But something was different. He thought the same person who had raped Jeanette Bielke had murdered Angelika Hansson. Sometimes it was more than just knowing.
Another crime was waiting to be committed, and on his desk in front of him was the result of what had happened so far. He'd dug out all the old material on Beatrice Wägner. The uncomfortable feeling of yet again coming up against an appalling crime. Like a meeting in the dark. The fresh memory of her father's voice; no more than a few months ago. They'd kept in touch over the years. Winter didn't know for whose sake.
As long as I keep talking to the family, the case hasn't been shelved. Now we have a new opportunity.
His mobile rang on his desk. He could see from the display that it was his mother, direct from Nueva Andalucía in the mountains beyond Marbella. A white house with three palm trees in the garden. Balcony, and sun and shadow. He'd been there two years ago, in the last century, when his father had been buried under the Sierra Blanca.
'How are you surviving the heat?'
'How are you surviving yours?' Winter replied.
'They say on the telly here that it's hotter in Scandinavia than it is in the south of Spain,' she said.
'The flow of tourists will go into reverse, then,' he said. 'Spaniards will be coming here to get some sun.'
'I hope so.' He could hear a clinking of ice in the background, and glanced at his watch. Gone five. The Cocktail Hour. Happy Hour. Time for a very dry and very cold Martini. I wouldn't mind one myself.
'What are you up to?' he asked. 'Lotta said you were hoping we could come and visit in September.'
His sister had told him the previous day. A family get-together on the Costa del Sol.
'You really must come. I just have to cuddle Elsa. And all the rest of you, of course.'
'You only need to come home.'
'The children think it's so much fun to come here,' she said.
'What children? Apart from Elsa?'
'What do you mean? Lotta's, of course.'
'They're teenagers.'
'Don't be like that, Erik.'
He heard the clinking of ice again, and thought of water and a bath and a drink.
'How is Elsa?'
'She's talking, and getting into all kinds of mischief.'
'Does she talk much?'
'All day long.'
'That's fantastic. She'll go far.'
'Well, just at this minute she's not going anywhere at all.'
More clinking of ice. Coolness spread through his body. He needed a drink.
'Soon she'll be running all over the flat.'
Winter didn't respond.
'But you really must start thinking about a house now, Erik.'
'Mmm.'
'If only for Angela's sake. Surely you can understand that? She can't be lugging children and prams and God knows what else up and down all those stairs.'
'There's a lift.'
'You know what I mean.'
'There are two of us doing the lugging.'
'Erik.'
'We like living in the centre of town.'
'Angela as well? Really?'
He didn't answer. That wasn't a problem. The thoughts came flooding back. He had other problems.
The door opened. Halders walked in without knocking.
'I've got a visitor.' Winter said his goodbyes and hung up.
5
Halders' forehead was red where his hairline had once been. He shut the door and ran his hand over his bald patch.
'The heat out there's breaking all records,' he said, sitting down opposite Winter. His ears were also red. They stuck out prominently and gave his face a softness despite the hardness of his other features.
'Have you been sunbathing?'
'You could say that,' said Halders, scratching his forehead. 'With Jeanette Bielke. At her favourite spot among the rocks.' Halders looked at Winter and stroked his left ear. 'Although it doesn't seem to be her favourite any more.'
'Did she say anything?'
'We talked about her boyfriend.'
'And?'
'Or her ex-boyfriend. Though he doesn't seem to be able to grasp that. Mattias Berg. His name's Mattias Berg.'
'I know.'
'He doesn't want to let her go, but she's made up her mind to ditch him.'
'Not exactly unusual,' Winter said.
It's happened to me, Winter thought. A long, long time ago. I once stood banging away on a door that refused to open. At the time it seemed a matter of life and death.
'No,' Halders said. 'Not unusual. But I want to have a word with the lad.'
'Of course,' said Winter, standing up and walking to the washbasin. He took a glass from a shelf and filled it with water. 'Would you like some?'
'Yes, please,' Halders said. He reached over the desk when Winter held the glass out for him. He could see the forensic report on Angelika Hansson.
'I've just received it,' Winter said.
