Frozen Tracks

12

BERGENHEM CROSSED SVEAPLAN WITH A STRONG WIND BEHIND him. A sheet of newspaper went flying past the corner shop.

The buildings around the square looked black in the dusk. A streetcar rattled past to his right, a cold, yellow light. Two magpies took off as he rang the bell next to the nameplate. He heard a distant answer.

“I’m looking for Krister Peters. My name is Lars Bergenhem, from the Gothenburg CID.”

No response, but a humming sound came from the door and he pulled it open. There was no smell in the stairwell, as if the wind had blown in and cleansed it. The walls on each side were as dark as the building’s facade.

Bergenhem waited for an elevator that never appeared.

He walked up the stairs and rang the bell next to the door labeled Peters. The door opened a couple of inches after the second ring. The man peering though the crack could’ve been the same age as Bergenhem. Five or six years older than the students.

He stared at Bergenhem. His dark hair hung down over his forehead in a way that looked intentional, fixed with some kind of gel or spray. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved for three or four days. He was wearing a white vest that stood out against his tanned and muscular body. Of course, Bergenhem thought. No, you shouldn’t be prejudiced. The guy is just uncombed and unshaven and fit.

“Can I see your ID,” said the man.

Bergenhem produced his card and asked, “Krister Peters?”

The man nodded and gestured toward Bergenhem’s right hand holding the plastic pocket with his ID:

“That could be a fake.”

“Can I come in for a few minutes?”

“You could be anybody,” said Peters.

“Have you had bad experience with people knocking on your door?” asked Bergenhem.

Peters gave a little laugh, then opened the door fully, turned his back on apartment Bergenhem and went into his apartment, which opened out in all directions from the hall. Bergenhem could see the buildings on the other side of the square. The sky looked lighter from inside here, more blue, as if the apartment building soared up above the clouds.

He followed Peters, who sat down on a dark gray, expensive-looking sofa. A pile of magazines stood on a low glass table. To the right of the magazines was a glass and a bottle, and a misty little carafe containing what could have been water. Bergenhem sat down on an armchair that matched the sofa.

Peters stood up.

“I’m forgetting my manners,” he said, left the room, and came back with another glass. He sat down again and held up the bottle. “A drop of whiskey?”

“I don’t think I should,” said Bergenhem.

“It’s after twelve,” said Peters.

“It’s always after twelve somewhere or other,” said Bergenhem.

“Hell, it’s noon in Miami, as Hemingway said when he started drinking at eleven o’clock.”

“I’ll pass this time,” said Bergenhem. “I came by car and I have to drive home when I leave here.”

Peters shrugged, poured a couple of fingers into his glass, and topped it up with water.

“You’re missing a pretty decent Springbank,” he said.

“There might be other times,” said Bergenhem.

“Perhaps,” said Peters. He took a drink, put down his glass, and looked at Bergenhem: “When are you going to get to the point?”

“What time was it when Jens Book left you?” Bergenhem asked.

“Nasty business,” said Peters. “Will Jens ever be able to walk again?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s unbelievable. Only a couple of blocks away from here.” Peters took another drink, and Bergenhem could smell the alcohol. He could always leave the car here and take a taxi home. Hell, it’s noon in Torslanda.

“You were in the vicinity when it happened,” said Bergenhem.

“Yes, it appears so.”

“Jens wasn’t especially forthcoming about that,” said Bergenhem.

“About what?”

“That he’d been to see you.”

“Really.”

“That he was with you shortly before the attack.”

“Really.”

Bergenhem said nothing.

Peters held his glass in his hand but didn’t drink from it.

“I hope you don’t think I beat him up?” he said. “That I crippled him and he knows I did but is protecting me?” Peters took a drink. Bergenhem couldn’t see any sign of intoxication.

“Is that what you think?” Peters repeated.

“I don’t think anything at all,” said Bergenhem. “I’m simply trying to find out what actually happened.”

“Facts,” said Peters. “Always the facts.”

“According to Jens you separated about half an hour before he was clubbed down.”

