Sun and Shadow

by Ake Edwardson

  “I’m damned if I know, Erik.”

  “Say what you think.”

  Ringmar screwed up his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and produced a noise like sandpaper on rough timber. His features became more marked in the twilight, his wrinkles seemed deeper when the sun was reflected into the room from the buildings on the other side of the river. There wasn’t going to be any leave for Ringmar this February either. Perhaps when the grandchildren came. But the best time for skiing was already past.

  “There has been talk of police officers—or police uniforms—a bit too often for us to simply ignore it,” he said in the end.

  “I agree.”

  “What Börjesson had to say about the record shop was most interesting.”

  “I agree.”

  “We’ve checked places where there are uniforms, but nobody has reported any missing.”

  “No.”

  “None at all.”

  “No.”

  “That only leaves the filmmakers.”

  “I agree.”

  “Perhaps it’s an omen.”

  “A good omen?”

  “Are there any good ones? I once saw a film called Omen. It wasn’t exactly teeming with benevolence.”

  “There were several,” Winter said. “Parts one and two, et cetera.”

  Ringmar rubbed his forehead again.

  “I think we ought to get going on that.”

  “Will you take charge, please?”

  Ringmar agreed, took the list, and went to his own office in order to start organizing the work. A messenger arrived with an internal mail envelope and the secretary raised her eyes heavenward. The girl on the front cover was scantily dressed. A big headline in red and yellow explained the best way to get sex at work. Winter turned the pages until he came to the personal column with the subheading “Make It Quick.” There were a lot of ads. Several pictures of naked genitalia and faces with thick black censor lines over the eyes. Why not the other way around? he wondered.

  At the end was a coupon for the text of an advertisement. The Valkers must have filled in one of these and posted it, he thought. Maybe the Elfvegrens as well. And the Martells.

  Maybe somebody else.

  What did you have to do?

  He read on until he came to information about answers. Telephone replies, postal replies. They hadn’t asked the Elfvegrens about which type of ad it was. Or ads. Replies. That was careless and showed lack of knowledge and perhaps it was also creditable. Not even Halders had asked.

  They had lists of all their telephone calls, so they could check.

  They hadn’t found any filled-in ad coupons at the Valkers’ nor at the Martells‘. No ad texts, no replies.

  Winter phoned the editorial office of Aktuell Rapport. A woman answered and he explained who he was.

  “The coupons with the text for the ads are kept for three months,” she said.

  “Does that mean that you have the addresses of all the people who’ve advertised over the last three months?” Winter asked.

  “Yes. Generally speaking.”

  “Generally speaking? What does that mean?”

  “Sometimes we don’t manage to keep up with the shredding. There are so many of them ...”

  Shredding, he thought. That damn shredding. There should be a law against shredding. In order to assist police investigations into serious crimes.

  “How long could they be saved in those circumstances, then?”

  “Six months, perhaps. But that would be exceptional.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How are the addresses saved?”

  “We keep the coupons people send in. We also have a computer record that we erase when the paper is shredded.”

  ‘Are they mainly home addresses?“

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you have anonymous box numbers that a lot of people use?”

  “No, we don’t allow that. When we did, the ads turned out to be ... not serious enough.”

  Winter didn’t dig any further into that.

  “Can you see who replies?”

  “No. The respondent puts the reply into an envelope, seals it, and writes the contact number of the advertisement on it. Then he or she puts that envelope in another envelope and sends it to us at return postage rates that include a handling charge. We then pass the replies on to the advertiser.”

  “And the respondent has three months in which to react?”

  “Yes.”

  Winter thought that over. With a bit of luck the Valkers’ ad coupon might be in the records at the editorial office, or their home address confirming that they’d put in an advertisement. He would phone his colleagues in Stockholm, which was where the magazine’s editorial office was based.

  They might also find a coupon from the Martells. Or the Elfvegrens. The Martells. He thought about the Martells again. They had been murdered less than three months ago.

  If the Martells had advertised, they wouldn’t have received their replies yet. There could be replies being kept by the editorial staff. He recalled Erika Elfvegren’s story about “a man.”

  That was how the man got in. Winter had wanted to know how he got into the apartments, and this could be the answer, the solution.

  But the ads could have been put in at any time, several years ago. Calm down now.

  He asked the woman a few practical questions, hung up, then phoned Stockholm again and talked to a DCI colleague.

  No answer from Matilda Josefsson, who had worked at Krokens Livs. Djanali tried the other number, and a man answered by repeating the numbers she had just keyed in.

  She said who she was, and why she was ringing.

  “That was ages ago.”

  “What was?”

  “When I worked there. The fool was out of his mind.”

  “The fool?”

  “Andréasson. Claimed I couldn’t count. So I quit. Of my own free will.”

  Djanali asked some more questions about regular customers.

  “I suppose there were a few who came in quite often. It would have been odd if that hadn’t been the case.” Pause. ‘And then there were the shoplifters.“

  “Excuse me?”

