Frozen Tracks

19

HALDERS AND DJANALI WERE BACK AT THE STUDENT DORM, IN A different hall. The girl who had heard the argument in Smedsberg’s room had identified Aryan Kaite as the young man who had come rushing out. No doubt about it, despite Halders’s provocations: Don’t you think all black people look the same? Aneta Djanali hadn’t moved a muscle. How does he treat her? the girl had wondered, looking at Djanali.

They were sitting in Kaite’s room. There was a picture of a winter landscape on the wall behind the desk, a white field. The room had been cleaned recently. The desk was tidy: penholder, notepad, computer, printer on a stand, books in two neat piles next to the penholder, more books in two low book-cases. A Discman, two small speakers on the ledge of the window looking out onto the street where cars were flitting past in the half light.

“Would you guess that this kid was studying medicine simply by looking around this room?” Halders asked.

“The anatomy poster would suggest that,” said Djanali, pointing to the wall where the bed was located.

“Everybody has something like that these days,” said Halders. “People are so interested in themselves that they hang X-rays of themselves next to the china cupboard in the living room.”

“Even so, that’s a little odd,” said Djanali.

“Odd? It’s standard practice.”

“Hmm.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Why hasn’t Kaite come back yet?” Djanali wondered.

“Good question,” said Halders, looking at his watch. “Maybe he’s the nervous type.”

Aryan Kaite had excused himself after he’d let them in and gone back into the hall. He needed to go to the bathroom.

They hadn’t called ahead and fixed a meeting time before stopping by.

Kaite still had a bandage on his head when he opened the door. What was hidden underneath? Halders wondered. They would probably be able to find out the next day. The kid looked like a black prince in a turban. Maybe his whole tribe looked like that in the savannah back home. He feels homesick when he sees himself in a mirror.

Maybe he’s on his way there now. Halders looked at his watch again, and then at the room’s little hallway.

“What’s that door?” he asked, pointing.

“It must be a closet,” said Djanali.

Halders walked over to the door and opened it. He was confronted by a toilet, sink, and shower curtain.

The kid was on his way home.

“He’s taken off,” he said, and opened the door to the hall.

“What the hell for?” Djanali wondered.

Winter called the police station in Tredje Långgatan.

“Police, Majorna-Linnéstaden, Alinder.”

Winter explained who he was and what he wanted.

“It sounds vaguely familiar,” said Alinder.

“Do you know who took the call?”

“Lena Sköld, did you say? The little girl who said she’d been with a ‘mister’? I recognize that. It was me.”

“OK. Do you have time to check the details on that call right away?”

“Give me five minutes to rummage through the files. What’s your number?”

Alinder phoned back seven minutes later.

“I’ve got the notes in front of me.”

“OK.”

“The girl’s name is Ellen, and her mother, who’s a single parent, wasn’t sure if it was just a figment of her daughter’s imagination.”

“What did the girl say happened?”

“Hang on, let’s take a look. She’d been sitting in a car with a man she didn’t know. That’s all.”

Winter could hear the rustle of paper.

“No, just a minute,” said Alinder. “The girl said she’d been given candy as well.”

“Did the mother say she’d spoken to the staff at the nursery school?”

“Yes. Nobody had noticed anything.”

“Is that what they said?”

“Yes.”

“Was she upset?”

“When?” said Alinder. “When she called me, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Is there anything else?” Winter asked.

“Yes. I’m reading it now. I asked her to check if anything had disappeared, and she called back later to say the little girl had had a little silver charm in a secure pocket in her overalls, and that it was no longer there.”

“And this coincided with when she met this man?”

“I asked the same question and she said it did. And that it would have been impossible for the charm or whatever it was to fall out by accident, and that the girl wouldn’t have been able to take it out herself.”

“Maybe the girl didn’t even know it was there,” said Winter. I must ask Lena Sköld about that, he thought.

“No. Her mother said it was supposed to bring her good luck or happiness or something. It was hers from when she was a little girl.”

“And now it’s gone.”

“That’s what she said. I can’t confirm that, of course.”

“I’ll ask her,” said Winter.

“Why are you asking me all this?” Alinder asked. “And how did you know she called me?”

“My partner met her at a parents’ meeting,” said Winter. “We use the same nursery school.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

“Thanks for your help,” said Winter.

“Why the interest in the first place?” Alinder wondered.

“I’m not sure really,” said Winter. “It was just a thought.”

“I heard about that business with the little boy,” said Alinder.

“What did you hear?”

“That he was abducted and dumped somewhere else. I just read about it on the intranet. Nasty business. How is he?”

“He’s been struck dumb,” said Winter. “Hasn’t said a word yet. But his eyes will be fine.”

“Can you really see a link here? Between this woman’s phone call and what happened to that little boy?”

“What do you think, Alinder? How do you see it?”

“Well… I’ve only just heard about your case. But I suppose I might have started to put two and two together after a while. I don’t know. I might well have been in touch with you after a while. But then again, I might not. Anyway, the notes are here on file.”

“You haven’t had any similar calls to your station, I take it? You or any other officer?”

“I haven’t. And none of the others have said anything. I’ll check in with them.”

“OK, many thanks for your help,” said Winter, and hung up.

He called Lena Sköld. They met half an hour later at her home. Ellen was sitting at the table, drawing a snowman.

“Has she ever seen any snow?” Winter asked.

“When she was one. It lasted for three days,” said Lena.

The west coast climate-although now it’s milder than ever, Winter thought. Soon there’ll be palm trees along the avenue.

“That looks like a real snowman,” he said. “My Elsa’s a bit younger, of course, but I’ll be proud of her when she can draw as well as that.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes please.”

“You can ask me your questions while I’m making it.”