Halders nodded and drank.
'It wasn't a consummated rape.'
'Just a murder.'
'He'd tried. Or so it would seem.'
'Couldn't get it up,' said Halders.
Winter shrugged.
'So we're waiting to hear from SKL.'
SKL, Winter thought. He'd waited for reports from the Swedish criminology lab in Linköping before. DNA analyses that had produced the goods: analyses that hadn't. It was always worth waiting. His work involved waiting, and the hard bit was finding new roads to go down while doing the waiting. Not being totally reliant on technical and chemical analyses to solve all the problems. He'd had technical solutions to riddles that explained how and who and where, but not why. He'd been left with the big why. As a memory impossible to forget.
'SKL can tell us if it's the same bastard,' Halders said. He took another gulp of water, spilling a little as he changed his position on the chair. 'Do you reckon it's the same guy? Who attacked both girls, I mean.'
'Yes.'
He hadn't intended replying at all, but the 'yes' slipped out, like a subconscious desire to have something to get straight to work on.
'And the next question: the same bastard as murdered Beatrice?'
'I don't know,' Winter said.
'I asked what you thought.'
'I can't answer that yet,' said Winter, picking up Pia Fröberg's report. 'What I can say is that Angelika Hansson was definitely pregnant. Probably seven weeks gone.'
'That sounds early,' Halders said. 'Seven weeks.'
'It is early. But she should have known herself by the fifth week.'
'Always assuming she suspected anything,' said Halders. He stood up, went to the washbasin and refilled his glass. Winter could see that the back of his neck was red too.
'I had a word with Pia,' Winter said. 'She says the girl hadn't had a period after the fifth week, so she must surely have suspected something.'
'Some people repress that kind of thing,' said Halders.
'Her parents didn't know, so neither did she – is that what you mean?'
'I don't know. But she hadn't said anything, that's for sure. If she did know, she kept it to herself.'
'Maybe not completely to herself,' said Winter.
'You mean the father of the child?'
'Exactly.'
The father, thought Halders. Probably some pale nineteen-year-old without a clue where his life is taking him. Unless he's something much worse, and the one we're looking for.
Winter thought about the father. They had so many people they could cross-question – friends, acquaintances, classmates. Family. Relatives. Witnesses. All kinds of witnesses. Taxi drivers who used to be good witnesses but were now useless because they'd seen nothing and heard nothing – because they shouldn't have been on that road that evening because they shouldn't have been driving at all because they were being employed illegally. And so on and so on.
'Perhaps he doesn't know,' Winter said. 'If she didn't know herself, then he can't know either. Or maybe she did kno
w ... had just found out, but kept it to herself and was intending to keep it that way. If you see what I mean.'
'Abortion,' Halders said.
Winter nodded.
'But in any case, he knows she's dead,' said Halders. 'That can't have been kept a secret. He can't have missed hearing about that.'
'Assuming he's in Sweden.'
'Well then he'll come to us when he gets back. If we don't get a name before then.' He looked at Winter. 'We need a name. We're going to get a name.'
'Yes.'
'If he doesn't come forward, he's in serious trouble.'
Maybe more trouble than we realise just now, Winter thought.
Halders' mobile rang in his breast pocket. Winter glanced at the clock: just after four in the afternoon. He suddenly had the feeling he wanted to get away from there, longed to be with Angela and Elsa, yearned for a hot bath and something to give him hope. He wanted to get away from all these hypotheses about death and lives cut short. Angelika Hansson's life was like the first chapter in a book, and her unborn child was ...
'I'm having trouble hearing you,' said Halders in a loud voice, rising to his feet. His forehead was striped white when he frowned. 'Say it again, please.'
Winter could see Halders' expression change as he began to understand what the voice was telling him.
'Wh—' said Halders. 'What the hell ...?'
His face twitched as if he'd lost control of his muscles. It was unnerving. Winter could tell that something serious had happened. Something unconnected with the investigation.
'Yes ... Yes of course,' said Halders. 'I'll go there straight away.' He hung up and looked at Winter with a new expression on his red face, which had turned pale. Almost grey.
