Room No. 10

by Ake Edwardson

  “There’s a draft,” Ringmar said.

  “It’s mostly drafting on me,” Winter said.

  “Are you clearing your thoughts?”

  “My memories. I’m clearing my memories.”

  “Good,” Ringmar said. “That’s good for you.”

  “Do you have an idea of what we should ask the Ney couple about when we get there?”

  “Do you see them as a couple?”

  “That’s the question,” Winter answered.

  “And what’s the answer?”

  Winter looked at the shore on the other side of the river. It had been developed with condos, would be developed more until the balconies tipped into the muddy water. Just the balcony was worth more than the lifelong earnings of the shipyard workers who had built vessels in that same place a few decades ago. Winter had been a boy then, and he’d heard the racket that came from there when he took the ferry across the river. He had seen the ships, not built, half-built, finished. He had stood on the pier at Nya Varvet and watched the ships glide away, out toward Vinga, off across the sea, toward the equator, even farther away, the South Pacific, Australia. They glided away as though they owned the whole world.

  A person who passed the equator on a ship underwent a ritual christening. He had thought about that as a boy, thought a lot about it, but he had never done it; he had lived on the earth for nearly half a century, but he hadn’t yet passed the midline of the globe on a ship.

  “You should never look at a couple as a couple,” he answered at last. “If you do, you’re guilty of generalization.”

  “Some grow together,” Ringmar said.

  “Sorry?”

  Winter turned his eyes to Ringmar.

  “Some couples become like one,” Ringmar continued. “It’s like they grow together.”

  “That sounds horrible. You mean that as years go by they become like Siamese twins?”

  “Yes.”

  “One can’t even go to the john without the other?”

  “That’s what happens,” Ringmar said. “It sneaks up. And one day it’s a fact. Not one step without the other.”

  “I hope you’re not speaking from experience, Bertil.”

  “I’m sitting here by myself, aren’t I?”

  “Nice.”

  “But it’s worth thinking about.”

  They drove through Kungssten to avoid the rush-hour traffic out on the main roads. They were nearly crushed by a bus; they saw it coming, but there wasn’t space for both of them. Ringmar heaved the car up onto a bit of sidewalk that was suddenly there. There were no pedestrians on it. In the rearview mirror, Winter saw the bus reeling forth toward the roundabout. Ringmar rolled back onto the street again.

  “If we’d had a marked car, that hypocritical bastard would have driven like a normal person,” he said.

  “I got the number.”

  “Forget it. We don’t have time.”

  Ringmar swung off onto Långedragsvägen. They passed Hagen School. Ringmar turned left at the intersection after the soccer field and crossed Torgny Segerstedtsgatan. Mario and Elisabeth Ney’s apartment was in one of the apartment buildings in Tynnered. The redbrick buildings stood like walls facing the sea, far down in Fiskebäck. The wind was strong over the flat land; it was always windy here. Winter saw the buildings when they were up on the main road.

  Ringmar swung into the OK station to fill up.

  Winter went into the store and came back with an evening paper, the GT. He flipped ahead a few pages and held the spread up in front of Ringmar’s nose as Ringmar pulled the receipt from the gas pump.

  “Isn’t that your bad side?” Ringmar said.

  “I was thinking more of the headline,” said Winter.

  “POLICE WITHOUT CLUES IN HOTEL MURDER,” Ringmar read from above the picture of Winter turning around, presumably after a short interview. “Is that proper Swedish?”

  “Is that a proper conclusion?” Winter said.

  “Essentially, yes,” Ringmar said, “if we don’t count the videotapes.”

  “And the hand,” Winter said. “And the rope. And the shoe print.”

  “They actually should have had all of that already,” Ringmar said. “What’s his name, your friend at GT? Bry . . . Bru . . .”

  “Bülow,” Winter answered, “but he’s not my friend.”

  “Anyway, he usually sniffs most things out. But not this.”

  “Our commissioner must have sealed up the cracks,” Winter said.

  “You mean by quitting?” Ringmar said. “You’re talking about the Sieve, right?”

  Winter nodded. Einar “the Sieve” Berkander, ex-police commissioner, had hooked up with a divorced reporter from Göteborgs-Posten during his ruling years. It got out, as did most of what the Sieve said in the woman’s arms. The Sieve was also divorced nowadays.

  “We can’t forget that we often get help from the press,” Ringmar said.

  “Exploit it, you mean?”

  “We need it,” Ringmar said, studying the spread again.

  “Is there anything there that’s of use to us?”

  “I don’t know,” Winter said, folding up the paper and throwing it into the backseat.

  They drove out from the gas station and in among the houses. Ringmar parked. Winter checked the address.

  It smelled like food in the stairwell, some indeterminate dish, almost no spices. It was the old stairwell smell. The new one was noticeably spicier, spices from all over the world, people from all over the world.

  Ringmar rang at the door. No one opened it. He rang again. They thought they heard footsteps. They realized they were being observed through the peephole.

  The door was opened a tiny crack. They saw Elisabeth Ney’s face.

  “Yes?”

  “May we come in for a little while, Mrs. Ney?”