She stood up. Winter remained seated at the kitchen table opposite Ellen, who was starting a new drawing. He saw something that looked like a car, only upside down from where he was.

Children and drawings. He thought about a case he’d solved a few years earlier, about Helene, the dead woman who had remained anonymous for so long. Her face in the ditch near Lake Delsjö at dawn, her teeth exposed, as if she’d uttered a cry from the far distance that had echoed down through time; the past had cast shadows over the future, and the truth was hidden in the darkness. The only clue he’d had was a child’s drawings. The child saw what it saw, and then drew her memories.

Memories could be revisited like wide-open gates, enabling him to go in, or allowing somebody else to enter. Somebody else might get there first, and that could be the equivalent of falling into the abyss. He had seen it before. When memories were opened up the result could be catastrophe, the ultimate one.

If he wasn’t there at the time.

Why am I having such thoughts right now? The drawing, yes. But something else as well. Is all this linked to a memory?

“A car,” he said to Ellen.

She nodded.

“A big car.”

She nodded again. Drew the wheels.

“She drew a similar one when she came home and told me about the stranger,” said her mother, who had come back with two mugs of coffee and a little jug of milk.

“Do you still have it?”

“Of course. I save all her little works of art.”

“I’d like to take a look at it later.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. It might contain something I can use.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure of that either,” he said, and smiled.

“What do you think about all this, then? What Ellen said?”

The girl looked up.

“I think it’s important enough for me to come here and talk to you,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

“What happens now, then?” asked Lena.

“I don’t know that either.”

“What’s your next move?” She looked at him. “Isn’t that what you say?”

Winter looked at the girl, who looked up again and smiled.

“Surely you’re not going to interrogate her?” She looked first at Winter, then at her daughter.

Winter gestured as if to say: I don’t know.

“Has this happened in other places? What might have happened to Ellen?”

Same gesture from Winter.

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“We’ll check it out and see if we can find any links,” he said.

Winter was sitting in Ringmar’s office that afternoon. It was the same standardized design as his own, but the window faced another direction.

The city outside was at its most electric now. Dusk was closing in and Gothenburg was starting to glitter in sheer joy at the approach of Christmas.

“Have you bought any Christmas presents?” asked Ringmar, who was in the window watching the lights come on.

“Of course,” said Winter, untruthfully.

“Books?”

“Yes. For Elsa so far.”

At least that was true.

“Hmm,” Ringmar grunted.

“Then there’ll no doubt be some last-minute shopping, as usual,” said Winter.

“When’s your flight to the sunshine coast?”

“The day before the day.” Winter rolled a cigarillo between his fingers without lighting it. It smelled good even so. “But I don’t think I’ll make it.”

“Really?”

“Well, do you?”

Ringmar turned around.

“You mean you think we’ll still be looking for him?”

Winter didn’t reply.

“Maybe we’ll have cracked it by then, so that we can enjoy some peace and quiet like everybody else,” said Ringmar, turning back to look out of the window.

“Did you send out the CID appeal?”

“Half an hour ago.”

They’d also sent messages to all their police colleagues, but who got around to reading all those e-mails that flooded in every day? The CID information sheet was a better bet. Were there any more like Alinder? And Lena Sköld? Worth a try.

They got no information at CID headquarters. If something came to them specifically, they would hear. But otherwise, they didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Nobody coordinated information coming into individual stations and departments anymore.

“Nobody coordinates stuff anymore,” Ringmar had said to young Bergenhem. “Nobody calls CID direct nowadays. In the old days, before the reorganization, everything was sent to the head of CID, who read it all and kept duplicates-about pedophiles, for instance. Suspicions, or even unusual things people noticed.” Ringmar had nodded at his own words. “A lot of people think they see child molesters everywhere all the time, but it’s important not to ignore their reports. Don’t you think? We should collect all the documentation so that we can sift through it when we are looking for a really nasty specimen.”

Winter was still on the chair, rolling his cigarillo.

“It seems like the boy has lost the ability to speak,” said Ringmar. “I was there an hour ago.”

“Nothing new?”

“No.”

“We’ll have to see what we’ve got so far,” said Winter.

“The Sköld girl? Could be imagination. The nursery-school staff didn’t notice anything.”

“We’ll have to see,” Winter said again.

The neighbor had set up his Christmas lights when Ringmar got back home. Every sleeping aspen and maple in the garden on the other side of the skeletal hedge was laden with hundreds of little glittering lights that were reflected in the dull paint of his unwashed Audi.

Each of the next-door windows was lit up by a set of electric Advent candles. That’s the home of somebody who’s not short on cash, Ringmar thought. A private illuminations warehouse. A plethora of light.

The disgust was still visible in his face when he entered the hall.

“What’s eating you?” asked Moa, who was on her way out.

“Where are you going?”

“What kind of tone is that?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to buy a Christmas present, if I can find what I’m looking for,” she said. “Which reminds me, I haven’t seen a wish list from you yet.”

“A wish list? I haven’t written one of those for years.”

“But now I’m living at home, temporarily, and so you need to write a wish list,” said his daughter, pulling the other boot over her heel.

“You should know already what’s at the top of my list,” he said.

She looked up from the stool under the light that illuminated her hair and made her look like one of the handmaidens in a queen of light procession. Or even Lucia herself.

“Do you think I don’t know?” she said.

“Hmm.”

“Do you really think so? Do you think I haven’t spoken to him?”

“What did he say?”

She didn’t answer, stood up.

“When did you last speak to him?”

“It’s a while ago now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She opened the door.

“When’s the next time going to be?” Ringmar asked. “For God’s sake, Moa, this is crazy.”

“Give it some time, Dad.”

“Some time? What the hell am I supposed to give some time to?”