Room No. 10

by Ake Edwardson

  “Do you mean Skåne?”

  “Yes. Or Tahiti.”

  “What would I do there?”

  “Walk around in shorts,” said Winter.

  “I don’t look good in shorts. And it rains in the South Pacific, too. Rains like hell, sometimes.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “Only in my dreams.”

  “Dream on, man. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  As though nature were answering Ringmar’s words, the skies opened up completely and all the rain in the universe poured down on the city, or maybe just on the street where Winter and Ringmar were standing.

  They were on their way to a meeting. Maybe it was important, maybe not. No one would know until afterward. This was something Winter was in the process of learning as a half-green detective. You knew afterward. Maybe it was too late by then, and maybe it wasn’t. But their routines were necessary. First the routines, then the thoughts. He was also slowly beginning to discover that it was possible to think during the routines. That it was possible to think at all. At first he had been skeptical. Now he was starting to realize that perhaps he hadn’t taken a wrong turn in his life.

  The rain wasn’t falling as hard anymore. It was more the sound than anything they could see; the roar against the awning above them diminished.

  They had been standing there for five minutes.

  Winter suddenly realized where they were standing.

  A compartment of memory that had been filed away, not too far from the center of his thoughts.

  Now it was coming back.

  He turned around, toward the stairs up to the door. The words were still there on the glass, the gold etching. The hotel hadn’t changed names since the last time. He could see the sign that said “Hotel” on a wrought-iron stand a meter out from the wall of the building. It looked like a beetle on its way up the wall. He looked up at the facade. The windows were like black holes, story after story.

  Three years ago, autumn then, too. He had been inside that room. He hadn’t come with a warrant, he hadn’t gotten one of those: Ellen who? Missing, you say? Stayed in a hotel room for one night? You want to inspect the room? No, nothing like that. I just want to look at it.

  That wouldn’t work.

  Instead he had asked the clerk whether he could see the room, whether it was empty. It was two days after she’d disappeared. He had stood in the room and listened to the traffic outside. No one had stayed here since Ellen Börge. That was the closest he ever got to her.

  “We’re standing under Revy’s awning,” he now said, and he turned back toward Ringmar.

  “Oh?”

  “Ellen Börge, the woman who disappeared. She checked in here the night before she disappeared for good. Do you remember?”

  “Now that you mention it. I remember her, not the hotel. But I guess you haven’t forgotten.”

  Winter didn’t answer. He had a sudden urge to go up the stairs and ask whether he could see the room again, whether it was empty. But that would be pointless. He would never see that room again. Would never need to.

  • • •

  The coat moved back and forth. The picture was as bad as ever. The shoes hadn’t changed since last time.

  They hadn’t been able to connect anyone to the shoes. Aneta Djanali thought about the shoes. There weren’t that many people with shoes in Africa. She had been back there, back to where she came from; she hadn’t been born there, but still she came from Burkina Faso, as it was called now. Not many shoes in the villages, more in the capital. She came from a village just outside the capital. There had been dust everywhere. Feet became covered with a layer that could get thicker and thicker and maybe provide protection.

  Halders was sitting next to her.

  They were studying the woman now, her particular way of walking. A limp that wasn’t a limp.

  “She’s hiding her face, but I’m not sure why,” said Halders.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe she always hides it,” said Halders.

  “Keep going,” said Djanali as she watched the woman.

  “She’s not hiding it from the camera, if she even knows there’s a camera. She just looks like that. That’s how she looks,” he said, nodding toward the monitor.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So she wouldn’t be involved in a . . . conspiracy?”

  “Conspiracy?”

  “You know what I mean, Fredrik.”

  “She’s involved in something,” Halders said. “She’s involved in dropping off that fucking suitcase, which I would really like to open.”

  Djanali followed the woman’s movements for the thirtieth time.

  “She’s doing it for Paula,” she said after a little while. “She’s dropping it off because Paula told her to.” Djanali turned to Halders. “Paula was on her way somewhere, and she helped her with her suitcase.”

  Halders nodded.

  “Paula was on her way somewhere,” Djanali repeated.

  “Two questions,” said Halders: “Where? And why?”

  “One more question,” said Djanali, nodding at the screen: “Why hasn’t this woman contacted us?”

  “And one more,” said Halders: “Who is she?”

  “And,” said Djanali: “Where is she?”

  “Here in town,” said Halders.

  “But why in God’s name hasn’t she made herself known?”

  Halders studied her movements again.

  “Might be dead. Might be afraid.”

  • • •

  Winter and Ringmar were on the way back from their meeting. But there hadn’t ended up being any meeting. The person they were to meet hadn’t come.

  “Impolite bastard,” said Ringmar.

  Winter laughed.

  “Maybe there weren’t any cars to steal up in Bergsjön,” he said. “In which case, he can’t be expected to come on time.”

