would be better off here, to start with, at least, when the baby ... She stopped her train of thought for a moment, didn’t want to think about it too much until ... until they’d had a bit more time. Until I’ve settled in, she thought. Until we’re living together. I don’t really live here yet. I just come back here after work because it feels better. In order to get used to living here.
She made a cup of tea, sat at the kitchen table, and listened to the rain outside. She stood up, went to the living room, and came back when Springsteen had already been singing for half a minute about the price you
pay for what you do. Angela stroked her stomach. The price for what you do. She smiled again. You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take. Springsteen was carrying the whole of human vulnerability on his shoulders. Erik had started listening to Springsteen. Only the melancholy songs, of course. But even so. It wasn’t only for her sake. Things were always happening to people who accepted that they kept on growing. Coltrane was still there, but he’d had to give way. Erik now knew two names from the history of modern music. The Clash and Bruce Springsteen. That should keep him going for a while. They had acquired something else in common, she thought, stroking her stomach again.
Am I afraid? No. Is he afraid? Perhaps. Will he admit it? He’s saying more and more. He’ll be forty in a few months, and he’s learning to talk. That’s early for most men.
The refrigerator was humming, but was almost empty. She stood in the light it cast with the door open. The twilight in the room had thickened into darkness. She had thought there was some cheese left, but there wasn’t even enough margarine to last until morning. She had a sudden craving for anchovies. She’d read and heard about such cravings, but never experienced them herself. Anchovies had nothing to do with foul weather, but they could have something to do with her pregnancy. Just like veal headcheese coated with chocolate and other old wives’ tales. Spaghetti with cola sauce.
Anchovies. Cheese. Margarine. Maybe the latest Femina. She’d canceled her postal subscription before moving, but now she missed not finding it in the mailbox, neither here nor at ho—No, not at home. She’d have her furniture there for a few more weeks, but that was all.
Clean break.
But what a pain, she was now longing for Femina almost as much as for a tin of anchovies, all yummy and caramelized by the grains of salt. She looked out of the window with rain streaming down it. The streetlights were on but had difficulty in piercing the darkness. She sighed, could hear herself doing it. Closed the refrigerator door, went into the hall, put on her boots and raincoat. The umbrella was just as elusive now as it had been this morning.
The elevator was down below, so she took the stairs. Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell, a deeper sound than the ones she’d been used to every day at ho—At Kungshöjd.
She walked along Vasagatan to the little supermarket. The rain had eased off, with just a little moisture dripping from gutters. She moved closer to the curb and heard an engine behind her, one of several. But after a minute the same vehicle was still there, and she turned around and saw a police car driving slowly a few paces behind her. She resumed walking, but the car continued crawling along at the same speed. She turned to look again and tried to see who was driving, but she could only make out a dark silhouette behind the wheel.
Were they on the lookout for somebody or something? Why was the car going so slowly, following her? Suddenly the driver flashed his headlights, turned left, and drove back toward Vasaplatsen. She looked around to see if there were any more police cars in the vicinity, but couldn’t see any.
She went into the shop and bought the items on her list. Then paused at the tobacco counter, bought her magazine, and took the opportunity to snap up a packet of cola sweets, while she was there.
Spaghetti tasting of cola. The myth was about to become reality.
It had started raining again, so it didn’t matter which part of the pavement she walked on. The shopping bag was heavier than she’d expected, especially when she changed hands to punch in the door code for the main entrance. She could see a police car again in the corner of her left eye. It was coming up from Aschebergsgatan now; it passed over the crossroads and slowed down as it approached her. She kept her hand on the keypad. The car drove slowly past but she still couldn’t see the driver’s face, as he had lowered the sun visor. She watched the car drive away and noticed the taillights blink like two red eyes. At the end of the block, it turned and disappeared.
She got in the elevator.There were evidently a lot of police cars out this evening. Or was it the same car? A raid on some shady premises in Vasastan. Where the dregs of Gothenburg live. Social dropouts. Desperadoes. Chief inspectors. Doctors. Mad widows with fortunes acquired in mysterious circumstances. There was one of those on the same floor as Erik. Very old, but she doesn’t fool me, Erik had once said when they’d greeted her as she got out of the elevator. Sometimes you can hear noises from her apartment that sound like some kind of mass. Did you see her nails? No? Not surprising because she doesn’t have any. But what she does have is lots of strange visitors.