  This was Ringmar. They didn’t need any ID at this point.

  “Well . . . what is it?”

  They didn’t answer. They had already asked to come in. A little while, Winter thought. What an expression. A little while could mean days.

  “My husband isn’t home,” she said.

  So they’re separated right now, Winter thought. We’re in luck.

  “That’s okay,” Ringmar said.

  • • •

  How do you act when you’re about to try to ask a mother what her relationship with her murdered daughter was really like? How do you act in a conversation like that when it’s actually an interrogation?

  Winter could see the courtyard through the kitchen window. A young mother was pushing her little daughter on a swing. The girl laughed as the speed increased. He wasn’t unfamiliar with that. He had been pushing Elsa for years, and now it was Lilly’s turn.

  Elisabeth Ney couldn’t be unfamiliar with that.

  It couldn’t be good that she was standing here and looking out this window.

  The window in the living room was better, with its view of the gas station, the highway, the industrial area on the other side of the highway.

  Ringmar had asked about Paula’s long trip almost ten years ago.

  “I don’t understand why it’s of so much interest,” Elisabeth Ney said. “It was so long ago.”

  “Maybe that trip meant more than we understand,” Ringmar said.

  Ney didn’t answer. She sat at the kitchen table in a stiff pose, as though she didn’t know what she was doing there. As though she could have been anywhere. It didn’t matter.

  Winter gave a discreet cough.

  “Your husband doesn’t want to talk about his past,” he said.

  She looked at him.

  “Surely that doesn’t have any . . . anything to do with this?”

  “We don’t know,” Winter said. “Think about it. We don’t know. That’s why we’re asking.”

  We’ve tumbled right into this family’s life. A week ago, I didn’t even know that there was anyone named Ney in this city. Now I want to know everything.

  “But I don
’t have any answers,” Ney said.

  “Was Paula upset about something?” Ringmar asked.

  “You’ve already asked about that.”

  “Something that happened recently?”

  “I’ve tried to answer that. No. I don’t know. Good God, I don’t know.”

  Winter saw the tears in her eyes.

  Winter sat down on the chair in front of her. Until now, he had been standing at the window.

  “Why didn’t Paula want you or your husband to meet her boyfriend?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “According to a friend, she had a boyfriend. But Paula never introduced him to you.”

  “We didn’t know that,” said Ney. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “No,” Ringmar said gently. “But why didn’t you know?”

  “Who is it?” she asked, looking at him. “Who is he?”

  Ringmar looked at Winter.

  “We don’t know,” Winter said.

  Ney shifted her gaze.

  “Don’t know? What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know who it is.”

  “Then how can you be so sure that Paula actually had a boyfriend?”

  “Her friend thought she did.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “She seems pretty certain of it. But we can’t know for sure.”

  “Where is he, then? Why hasn’t he gotten in touch?” Her eyes moved between Winter and Ringmar. “What kind of boyfriend doesn’t get in touch?”

  They didn’t answer.

  Suddenly she understood.

  Her hand went to her mouth, as though she was going to bite it. Winter could see all the awful feelings reflected in her eyes. He heard a laugh from down in the courtyard. It was the girl. They shouldn’t be able to hear her laughter in here. The window ought to be thick enough.

  “I thought that you . . . maybe . . . that she’d said something about him,” he said, “or that you suspected something.”

  “But Paula didn’t live here. Other than now, the last few days. If she . . .”

  She broke off there. She put her hand to her mouth again.

  “Oh God, I said last few days. I meant past. You say things wrong sometimes. I usually point it out when people say ‘last’ when they mean ‘past.’ ”

  Winter nodded. Ney looked at him with eyes that suddenly looked blind.

  “I’m a teacher. I’ve taught Swedish and history in the upper levels. I’ve always told my students that it’s important to use proper language. Without language, you get nowhere.”

  “Elisabeth . . .”

  “And then I sit here myself and say ‘last.’ ” She looked from Winter to Ringmar and back again. Her eyes had still been blind, but now it broke. “Last! And I was right! It was her last few days!”

  “Mrs. Ney . . . Elisabeth . . .”

  “It’s almost funny!” Her eyes had a sheen again. They flashed in a peculiar way. “I ha—”

  “Elisabeth!”

  She gave a jump on her chair, really jumped, as though a breeze, rather than Winter’s words, had lifted her up, had defied the law of gravity.

  “Elisabeth? Would you like us to help you get somewhere? Would you like to see someone? Elisabeth?”

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes were unfocused as she suddenly stood up and walked through the kitchen like a blind woman, her arms out in front of her.

  She stood in front of the window. Winter and Ringmar stood up. Winter could see every furrow in Ringmar’s face. It looked like a black-and-white photograph. It had to be the dusk.

  “I can’t hear the little girl any longer,” said Ney. “Wasn’t she the one who was laughing before?”

  12

  The door opened out into the hall. Winter heard a cough. The door closed. Winter could hear the echo from the stairwell. Elisabeth Ney didn’t seem to hear anything. They were sitting in the living room now; Winter and Ringmar were sitting. Ney was standing at the window, with her back to them.

