Frozen Tracks

23

“HOW ARE WE GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS? ”RINGMAR ASKED AS THEY walked toward the house.

“We don’t need to explain anything,” said Winter.

The wind was gusting in circles around the house. Winter could see only one single light, in the distance, like a lighthouse at the edge of the plain. Darkness was closing in fast. It also felt chillier, as if winter was approaching at last. If he were to come back here a month from now, everything would be white all around, and it really would look like an ocean. It would be even more difficult to see the difference between sky and land, between heaven and earth.

As he raised his fist to hammer on the door, he had the feeling that he would in fact be coming back here. It was a feeling he couldn’t explain, but in the past it had led him deep down into the depths of darkness. It was a premonition that foreboded terrible things. Once it appeared, it wouldn’t go away.

Everything is linked.

He kept his hand raised. Gusts spiraling, a strange hissing in his ears. A faint light in the window to the left. An acrid smell of soil. His own breath like smoke signals, Bertil’s breath. Another smell, hard to pin down. He thought of a child on a swing, he could see it. The child turned to look at him and laughed, and it was Elsa. A hand was pushing the swing, and another face appeared and turned to look at him and it was not himself. He didn’t recognize it.

“Aren’t you going to knock?” Ringmar asked.

After the third salvo of hammering they could hear somebody moving inside, and a voice said: “What do you want?”

Yes, what did they want? Ringmar looked at Winter. Two stupid chief inspectors banging on the door of an isolated house in the middle of nowhere. In the backseat of our car is a hillbilly who has tricked us into coming here with his cock-and-bull story. Inside the house his psychopathic brother is waiting with an elk rifle. Our bodies will sink down under all the pig shit and never be recovered. Our coats will keep the brothers warm on their tractors.

You’ve got me covered, Erik?

Uh… sorry, no, Bertil boy.

“We’re from the police,” said Winter. “Can we come in and ask you a few questions?”

“About what?”

The voice was gruff and seemed to be in several layers, an old man’s voice.

“Can we come in?” Winter said again.

“How do I know you’re not thieves?” The voice was muffled by the door, which looked battered but substantial.

“I have my ID in my hand,” said Winter.

They heard a mumbling and a clanking of bolts. The door opened and the man inside appeared as a silhouette, illuminated by a low-octane light from the hall and perhaps also the kitchen. Winter held out his ID. The man leaned forward and studied the text and photograph with his eyes screwed up, then looked at Winter and nodded at Ringmar.

“Who’s he?”

Ringmar introduced himself and showed the man his ID.

“What do you want?” asked the man once more. He was slightly hunched but still of average height, his head shaved, wearing a whitish shirt, suspenders, trousers of no particular style, and thick woolen socks. Classical rural attire from head to toe. Winter could smell a wood-burning stove and recently cooked food. Pork. It was damp and chilly in the hall, and that was not entirely due to the air coming from the outside.

“We just have a few questions we’d like to ask,” said Winter again.

“Are you lost?” asked the man. He appeared to be pointing at the ceiling. “The main road’s that way.”

“We’d like to ask you about a few things,” said Winter. “We’re looking for somebody.” Best to start there.

“There’s a search party out, is there?”

“No. Just us.”

“What’s your name?” Ringmar asked.

“My name’s Carlström,” said the man, without offering to shake hands. “Natanael Carlström.”

“Could we sit down for a minute, Mr. Carlström?”

He made a sort of sighing noise and ushered them into the kitchen, which was reminiscent of Georg Smedsberg’s but smaller and darker and much dirtier. Winter thought about Smedsberg sitting in the backseat of his Mercedes as it got colder and colder, and regretted leaving him there. They had better make this short.

“We’re looking for this young man,” said Ringmar, handing over the photograph of Aryan Kaite. It was simple, probably taken in a photo booth. Kaite’s face looked like soot against the shabby background wall. Nevertheless, he had gone to the trouble of having it enlarged and framed, and had hung it in his room, Winter had thought earlier.

“You’d better get a move on before it gets dark out there, or you’ll never see him,” said Carlström, and the sighing noise dissolved into a rattling breath that could well have been a laugh.

“Have you seen him?” Winter asked.

“A black man out here on the flats? That’s a sight worth seeing.”

“So he hasn’t been seen around here?”

“Never. Who is he?”

“Nobody else you know has mentioned him?” Winter asked.

“Who could that be?”

“I’m asking you.”

“There is nobody else here,” said Carlström. “Couldn’t you see that for yourselves? Did you see any other houses near here?”