“That could be,” said Peters. “I don’t know exactly when it happened, of course. When was he attacked?”

“Where was that?” asked Bergenhem. “Where did you separate?” He glanced down at his notebook, where it said “just past Sveaplan,” as Book had told Ringmar.

“It was just outside here,” said Peters, gesturing toward the window. “A little ways down the street from Sveaplan.”

“Exactly where?”

“I can point it out to you later if it’s important.”

“Good.”

Peters seemed to be racking his memory.

“What happened next?” asked Bergenhem.

“What happened next? You know what happened next.”

“What did you do immediately after Jens had left?”

“What did I do? I smoked a cigarette, then came back in and listened to a CD, and then I took a shower and went to bed and fell asleep.”

“Why did you go out into the street with him?”

“I needed some air,” said Peters. “And it was a pleasant night. It was only blowing half a gale at that point.”

“Did you see anybody else out there?” asked Bergenhem.

“No pedestrians,” said Peters. “A few cars went by. In both directions.”

“Were you watching Jens?”

“While I was smoking the cigarette, yes. He even turned around at one point and waved. I waved back, finished the cigarette, and went back in.”

“And you didn’t see anybody else in the street?”

“No.”

“Nobody else walking down the street?”

“No.”

Bergenhem could hear sounds from the street down below, which was one of the busiest in Gothenburg. Suddenly he heard an ambulance siren. The hospital was not far away. Then he recognized the music Peters was playing.

“The Only Ones,” he said.

Peters bowed in acknowledgment. “Not bad. You should be too young for the Only Ones.”

“Has Jens been here on more than one occasion?” Bergenhem asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you received any threats?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Has anybody ever threatened you?”

Peters said nothing. He took another drink, just a sip. Bergenhem could smell the high-quality malt again. The Only Ones continued their dark, 1980s journey through the world of drugs; a dark mass of music hovered over the room.

“Of course there have been threats,” said Peters. “Once people find out that you’re gay, you’re always exposed to that risk.”

Bergenhem nodded.

“Do you understand what I mean?” asked Peters.

“I think so,” said Bergenhem.

“I’m not sure you do,” said Peters.

“Do you understand what I’m getting at?” asked Bergenhem.

Peters thought it over. He held onto his glass but didn’t drink. The music had finished. Bergenhem saw a black bird fly past the window, and then another. A telephone rang somewhere in the apartment, and again, and again. Peters didn’t move a muscle. The music started again, something Bergenhem didn’t recognize. The telephone kept on ringing. Eventually the answering machine picked up. Bergenhem could hear Peters’s voice, but no message afterward.

“Surely you don’t mean that whoever hit Jens was really after me?” said Peters in the end.

“I don’t know.”

“Or that he was after Jens because of, well, for some special reason?”

Bergenhem didn’t reply.

“That he was being targeted? Because he’s gay?”

“I don’t know,” said Bergenhem.

“Well, I suppose that could be the case.” Peters held up his glass. It was empty now. “That sort of thing doesn’t surprise me anymore.”

“Tell me about when you’ve felt threatened,” said Bergenhem.

“Where do I start?”

“The last time.”

Aneta Djanali parked by the curb and they got out of the car. Halders was massaging the back of his neck as he watched Djanali lock the doors. She turned around.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I could give you a massage this evening.”

“I’d like that,” said Halders.

Djanali checked her notebook, and they walked to the entrance of the student dorm. There was a bicycle in the stairwell. A noticeboard was plastered with layer upon layer of messages and a big poster at the top advertised the autumn ball at the student union-which had taken place ages ago.

There was a vague smell of food, an aroma that had accumulated over decades of inventive cooking skills applied to cheap ingredients. Halders had lived in a student hall while he was at police college in Stockholm. He recognized the smell immediately.

“It smells just like the hall I lived on as a student,” he said.

“Toasted sandwiches and minced meat sauce,” said Djanali.

“Baked beans,” said Halders.

Aneta Djanali laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?” asked Halders.

“In the hall where I lived we had a girl whose diet consisted exclusively of baked beans, and she used to eat them straight out of the can, with a spoon, without heating them up. It made me feel sick.”