  There was no voice from the hall, no “I’m home” or “Hi” or anything like that. Just steps.

  “What the hell?!”

  Ney didn’t say anything. She didn’t turn her head. Maybe she was still listening for the little girl.

  “Good evening, Mario.”

  That was Ringmar. He had stood up. From where Winter was sitting, Ringmar mostly looked like a shadow. Dusk had begun to fall while they were sitting there, and none of them had turned on a light. There was an old phrase for that: sitting twilight. Winter had heard it from his grandmother. It was an expression associated with comfort and calmness. Awaiting the darkness in a state of peace.

  “What are you doing here?!”

  Winter couldn’t really see Mario Ney’s face.

  “Elisabeth? What are they doing here?”

  She didn’t answer. Her eyes were still somewhere else, maybe out in the courtyard, maybe nowhere.

  “Elisabeth!”

  She turned around slowly. Winter considered getting up and turning on a light, but he remained sitting. He could see Elisabeth Ney’s face clearly when she turned around; it was illuminated by the last of the daylight before the sun sank behind the building on the other side of the courtyard.

  It’s like a mask, he thought. Like something that’s been hung on her to patch up what would otherwise be a hole. No. A different face?

  Then it was as though her eyes could see again.

  She saw her husband. She gave a start, as he had done when he came into the room just now.

  Winter saw a sudden fear in her face.

  He looked at Mario Ney. The man was still standing there, a meter from the doorway. His heavy face was more clear now. It had the same strength as the first time Winter had seen it. When he came with the news of their daughter’s death. That strength had remained in his face, under his grief.

  “What are they doing here, Elisabeth?” Ney waved toward Winter. “I didn’t know that they were going to come back.”

  “Your wife didn’t know either,” Winter said, standing up. “We’re only here for a short visit.”

  “Why?”

  “Couldn’t you sit down for a bit?”

  “Why hasn’t anyone turned on the lights in here?” Ney asked.

  “We forgot to,” Ringmar said.

  “The twilight comes quickly,” Winter said.

  “Twi—what kind of crap is this?” He took a few quick steps into the room. “Elisabeth? What have you all been talking about here?”

  Winter noticed that she gave a start again. During the second when it happened, he tried to figure out whether it was because of her shock, her despair, her fear of everything. Or whether it was because of her husband.

  It was hard to tell. But she is afraid. Bertil sees it, too, but barely, he thought. We should probably turn on the lights in here before we run into each other.

  “You have no right to force your way in here!”

  “Your wife agreed to let us in,” Winter said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That she agreed.”

  “I’m going to fucking check on that.”

  “We are also able to summon for interrogation,” Winter said. “To bring a person in for questioning. Judicial Procedure Code twenty-three, paragraph seven.”

  “We know what we’re doing,” Ringmar said. “We don’t break in.”

  Mario Ney didn’t say anything now.

  “Could you turn on a light, Mario?” Winter asked, as gently as he could.

  Ney turned his gaze in Winter’s direction. His eyes looked hard.

  “Are you planning to stay for long? Should I start dinner?” He gave a laugh. “Should we start making the beds? Did you bring your sheets?”

  “They’re here for Paula,” Elisabeth said.

  It was like a foreign voice in there. Suddenly she sounded strong, clear.

  She had left the window, had taken a few steps forward. The dusk had become red. At the moment, no one needed to turn
on a light in the room. The light was everywhere.

  Mario remained standing. He suddenly seemed to be at a loss.

  “They’re trying to figure out what happened to Paula, Mario. They’re doing their job.” She looked at Winter and back at her husband again. “If this helps . . . coming here . . . then they can do it whenever they like.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He seemed to shrink, become a few centimeters shorter. “Whenever they like. In the middle of the night.”

  “They wanted to know about Paula’s boyfriend,” Elisabeth said.

  “What? What?”

  He had given a start again. Winter couldn’t tell if it was from surprise. The red light was gone again, as quickly as it had come. Now it was truly dark inside.

  “Apparently she had a boyfriend,” Elisabeth said.

  Winter quickly walked around the sofa and turned on a floor lamp with a large shade. The room lit up like a stage. He had thought of that a few times, that he was on a stage, when he was standing in a room asking questions of strangers and at the same time trying to study their faces, as though he would be able to learn everything about them in a few seconds. As though someone were observing them all, an audience. As though he would soon recite a line.

  “We don’t know,” he said. “That’s why we’re asking.”

  “But didn’t you have to get the idea from somewhere?” Mario asked.

  His face was sharp and dark from the electric light.

  “Should we sit down?” Winter said.

  Mario looked at the furniture as though he were seeing it for the first time, and as though he were going to learn to sit for the first time.

  He took a step and sank deep down into an easy chair and immediately sat up again.

  “What is this . . . about Paula dating? When was this?”

  “Had she been dating during those last few weeks?” Ringmar asked.

  Oh God. Winter looked at Elisabeth, but she didn’t seem to react to what Ringmar had just said. The strength had left her again. She was sitting on the very edge of the sofa, as though she was going to stand up at any time.

  “No,” Mario said.