She’d actually shuddered at the time. She thought about that as she stepped out of the elevator and saw Mrs. Malmer’s dark-painted door.
Rosemary’s Baby. The thought came from nowhere. She was Rosemary, and had moved in, for good. Erik started making late-night visits to old Mrs. Malmer and she would start hearing rhythmic murmuring through the wall. One morning Erik would have a Band-Aid on his shoulder. Somebody would die a tragic death at his workplace. The chief of police. Erik would be promoted into his job. She would be introduced to Mrs. Malmer’s eccentric but very gentlemanly old friend and he would introduce her in turn to a new gynecologist, which could lead ...
She’d opened the door to the apartment and the phone was ringing. She put down the shopping bag, kicked off her boots and took a couple of paces to the bureau in the hall where the telephone was.
“Hello?” She could hear her heavy breathing.
“Have you been running up the stairs?”
“Hi, Erik!”
“Is it good for you to run up the stairs? Or have you started doing gymnastics?”
“I took the elevator.”
“That can be strenuous.”
“Yes. I start imagining all the horrible things that might be going on in this building.”
“Old Mrs. Malmer?”
“Why mention her by name?” she asked, noting the tone of suspicion in her own voice. Good Lord!
“That was silly of me. I don’t want to scare you—”
“Stop now and tell me about your father. It sounds as if you’ve been able to relax a bit.”
“Maybe. He was critical again for a while and they did something new to his blood vessels, adjusted something. He’s resting now in the recovery ward.”
“Have you managed to talk to the doctors yet?”
“Are you kidding? You ought to know better than anybody how impossible that is. The world over.”
She thought about the complaints that had been directed at her earlier that day. About her never being there.
“Don’t be too hard on us,” she said.
“Dad isn’t complaining, and that’s the main thing,” he said. “How are things otherwise?”
“I had the classic longing for anchovies and rushed out into the rain and was shadowed by your colleagues.”
“Shadowed? By the crime unit? They can’t have been all that discreet, then.”
“What are you saying? Is it something that you’re behind?”
“Eh? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Being shadowed. By the crime unit.”
“Do you really feel you’re being shadowed by the crime unit?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said precisely that just now.”
“I said I was being shadowed by your colleagues. I meant the police.”
She could hear the sigh all the way from the Costa del Sol.
“Let’s start again from the beginning,” he said. “Tell me again. I’ll listen and I won’t say a word.”
“I went out shopping and a police car followed me. Slowly. All the way. When I stopped to see if that really was what it was doing it flashed its headlights and turned off down a side street.”
Winter said nothing.
“When I came back and was about to go through the main door a police car appeared again and drove slowly past, in the same way,” Angela went on. ‘And after it had passed, it flashed its lights again. The taillights this time.“
“Yes. For God’s sake, I expect they were keeping somewhere under observation, or whatever you say. It must have been a coincidence. I said it mainly as a joke.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Yes, funny, wasn’t it?”
“Did you get the license plate number? Or numbers if there were two cars?”
“Of course. I noted everything down right away on the inside of my eyelid.” She laughed. “I’m afraid not. I didn’t go to police academy.”
“Well ... I don’t know what to say.”
“Forget it. It was a coincidence, of course. Always assuming that you haven’t ... haven’t put somebody on to keeping a discreet watch on me, to make sure I’m all right while you’re away.”
“It doesn’t seem to be all that discreet.”
“Well, have you?”
“Are you joking?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I don’t have the power to do anything like that. Not yet, at least.”
“But soon, perhaps?”
“What do you mean?”
“If something happens to your boss? The chief of police. What’s his name?”
“Birgersson. What are you talking about, Angela?”
“Nothing.” She laughed again. “I’m just talking in my sleep, as it were. Or in my daydreams.” Not a sound from the Costa del Sol. “Hello? Are you still there, Erik?”
“This is a very odd conversation.”
“It’s my fault. I’m sorry. I still feel an outsider in this building, even though I’ve been here so often for so many years. But it’s different now. And I suppose it’s really to do with me wanting you back at home again. As quickly as possible. As soon as your dad’s better.”
“We must keep hoping.”
“It might take time.”
“If he has any time left.”
“It sounds as if he has.”
“Now you’d better fix those anchovies.”
“I suppose you get a lot of that kind of thing down there.”
“I haven’t tried any yet.”
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