“Don’t baked beans always have that effect?” wondered Halders.

Djanali breathed in the aroma again.

“Isn’t it strange how we have memory chips that kick in as soon as we come across a particular smell?” she said. “That smell is familiar, and so all the memories come flooding back.”

“I hope it doesn’t make you feel too ill,” said Halders. “We’re out on business.”

“But do you know what I mean?”

“Only too well,” said Halders. “There are things I thought I’d forgotten all about, but now they come tumbling out, just like you said.”

“I hope they don’t influence you too much,” said Djanali with a smile.

“Speaking of that girl’s diet,” said Halders. “You should have seen what me and my friends used to eat.”

“I’m glad I didn’t,” said Djanali, and she rang the bell of the hall where Gustav Smedsberg had lived before transferring to Chalmers. Jakob Stillman had a room on the floor directly above, when he wasn’t in Sahlgren Hospital. He’d soon be back here again.

Aryan Kaite lived in the dorm next door. That didn’t necessarily mean that the boys knew one another, or would even recognize one another if they met in the street. This is a pretty anonymous environment, Djanali thought. Everybody minds his or her own business and studies and occasionally slips out into the communal kitchen to fix a bite to eat, then slips back into their room with a plate, and the only time they look at anybody else is when there’s a party. Then again, there’s always a party. I remember in my day it was Saturday every day of the week, every week. Maybe it’s still like that today. If it’s always Saturday, good for them. For me nowadays it always seems to be Monday. Well, maybe not anymore.

Halders read the list of nameplates.

“Maybe one of these people has a grudge against his neighbor?” he said.

“Hmm.”

“Here comes one of them,” he said, as a girl appeared on the other side of the glass door. Halders held up his ID, and she opened it.

“I remember Gustav,” she said.

They were sitting in the communal kitchen. Halders’s and Djanali’s memories were all around them, a swarm of baked beans. Everything was familiar, time had stood still in there just as it had in all other student halls in every city in the country. It smelled like it always had. If I opened the fridge door, I’d be back in my prime, Djanali thought.

“So he was clubbed down?” asked the girl.

“No,” said Halders. “He was attacked, but he escaped uninjured, so he is a very important witness for us.”

“But… why are you here, then?”

“He lived here not long ago.”

“So what?”

It wasn’t an impertinent question. She doesn’t look the impertinent type, Halders thought.

“This whole business is so serious that we’re trying to pin down everybody the victims might have come into contact with,” said Djanali.

“But you said Gustav wasn’t a victim?”

“He could easily have been,” said Djanali.

“Why did he move out of here?” asked Halders.

“I don’t know,” said the girl, but he could see she wasn’t telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“He didn’t exactly trade up by moving to the Chalmers dorm,” said Halders.

She shrugged.

“Did he have a dispute with anybody here?” Halders asked.

“A dispute? What kind of a dispute?”

“Anything from a minor difference of opinion to all-out war with air raids and antiaircraft fire,” said Halders. “A dispute. Some sort of dispute.”

“No.”

“I’m only asking because this is such a serious case,” he said. “Or series of cases.”

She nodded.

“Is there any special reason why Gustav moved out of here?” Halders asked again.

“Have you asked him?”

“We’re asking you. Now.”

“Couldn’t he tell you himself?”

Neither Halders nor Djanali said anything. They just kept on looking at the girl, who looked out of the window that was letting in the mild November light. She turned to look at them.

“I didn’t know Gustav all that well,” she said.

Halders nodded.

“Not at all, really.”

Halders nodded again.

“But there was something,” she said, and stared out of the window again, as if looking for that something so that she could show it to them.

“What, exactly?” Halders asked.

“Well, a dispute, to use your word.” She looked at Halders. “Not quite antiaircraft fire, but there were a few occasions-several occasions-when he yelled into the telephone, and sometimes there was shouting, sort of, coming from his room.”

“What kind of shouting?”

“Well, just shouting. You couldn’t hear what they were shouting. It was just a few occasions.”

“Who is ‘they’?” asked Djanali.