“So you haven’t spoken to anybody else about a stranger in the vicinity?”

“The only strangers I’ve seen for a very long time are you two,” said Carlström.

“Do you know Gustav Smedsberg?” Ringmar asked.

“Eh?”

“Do you know anybody named Gustav Smedsberg?”

“No.”

“His mother grew up around here,” said Winter. “Gerd.” He hadn’t asked Smedsberg senior about her maiden name. “She married Georg Smedsberg from the neighboring parish.” Although it’s hardly the right name for it, Winter thought. It’s too far away.

“I’ve never heard anything about it,” said Carlström.

“The Smedsberg kid knows this Aryan Kaite who has disappeared,” said Ringmar.

“Really?”

“And these boys have both been violently attacked,” said Winter. “That’s why we’re here.”

He tried to explain about the branding iron. They were very curious to see what one looked like. And they’d heard that he might have one. It would help them to decide on the plausibility.

“The plausibility of what?”

“Of the assumption that it was used as a weapon.”

Carlström looked as though he very much doubted that.

“Who said that I mark my animals with an iron?”

“We asked around a bit in the village.”

“Was it Smedsberg?”

Does he mean the young one or the old one? Ringmar and Winter looked at each other. He remembered the name he’d never heard of before.

“Georg Smedsberg thought he’d seen you using one of those irons ages ago,” said Winter.

“Is that him in the car outside?”

The old man sees more than you’d think. Winter was very tempted to turn around and look out of the window to see if Smedsberg’s silhouette could be seen in the car.

“Why doesn’t he come in?” said Carlström.

“He only showed us how to get here,” said Winter.

Carlström muttered something they couldn’t catch.

“I beg your pardon?” said Winter.

“Yes, that might well be,” said Carlström.

“What might?” asked Winter.

“That I branded a few cattle.” He looked up, straight at Winter. “It wasn’t illegal.” He gestured with his hand. “They don’t like it nowadays, but nobody said anything then.”

“No, no, we only wanted to see what-”

“I don’t have the iron anymore,” said Carlström. “I had two at one time, but not now.”

“Did you sell them?”

“I sold one twenty-five years ago to an auctioneer, so you can try and track that one down.” One of his eyes glinted, as if the very thought amused him.

“What about the other one?”

“Thieves.”

“Thieves?” said Winter. “You mean it’s been stolen?”

“This autumn,” said Carlström. “That was why I was asking questions when you came knocking at my door. I was going to ask if that’s what you’d come for, but then I thought it was better to be careful.”

“What happened?” asked Ringmar. “The theft.”

“I don’t know. I went out early one morning and tools were missing from the shed.”

“Several tools?”

“Quite a few. New and old.”

“Including your marking iron?”

“Who would want that?”

“So the marking iron was stolen?”

“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

“When exactly did this happen?”

“This autumn, like I said.”

“Do you know what day it was?”

“I think probably not. I was going to go into the village that day, I think, and it’s not every day I do that…”

They waited.

“I’m not sure,” said Carlström. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Have you had any break-ins before?” Winter asked.

“Never.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“For a few old tools?” Carlström looked surprised, or possibly just bored stiff.

“How many tools?”

“Not many.”

“Do you know exactly?”

“Do you want a list?”

“No,” said Winter. “That’s not necessary yet.” Ringmar looked at him but said nothing.

“Have you heard of anybody else being burgled?” Ringmar asked.

“No,” said Carlström.

We’ll have to check with the neighbors, Winter thought. The problem is, there aren’t any neighbors.

“Do you live alone here, Mr Carlström?”

“You can see that, can’t you?”

“But we can’t know for sure,” said Ringmar.

“All alone.”

“Do you have any children?”

“Eh?”

“Do you have any children?” Winter asked again.

“No.”

“Have you been married?”

“Never. Why?”

“Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Carlström,” said Winter, getting to his feet.

“Is that it, then?”

“Thank you very much for your help,” said Winter. “If you hear anything about your tools I’d be grateful if you could let us know.” He handed over a business card. “My number’s on the card.”

Carlström handled it as if it were a thousand-year-old piece of china.

“Especially if you hear anything about that branding iron,” said Winter.

Carlström nodded. Winter asked his last question, the one he’d been waiting with.

“Do you happen to have a copy of your mark, by the way?” he asked in an offhand tone. “That symbol, or number combination, or whatever it was.”

“Eh?”

“What did your mark look like?” Winter asked.

“I don’t have a copy, if that’s what you want to see,” said Carlström.

“But you remember what it looked like?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Could you draw it for us?”