  “We used to get a few shoplifters. A few little things kept disappearing. I never noticed anything myself, but there were a few incidents.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t remember exactly. I didn’t write it down in my diary or anything. But the girl who worked there at the same time as me knows more about it.”

  “Matilda? Matilda Josefsson?”

  “Exactly. That was her name.”

  “Did she tell you about shoplifters?”

  “She said something about shoplifters when she was on shift. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “We will. But she’s left as well.”

  “There you see. And she could count. Ha, ha.”

  “We’re trying to contact her now.”

  “She was always going on about running off to where the sun is. Try there.”

  Winter checked up on where the sun is. His mother didn’t know anybody called Ake. He probably didn’t live in Nueva Andalucia, but that wasn’t the only colony. The Swedish consul in Fuengirola answered after the third ring. Winter could picture the town in his mind’s eye, the motorway looking like a black wound, the houses that seemed to have been hurled down the mountain at the sea.

  “Of course I know Åke,” said the consul, who was a Swede. ‘And your name also sounds familiar.“

  There was no reply from Killdén in the Elviria colony. That was to the east of the hospital, on the other side from Marbella. He could remember restaurants, hotels, golf courses, little whitewashed houses.

  Passing through by taxi one night on the way to Torremolinos. The taste of wine lingering on his palate.

  Winter drove out to the Sahlgren Hospital. Siv Martell was still in a merciful coma. He didn’t need to drive out there to discover that, but he wanted to esc
ape the confines of his office. Her body was a sort of reminder of something.

  He studied her through the glass. Would she be able to provide any answers if she came around? Or was allowed to come around? He felt a cold flush. As if he had a layer of ice underneath his clothes.

  He went out. The new and old buildings at the hospital gave the impression of being a stage set. Ambulances and police cars drove backward and forward over the stage. Nurses in white hurried over the stage, doctors. Angels. He was on the stage himself, but there was no limelight.

  He had no script. Just the feeling that a catastrophe was on its way.

  50

  Bartram bought the magazine and rented a war film. The woman gave him a friendly smile. He didn’t know if she recognized him from one time to the next. She should. That kind of thing was the same even at the other end of the world, or wherever she came from.

  She was pretty new. They’d come and gone. He didn’t like the young man. Not suited to work involving service. If you’re going to provide a service you have to make an effort to help your customers. Otherwise you’re better off doing something else.

  He’d seen the old man one evening. Presumably he owned the place. He didn’t look like a service type either. Seemed to have a bonfire under his backside when he sat on the chair. Couldn’t keep still.

  He’d liked the girl. Then one day she’d gone. She could have said something the previous week. But there again, why should she say anything to him? Just because he liked her didn’t mean that she had to like him. Perhaps she laughed at him when he’d gone. Or behind his back. He’d spun around quickly and she hadn’t been laughing then, but maybe that was because she didn’t dare. She knew that he was a police officer sometimes. When he had his uniform on he was a policeman and he would come in here and be a policeman. Now he wasn’t a policeman because he was wearing civilian clothes. Now he couldn’t go around telling people to put their seat belts on and expect to be taken seriously.

  She’d been there when he stood in the way of the boy who stole some videos. He thought it was better to see it like that. He’d stood in the way. The boy had intended to pay, he said. Just forgotten.

  He’d made a concession. He’d written down the boy’s name and address but that was mainly because the girl was watching. She didn’t want to report him. He could give the boy a second chance. Why not? The boy produced his ID card. That meant he’d been identified and could be arrested. Bartram let him sweat a bit, then allowed him to go. Don’t do it again. That kind of crap. The boy seemed a bit odd. You almost felt sorry for him. Stared at the uniform as if the man wearing it was a general, as if it were covered in glittering medals. Mumbled something.

  He’d asked her if she knew the boy and she’d just shrugged. He didn’t ask her what that meant.

  Outside, the wind was making the posters flap. Must be goddam terrific films to be popular for so long. He glanced at the apartment building a bit farther on.

  He crossed the street and walked through the silence. The clifflike hill on the left shut out the noise from the city center, and the slope up toward the church muffled the traffic noise from the main road.

  It was a long street, but he didn’t get tired. There were yellow buildings to look at after all. They were different from the building he lived in, which was red brick.

  Two workmen came out of the building with advertisements on the gable end. They were carrying a bathtub that was long past its expiration date. Bartram never took a bath. Didn’t have time.

  Three children were running around in the playground as he went past. The Dumpsters were blue like yesterday’s sky. The wind was making the birch trees sway. Now he could hear the traffic on Göteborgsvä gen. The entrance door lock still wasn’t working. The walls in the stairwell were the same blue as the sky the day before yesterday. The apartment door was the same brown as this morning’s shit. He unlocked it, went in, and shouted that he was home. One of these days somebody might respond.

  He sat down at the computer without taking off his jacket and had soon entered the right files. He was following the investigation. Everything was there, he knew all about it, and smiled.