“Gustav, and the person in there with him.”

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a he or a she?”

“A he. A guy.”

“Was there more than one?”

“Not as far as I could see.”

“You mean you saw him?”

“I don’t know for sure if it was the one who was shouting. But a guy did come out of his room shortly after I’d heard them shouting. I was on my way to the kitchen and he came out of the room and headed for the stairs.” She nodded in the direction of the landing. “From the corridor.”

“Did you see him on several occasions?”

“No. Just once.”

“Who lives in Gustav’s old room now?” asked Djanali.

“A girl,” she said. “I’ve hardly met her either. She’s only just moved in.”

“Would you recognize the guy who came out of Gustav’s room?” asked Halders.

“I really don’t know,” she said, looking at Aneta Djanali. “It’s not so easy. It was just the color of his skin. Plus there are lots of them living here.”

“Now you’ve lost me,” said Aneta Djanali.

“Just because people have the same colored skin, that doesn’t mean that they look alike,” said the girl, and started gesticulating. “This has always bothered me. The fact that people’s appearance gets tied up with the color of their skin.” She seemed to smile, briefly. “And it’s not just us, in the so-called Western world. There are people in China who can’t tell one white person from another.” She nodded at Aneta Djanali. “I guess you’re familiar with this. Or have thought about it, at least.”

“So this guy who came out of Gustav Smedsberg’s room-you’re saying that he wasn’t white?” asked Djanali.

“No, he looked like you. He was black. Didn’t I say that?”

He saw a flash of sunlight as he emerged from the apartment building where he lived, a reflection. It was an ugly building, but the flash of sun was beautiful.

Other people said that the sun comes from the sky, but he knew better. The sun comes from somewhere else, where it’s warm and quiet and everybody is nice to one another. A place where there’s nobody who… who does things people shouldn’t do. Where children dance, and grown-ups dance alongside them, and play and laugh.

He suddenly felt sweat on his brow, but it wasn’t the sun-it wasn’t warm enough.

Since he’d been… forced, yes, actually forced to stay away from work, things had gotten worse.

Pacing around and around the apartment.

The films? No, not now. Yes. No. Yes, yes.

Things had gotten worse.

He went to the chest of drawers and took out the things that had belonged to the children and held them in his hand, one after another. That amusing little silver thing that was a bird. He spent ages wondering what kind of bird it was. A canary, perhaps? It certainly wasn’t a Rotty, ha ha.

The green ball was also fun, soft and terrific for bouncing. It didn’t look like it would be a good bouncer, and felt very soft when you picked it up-but boy, could it bounce!

Now he was holding the car. The little blue-and-black car he’d gotten from the boy he’d chatted with that first time. It was the same car. No, it was the same make. He wasn’t exactly an expert, but surely it was the same make as his own car? Yes. Kalle, that was the boy’s name, and it had been such fun, sitting in the car and talking to Kalle. What’s that you’ve got? Can I take a look? Hmm. Lovely, isn’t it? I’ve got a car too. It looks just like this one. But a little bit bigger. No, not just a little bit. A lot bigger! Much, much bigger! It’s the one we’re sitting in now. We can go for a little drive in this car, and you can drive your car at the same time, Kalle.

But that isn’t what had happened. Not that time.

He drove Kalle’s car over the floor, through the living room and then over the threshold into the kitchen, brrrmmm,

Brrrmmm; it echoed all round the room when he imitated the sound of the engine, Brrrrmmmmm!

And now he was opening the door of the big car. The sweat was still there on his brow. Worse than ever.

He drove. He knew where he was going. His face hurt because he was clenching his teeth so hard. No, no, no! He only wanted it to be fun. Nothing else, nothing else, but as he drove he knew that it would be different this time, and so it didn’t matter that when he tried to turn left he actually turned right at the first intersection, and then at the second one.

He could have driven with his eyes closed. The roads followed the streetcar tracks. He followed the streetcar tracks. He could hear the streetcars even before he saw them. The rails glinted in the sun, which was still shining. He kept as close to them as possible, because when he did that he didn’t feel so frightened.