“What for?”

“In case it turns up.”

“If it turns up, it’ll turn up here,” said Carlström.

“But we’d be grateful if you could help us all the same,” said Ringmar. “Then we could exclude your iron if we find the one that was used in the attacks.”

“Why on earth would my iron have been used?” Carlström asked.

“We have no idea,” said Winter, “and we don’t think it was, of course. But it would still be helpful to know what it looked like.”

“Yes, yes,” said Carlström. “It’s a square with a circle in it and a C inside the circle.” He looked at Winter. “C stands for Carlström.”

“Could you possibly draw it for us?”

Carlström made that strange sighing noise again, but stood up and left the room without a word. He returned a minute later with a sketch that he handed to Ringmar.

“Have you had it long?” Ringmar asked.

“As long as I can remember. It was my father’s.”

“Many thanks for all your help,” said Winter.

They went back through the hall and stood in the doorway. The darkness was compact now; there was no sign of any stars or moon in the sky. The only light Winter could see was the lighthouse on the horizon, brighter now.

“What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing. “The light.”

“Television tower,” said Carlström. “Radio, television, those stupid computer contraptions, God knows what else. It’s been there for some time.”

“Anyway, many thanks,” said Ringmar, and they went back to the car and got in. Carlström was still in the doorway, a hunched silhouette.

“Are you cold?” asked Winter as he started the car.

“No. You weren’t very long,” said Smedsberg in the darkness.

“We took longer than we meant to.”

Winter turned the car around and headed for the main road.

“Were we on the veranda long enough for you to recognize him?” Winter asked as they turned right.

“A few years’ve passed, but I’ve seen ’im now and again,” said Smedsberg. “While I was sitting there I remembered ’is name as well. Carlström. Natanael Carlström. The kind of name you should remember.”

“Is he religious?” asked Ringmar. “Or rather, his parents?”

“Dunno,” said Smedsberg. “But there were a lot of God-fearing folk ’round here in the old days, so it ain’t impossible.”

They drove in silence. Winter wasn’t familiar with the road. It was all darkness and narrow roads and trees lit up by his powerful headlights. Gloomy houses came and went, but they could have been different from the ones he’d seen earlier that afternoon.

They drove over the plain, the mother of all plains. Flickering lights like solitary stars anchored to the earth. Another crossroads. No traffic.

“Had a boy,” said Smedsberg without warning from the darkness of the backseat.

“I beg your pardon?” said Winter, turning right toward Smedsberg’s farm.

“Carlström. He had a boy at the farm for a few years. I remember now. Nothin’ to do with it, I reckon, but I remembered just now as we turned in.”

“What do you mean by ‘a few years’?” asked Ringmar.

“A foster son. Had a foster son living with ’im. I never seed ’im misself, but Gerd said somethin’ about ’im once or twice.”

“Was she sure?” asked Ringmar.

“That’s what she said.”

No children, Winter thought. Carlström had said no when asked if he had any children, but maybe he didn’t count a foster child.

“She said ’e was fed up with the boy,” said Smedsberg. They’d arrived. Smedsberg’s house was in darkness. “The old man was fed up with the boy and then ’e grew up, and I reckon ’e never came back again.”

“Fed up?” said Winter. “Do you mean Carlström treated him badly?”

“Yes.”

“What was his name?” asked Ringmar. “The boy?”

“She never said. I don’t think she knew.”

They drove home on roads wider than the ones they’d made their way along earlier in the day.

“Interesting,” Ringmar said.

“It’s a different world,” said Winter.

They continued for a while in silence. It was almost exciting to see lit-up houses and villages and towns passing by, to see other cars, trucks. Another world.

“The old man was lying,” said Ringmar.

“You mean Carlström?”

“I mean Natanael Carlström.”

“That’s the understatement of the day,” said Winter.

“Lied through his teeth.”

“That’s a little bit closer to the truth,” said Winter, and Ringmar laughed.

“But it’s not funny,” said Ringmar.

“I had bad vibes out there,” said Winter.

“We’ve stumbled on a secret here,” said Ringmar. “Maybe several.”

“We’d better check up on burglaries in the area.”

“Is it worth the effort?” Ringmar asked. They were approaching Gothenburg now. The sky was a fiery yellow and transparent, lit up from underneath.

“Yes,” said Winter. He couldn’t forget the feeling he’d had when he was about to hammer on the old man’s front door. There was a secret. He’d sensed it. He had sensed the darkness that was deeper than the heavens that fell down over the earth around the big farmhouse.