  Hanne Östergaard phoned Winter.

  “How is he?”

  “He’s had a nasty bang on the head.”

  “Does he need to go to the hospital again?”

  “I don’t know, Erik.”

  “That bastard. I’ll send a car around to the apartment and we’ll throw the swine in a cell.”

  “What will we do with Patrik?”

  “What do you think?”

  “He’s having a rest here. I think somebody has to have a look at him.”

  “Should I send an ambulance?”

  “No, I’ll take him in the car.”

  “All right.”

  “There’s ...”

  “Yes?”

  “There was something I was going to ask ...” she said. “But it can wait. I’ll take Patrik to the hospital.”

  Morelius and Ivarsson went to get Patrik’s father. The man was unconscious when they got there. The woman opened the door, then ran away down the stairs with no shoes on. She’d been red under the eyes, blue. There’d been blood on her shirt or whatever it was. Blouse.

  They carried him down. Ivarsson put a plastic sheet over the backseat.

  The man was still more or less unconscious when they locked him up. “Was that necessary?” Ivarsson wondered. “Yes,” Morelius said.

  “Was it you who phoned their apartment a week ago?” Winter asked, who was also there. They were walking along the corridor, which smelled old.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you been trying to contact Patrik for some reason?”

  “No.”

  “Somebody from the police phoned. In addition to me, that is.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “You know him pretty well, don’t you?”

  “You get to know people when you’re patrolling the streets all the time.”

  “Has he calmed down a bit?”

  “He’s always been pretty calm,” Morelius said. “It’s ... her ... er, the vicar’s daughter who’s been a bit wild, rather than him.”

  “Yes, evidently.”

  “But she seems to have calmed down now as well.”

  Winter’s colleague called from Stockholm.

  “We’ve been up there.”

  “Well done, Jonas.”

  “An interesting place.”

  “Did you find any completed ad coupons?”

  “The shredding business hadn’t worked as it should have done for the Valkers. Too many advertisements. Too many people trying to make contact. They’ve got thousands of bloody advertisements in that office. And that’s only one of these so-called men’s magazines.”

  “Well?”

  “We have the coupon from the Valkers, duly filled in. And we have the coupon from the Martells.”

  “Just what I was hoping for.”

  “And they only use letters,” DCI Jonas Sjöland said. “No telephone responses. And your hopes were also fulfilled when it came to the replies to the Martells’ ad. They’d already sent out the replies to the Valkers, but they still had the ones for the Martells. Hadn’t got around to sending them.”

  “How many answers have you got there, to the Martells?”

  “I haven’t counted them yet ...” Winter listened to the pause. “Have you got authorization for this, Erik?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “You’ve got the Code of Judicial Procedure there on your bookshelf, what does it have to say? Are you a hundred percent sure of what you’re doing?”

  “Don’t worry, I said.”

  “I looked it up, in fact,” Sjoland said. “Chapter twenty-seven, paragraph three. Interesting.”

  “Especially as it’s never been tested,” Winter said.

  “Who’s your prosecutor?”

  “Molina. Do you know him?”

  “Only by
name.”

  Winter had decided to inform the prosecution service immediately after the first murder. Peter Molina had been following the investigation closely all the time so that he would be able to make decisions fast.

  “So you are creating new practices, are you? Setting precedents, in fact,” Sjöland said. “Sensitive stuff, this. Opening other people’s letters.”

  “If you study the paragraph carefully, you’ll see there is scope for the officer in charge of the investigation to make a decision in a criminal case as serious as this.”

  “Well, I suppose you could interpret it like that.”

  “But I’ve asked permission from the public prosecutor, and got it. Positive.” In the end it was positive anyway, Winter thought. He owed Molina.

  “All right. I give in.”

  “I’d like the letters by tonight if possible. You can fax me the completed ad coupons.”

  “We’ll fix that.” Sjöland paused again. “Has it occurred to you that if you hadn’t been so damn quick off the mark, the pile of letters would have turned up at the Martells’ place. By post. They gave their home address, no dodgy box number. The girl at the office said they would probably have sent off the pile in a week or so. Just imagine, that would have been interesting.... A possible solution suddenly drops in through the mail slot.”

  “I’ve been anything but quick off the mark,” Winter said.

  Winter’s reasoning presupposed that somebody who replied to the Martells had also replied to the Valkers.

  He was sorry not to have the replies to the Valkers. He needed them more. But somebody who had made contact with the Valkers through the advertisement might also have gotten to know the Martells. Erika Elfvegren had told them about Louise Valker’s “man.” Had the Martells also heard about this man? Had they also met him?

  Or had he heard about them? Even before their ad was published? Or in the meantime? Would he prefer to answer an ad rather than simply telephone? Would that have been too indiscreet? Did he want to go about it as he had the previous time?

  Be that as it may. They would shortly have names and addresses. They had started interviewing the film extras. More names and addresses. He was waiting for the transcripts.