  “There are always cars to steal,” said Ringmar. “They swiped mine once. Have I told you about that?”

  “No.”

  “In the police station parking lot. In broad daylight.”

  “It’s almost impressive,” said Winter.

  “I found it under the Göta Älv bridge the next week.”

  “Isn’t that how it always goes? The gas always seems to run out for the fuckers right under the bridge.”

  “They’d swiped the radio.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything good on it anyway.”

  Winter smiled. He liked Bertil. It wasn’t a father-son relationship, but it wasn’t too far from one either. They could talk to each other, which fathers and sons maybe couldn’t always do, and they had found a way to have discussions that worked. It was always a question of conversation. There was almost always an opening in a conversation that started with some distant point and slowly moved toward something. Silence was never enough, just thoughts weren’t sufficient. Conversations. Loud and quiet. Jargon. Discussion. Arguments. Crying. Yells. Whispers. Cries. Everything.

  The rain had stopped and a pale sun glimmered behind the haze like a flashlight with a dying battery. They walked across Gustav Adolfs Torg. The fat king on his pedestal pointed his finger down at them as they passed. He wasn’t much of a warrior. A soldier pointed with his whole hand.

  The wind swept the remaining leaves along with it across the square, pages of newspapers, a red and gold piece of wrapping paper. The Christmas tree would be put up here soon. There would be lots of wrapping paper all over. All the good children would get what they deserved, and the bad ones would, too. Candles would burn in homes. Winter had gotten the annual invitation to his parents’ house in Nueva Andalucía, and he would give them his annual rejection. Lotta would go down with the girls. His sister needed it; she could dip her recently divorced toes into the Mediterranean and try to forget a little bit. For his part, he would work. It was bette
r than staring out at a gold-decorated Guldheden on Christmas Eve and listening to Christmas songs on the radio and toasting himself. There was nothing good on the radio anyway. He had friends, but most of them had their own families now and he didn’t want to be a bother. It’s no bother, for God’s sake, Erik. Anyway, I’m working.

  “Should we get some coffee?”

  Ringmar pointed toward Östra Hamngatan with his whole hand.

  “Why not?”

  This was another thing he had learned, and learned to appreciate. Sometimes they left the police station and had their conversations at the city’s cafés. Once in a while at a bar, after the workday was officially over. Being among people, regular people, gave them a sense of reality that could get lost in this line of work. In the end, everyone was abnormal, subnormal, a criminal, a madman. A perpetrator. A victim. And nothing in between. Spending a day as a detective, or as any kind of police officer, was almost always strange. In reality, it was frightening. It was not something for regular people.

  A cup of coffee and a Danish were comforting.

  They walked across the street and into the café.

  The line at the counter was long.

  “Let’s go someplace else,” said Ringmar.

  At that moment, a table opened up near the large windows that looked out onto the street. Through the glass, Winter could see that the rain had begun to pour down again. It was April weather in November.

  “Let’s take that table,” said Winter. “I’ll get in line. What do you want?”

  “Regular coffee, no milk, two sugars, a napoleon, and a glass of water.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Get going before the line gets even longer, kid.”

  But it was shorter when he got there. It was as though some of the people in line had disappeared into thin air. The line moved slowly. When it was his turn, he gave his order. The girl behind the counter placed Ringmar’s napoleon on a small plate and turned to him again:

  “The princess cakes just ran out.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and Winter followed her glance to the small plate with the last princess cake. It was on the tray ahead of him. Winter looked up and met a pair of green eyes.

  “If it’s as bad as it sounds, you can have it,” said the woman in front of him in line. “I guess I got the last one.”

  “No, no.”

  He thought he saw a smile playing somewhere on the edge of her lips. He felt dumb as hell. She was pretty as hell. A few years younger than him, maybe five, or four. Her hair was golden brown.

  “This cake doesn’t mean that much to me,” she continued. “I could just as well have ordered something else.”

  The girl behind the counter followed the conversation with interest. People were waiting behind Winter in the line, but that didn’t seem very important right now. But he had to decide and go on his way so that life could continue as usual at this counter.

  “Come on, take it,” said the woman with the green eyes. “I haven’t touched it.”

  “But . . . but I have to pay.” He felt half-unconscious. Apparently he would say anything, go along with anything. “I ha—”

  “I’ll have one of those instead,” she interrupted him, nodding at the napoleon on Ringmar’s plate.

  Okay, okay, Winter thought. I guess that’s the quickest way to get out of this.

  He threw a glance over to the window. Ringmar raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s more expensive,” said the girl behind the register. “Napoleons are more expensive.”

  She, too, appeared to find something amusing in all of this. Winter himself felt like his throat was dry. He considered grabbing Bertil’s glass of water from down on the tray and emptying it in one gulp.

  “That will be another two-fifty.”

  “I’ll pay the difference,” said Winter, taking out his wallet.

