Room No. 10
Page 43
Börge approached with the rope. The noose was already made. He suddenly disappeared behind Winter’s back. Winter was half lying with his side against the wall. He had started to slide down to the floor again. He couldn’t see Börge at all. He heard him moving behind. It was pointless. He was helpless. The only thing he could see was the window, and there was no help to be had from there. Winter didn’t know how much time had passed since he had stepped in here; it could be hours, days, but life out there was of no help to him. He couldn’t even tell whether it was day or night outside the window.
He felt the noose around his neck. Börge pulled on it. The air began to disappear, what little was left in his airways. Börge shoved him, maybe so that he would slide more easily across the floor.
Winter suddenly heard a sound somewhere outside, like metal against metal. There it was again. He saw something flap at the edge of his field of vision. He didn’t know when he actually realized that the wild shadows outside the window didn’t belong to nature, the sky. Maybe not until the glass broke. When Börge shouted. Maybe when the black figure flew in through the window, like a strange, wild bird. Winter’s air was about to run out. He had no thoughts left. The last thing he thought was that Jonas Sandler must have climbed up the scaffolding.
39
He heard the children laughing out in the hall. He saw the open suitcases on the polished pine floor. He could see their reflections. Tomorrow they would be off, early tomorrow. It had taken longer than they’d counted on at first, but the clinic in Marbella had been understanding.
John Coltrane was blowing hard and loud from A Love Supreme.
Winter got up and went out into the hall and caught Lilly up in the middle of a step.
“Time for bed, darling.”
• • •
Later that evening he had a short conversation with Halders.
“Don’t fucking call me unless it’s for completely private reasons,” Halders said.
Winter laughed.
“I’m not kidding, Erik.”
“I’m not going to take anything away from you, Fredrik.”
“There’s not much left to take,” said Halders.
“How are things with Börge?”
“Forget it.”
“I’m trying.”
“He says he did everything he had to do,” said Halders.
“Not really,” said Winter.
“Do you want me to remind him? That he didn’t get rid of you? And the boy? He did have plans for the boy, too.”
“He got rid of me,” Winter said.
“If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now,” said Halders.
“He’s no boy,” Winter said. “He’s not a boy any longer.”
“I agree with you there,” said Halders.
“I called him this morning,” Winter said. “He’s a lonely man. Paula had become something special for him.”
Halders didn’t say anything.
“It’s not over for him, Fredrik.”
“No. And I’m not planning to forget about him.”
“I know.”
“And Mario isn’t, either.”
“I know that, too.”
Winter heard the faucet running in the kitchen. After ten seconds, Angela came into the room and sat down on the sofa. She had her morning robe on, and that was just as it should be. Morning wasn’t that far off.
“Börge found a way to get to her through the two children,” Winter said into the phone.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Paula was . . . the center. She was the proof that everyone had betrayed him.”
“Yes.”
“But it wasn’t just that.”
“No.”
“Talk to you soon, Fredrik.”
“Take care of yourself now, Erik, and the family.”
• • •
Later that evening, Winter was still thinking about what he had been thinking when he was lying on the floor in room number ten. He didn’t want to think about it, but he would come back to it again and again during the coming months.
“There’s a Swedish church in Fuengirola,” he said.
Angela looked up. They hadn’t gone to bed yet. Maybe they would keep sitting here until it was time to leave for the airport.
“Do you want to get married there?” he asked.
“To whom?” she asked.
“I was thinking to me.”
© ANDERS DEROS
A hugely popular bestselling writer in Europe, ÅKE EDWARDSON is attracting a growing, devoted readership in North America. He has worked as a journalist, United Nations press officer, and lecturer at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden’s second-largest city. His Chief Inspector Erik Winter books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He is a three-time winner of the Swedish Crime Writers’ Award for best crime novel.
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THE CHIEF INSPECTOR ERIK WINTER NOVELS:
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Åke Edwardson
English language translation copyright © 2013 by Rachel Willson-Broyles and Åke Edwardson
Originally published in Swedish in 2005 by Norstedts Förlag as Rum Nummer 10
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition March 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edwardson, Åke.
[Rum Nummer 10. English]
Room no. 10 /Åke Edwardson; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.—1st Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
p. cm.
1. Winter, Erik (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Detectives—Sweden—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Sweden—Fiction. I. Willson-Broyles, Rachel.
II. Title.
PT9876.15.D93R8613 2013
839.73'74—dc23 2012022527
ISBN: 978-1-4516-0852-6
ISBN: 978-1-4516-0855-7 (eBook)
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