'It's my ex-wife,' he said in a voice Winter had never heard before. Halders was still staring at him. 'My ex-wife. Mar- Margareta. She was run over and killed an hour ago. On the pavement.'
He ran his hand over his head, scratched the red patch on his brow again, it was as if the last time he did it had been in another age. Nothing would be the same again.
'On a bloody pavement. On a pavement outside a supermarket in Lunden.' He gestured towards the window. 'That's just down the road.' His face muscles were twitching again, out of control.
'What happened?' asked Winter. He had no idea what to say.
'Run over,' said Halders, still in the strange voice. 'Hit and run.' He stared past Winter into the beautiful afternoon light. 'Of course, it would be hit and run.'
'Is it ... definite? That she's ... dead?' Winter asked. 'Who phoned?'
'What?' said Halders. 'What did you say?'
'Where are we going?' said Winter, getting to his feet. Halders stood motionless. His face still twitching. He tried to say something, but no words came. Then he looked at Winter, his eyes became fixed.
'East General,' he said. 'I'm off now.'
'I'll drive,' said Winter.
'I can manage,' Halders said, but Winter was already halfway out of the door. They jumped into the lift and hurried into the car park. Halders sat beside Winter without a word, and they drove off in an easterly direction.
A cruel message, Winter thought. Couldn't they have said that she'd been badly hurt? Who was it that had given Halders the news?
He'd once heard a joke on this theme. He suddenly thought of it as the car was plunged into the shadows cast by the tall buildings on either side of the road.
The joke was about a man who is travelling abroad. He phones home and his brother says straight out: Your cat's dead. The man ringing from abroad tells him you shouldn't come out with such cruel news in such a direct manner. You could say the cat was on the roof ... yes, that the fire brigade had arrived, and the police, and everybody did all they could to get the cat down and in the end they managed to capture it but it wriggled out of their grasp and jumped and landed awkwardly and they took it to the animal hospital and a team of vets operated throughout the night but in the end they had to concede that it was impossible to save the cat's life. That's the way you should tell somebody about a tragic event like this. Tone it down a bit. His brother says he understands now, and they hang up. A few days later the man rings home again and his brother says a tragic event has just taken place. What? wonders the man. His brother says, Mum was on the roof ...
Winter didn't laugh. Halders said nothing. They came to a roundabout and turned off for the hospital. Winter could feel the sweat gathering at the base of his spine. Traffic was dense, with holidaymakers returning after a day on the rocks on the big islands to the north, or by the lakes to the east.
'The children haven't been told yet,' Halders said.
Winter waited for him to elaborate as he drove into the hospital car park. The shadows were sharp and long.
'I have two children,' Halders said.
'I know.'
They'd talked about it, but Halders had forgotten.
'They're at their after-school club now. For God's sake!' Halders suddenly blurted out.
Winter parked. Halders was out of the car before it had even stopped moving, and started half-running towards one of the hospital buildings.
He was a stranger to Winter, and yet like a member of the family at the same time.
That's exactly what Winter thought as he watched Halders hurry over the tarmac through the sunlight, then into darkness as he came to the A & E entrance. Halders had become more distant, and yet more close, simultaneously. Winter had a new feeling of unreality, like entering into a dream. He could no longer see Halders, and didn't know what to do.
He'd been here only the other day, had accompanied the Hansson girl from Slottsskogen Park to her post mortem. Now he was here again.
Halders stood by the stretcher. Margareta's face was just as he remembered it, the last time he'd seen her.
Only three days ago. Sunday. He'd been to Burger King with Hannes and Magda, and Margareta had opened the door with a smile and he'd muttered something then left without even going in. Not this time. Not that they weren't on friendly terms. It was all so long ago. So long ago that he'd been an idiot. He was still an idiot, but back then he'd been one in a different way.
He couldn't see the rest of her body underneath all that white, and he didn't want to either. He thought about Hannes and Magda as he thought about Margareta. He thought about the dead girls too, and that was sufficient to make him start slumping towards the floor, lose his balance, recover it, hold on to the stretcher, bend down towards Margareta's face, cling on to the moment that he knew would be the last.
Never End Page 5