  The woman turned to him again, studied him for a second or two, and smiled again. He felt even more idiotic. He wasn’t used to this feeling. The last time he’d felt even more idiotic was when he’d met Halders for the first time and Birgersson grabbed him by the ear.

  “Okay,” she said with a gentle tone, as though she were doing him a small favor that he’d been nagging her about for quite some time.

  She received her napoleon and took her tray and walked toward a table that had opened up a bit farther inside the café.

  Winter paid and balanced his tray back over to Ringmar.

  “What was that all about?” Ringmar said.

  “Forget it.”

  “How can I forget something I don’t know anything about?”

  Winter didn’t answer. He cast a glance past the line, back into the café, to the small round table where she was sitting. She smiled again. It seemed to be a bigger smile now.

  If it had happened at a bar counter, he would have asked her name.

  “Cute girl,” said Ringmar, taking a small gulp and grimacing. “This coffee is a little cool.”

  “I’m sorry, Bertil, it’s my fault.” He got up and took Ringmar’s cup. “I’ll get more.”

  “Don’t you have to pay for a refill here?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  He walked straight past the line and took the six steps to her table. She saw him coming and waited with a forkful of pastry raised halfway to her mouth.

  “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” she said.

  That little smile again.

  “Yes,” he said, “I just decided to ask you your name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you . . . were so nice. That’s not so common these days.”

  She laughed, quickly and loudly. Maybe he smiled, he didn’t know. But he knew that the people at the two tables on either side of them were following the drama attentively.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Angela,” she answered. “Angela Hoffman.”

  “Where’s my coffee?” Ringmar asked when Winter came back to the table.

  • • •

  Winter walked down the stairs with the thin piece of paper in his inner pocket. The wind found its way down his neck and he turned up the collar of his coat.

  His cell phone rang. The display said “private number” and he guessed who it was.

  “Hi, Angela.”

  “Can you be home by seven tonight, Erik?”

  “I really hope so.”

  “Lilly has something she wants to show you. Preferably before she falls asleep.”

  “What is it?”

  “She’ll show you herself.”

  He was home at five thirty. Lilly showed him right away, in the hall.

  She could take four steps.

  • • •

  After the formalities, Jonas Sandler leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t an arrogant motion. It was more like he didn’t know what to do.

  “There are some dates I’d like to discuss with you, Jonas.”

  “Discuss?”

  “Yes, discuss.”

  “Okay.”

  Winter told him the days. He meant the evenings, too, and the nights.

  “I was out at a few places,” Sandler said. “That evening. It must have been that one.”

  He named the place.

  Winter made a note.

  “They must recognize me there.”

  “When were you there? Between what times?”

  “I think it was probably late. From midnight on, maybe one.”

  “From one on?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you out often? At clubs, bars?”

  “It happens.”

  “Isn’t it expensive?”

  “It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Where you are. What you take.”

  “Take?”

  “Drink. Or something else. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

  “Are you talking about drugs?”


  “The clubs are full of drugs, that can’t be a secret even from the police.”

  His voice suddenly had a sharper tone. It was as though he’d become older.

  “You’re unemployed. How do you get money?”

  “I don’t get anything,” said the boy. “It’s cheaper that way.”

  “Is it as fun that way?”

  “Is what as fun?” Sandler asked in turn, and he changed position on the chair.

  I’m not falling into that trap, Winter thought, looking at the tape recorder in front of him on the blond wood table.

  “Not having money,” he said.

  Sandler shrugged.

  “I talked to your mom the other day,” Winter said.

  He could tell that Sandler gave a start, a barely visible shudder across his shoulders, but he was trained to see such things.

  “Oh?”

  “She hasn’t mentioned anything to you?”

  “No. Why would she?”

  “When did you last talk to her, Jonas?”

  He shrugged.

  “Try to think back.”

  He appeared to be thinking back. Maybe he knew.

  “Quite a while ago.”

  “Aren’t you wondering why I visited her?”

  He shrugged again. He transformed before Winter’s eyes, regressed, one could say. He became defiant.

  As though Mom’s shadow had fallen over the room.

  “When you lived out there as a boy,” Winter said, “you played with a girl who lived in the same stairwell. Can you tell me a little about her?”

  26

  I don’t remember that,” said Sandler. He looked down at the table. “A girl? There were a lot of children there.” He raised his eyes.

  “Were there?” Winter asked.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “According to your mom, you were the only children in that stairwell.”

  “Yeah, so what? There were probably a ton of other kids in those yards. That’s what I remember, anyway.”

  “But you don’t remember this girl? Or her mom?”

  Sandler didn’t answer. He appeared to be thinking back. Winter waited for him to say something. Maybe the boy has something to say. Or something to hide.

  “Did they live in the same stairwell?” Sandler asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What about them? Why are you asking about them?”

  “Just try to remember.”