Frozen Tracks

29

WINTER CALLED ANETTE RIGHT AWAY, FROM THE NURSERY-SCHOOL manager’s office. She was at home and Winter could hear the humming of the exhaust fan in the background. Or perhaps it was a hair dryer. It stopped.

Camera? Yes, what about it? Yes, she had it on hand. The film wasn’t finished. Yes, he could come and get it.

Winter sent a car to Anette’s flat. The camera really was a very simple one. One of the technical division’s labs had the film developed and copied after Winter had returned to his office.

He had the photographs on the desk in front of him now. They hadn’t been taken by an expert photographer. Everything was overexposed and slightly blurred. All of them were of children, mostly in a location Winter recognized: the grounds of Elsa’s nursery school. Some of the pictures featured members of staff he knew.

The park, the soccer field. A long line of children.

A man with a video camera could be seen in the background, perhaps thirty meters behind them. His face was hidden by the camera. That particular picture was sharper than the others, as if it had been taken by a different photographer. The man was wearing a cap. Winter couldn’t make out the colors.

The man was wearing the kind of jacket you often see on elderly men who buy their clothes at charity shops. It was impossible to see what kind of trousers he was wearing. More careful copying was necessary, and a bigger enlargement.

Anette had taken two pictures in which the man was visible in the background, but not in succession.

In the second one he had turned his back on the camera and was evidently walking away. The jacket could be seen more clearly. It could easily have been made in the 1950s.

Perhaps the trousers as well. You couldn’t see his shoes, the grass was up to the man’s calves. Nor could Winter see the video camera.

“Is it still glued to his face?” asked Halders, who was poring over the photograph. “The video camera, I mean.”

They were meeting in the smaller conference room: Winter, Ringmar, Halders, Djanali.

“It’s not visible,” said Winter.

“He dresses like an old man, but he’s not an old man,” said Djanali.

“What exactly does an old man look like?” Halders asked.

“You’re not going to goad me into going on about that,” said Djanali.

“But seriously, what is characteristic of an old man?” said Ringmar.

“He doesn’t have the bearing of an old man,” said Djanali. “He’s just chosen to dress like one.”

“Clothes make the man,” said Halders.

“The question is what this particular man has done,” said Ringmar, looking at the photograph that could possibly feature the abductor. He felt strangely excited.

“He was filming the children,” said Winter.

“That’s not a crime,” said Ringmar, rubbing one eye. Winter could see tension in Ringmar’s face, more noticeable than usual. “There are normal people who film anything in sight.” Ringmar looked up. There was a red patch over one eye. “He doesn’t have to be a pedophile or a kidnapper or a child molester.”

“But he could be,” said Djanali. “We have a crime on our hands. And he could be the one who did it.”

“We’ll have to work on the picture,” said Winter. “Or pictures, rather. Maybe it’s somebody we can recognize from the archives.”

“The camera looks new. It doesn’t fit in with the dress code,” said Halders.

Nobody was sure if he was being serious or not.

It was so crowded that it was difficult to move your feet. A teeming mass of people, and he was sweating, and if it hadn’t been for that woman with the stroller ten meters ahead of him, he wouldn’t have been here at all, no, certainly not. He’d have been at home, on his own.

It had looked as if the child was sleeping when they were outside the Nordstan shopping center. Then they went inside, the black sea of people walking, walking, walking, shopping, shopping, shopping.

“The day before the day before the day before the day!” somebody yelled, or something of the sort. But what did he care about Christmas? Personally? Christmas was a time for children. He wasn’t a child. But he had been one, and he knew.

It was a good idea. He’d had it before, but now it was stronger than ever. Christmas was a time for children. He was on his own and wasn’t a child. But he knew what children liked at Christmas time. He was nice and he could do everything that would make Christmas really fun for a child. Really fun!

He wasn’t at all sure that the woman in front of him could do that. He didn’t think that the child lying asleep in an uncomfortable position thought she was fun. She didn’t look very fun. He’d seen her before, when she had come to the nursery school and he’d been standing there, watching, or maybe just walking past. In fact he’d seen her several times.

He had seen the boy. And he’d seen a man who might have been the boy’s father.

He’d filmed the boy.

He’d filmed all of them.

The woman had paused outside Nordstan to smoke a cigarette. He didn’t like that. She had jerked her head back and looked as if she were drinking the smoke. He didn’t think that she lived with this child. It might have been her boy, but he wasn’t sure.

Somebody bumped into him, then somebody else. He couldn’t see the stroller, but then it came into view again. He wasn’t bothered about the woman at all, to be honest.

He’d followed them when they left the nursery school. He could come back for his car later.

The weather had turned colder, but he didn’t feel cold. He thought the boy was cold: The woman hadn’t tucked him in properly.

That didn’t matter so much now; it was warm indoors. She was standing in front of one of the department stores that sold everything imaginable. The doors were open and as wide as sluice gates, and people were flooding in and out like torrents of black water, out and in, out and in.

He saw the sculpture, the one he admired. It looked so… so free, so liberated. Sculpted figures flying down from the sky. They were free. They were flying.

He looked around and noticed that she’d parked the stroller by a counter where they sold perfume and hair lotion and lipstick and all that kind of stuff, or maybe it was clothes, but he hadn’t checked very carefully. Yes, it was clothes in fact, perfume was a bit farther on. He knew that really.

He could see the boy’s feet sticking out, or one of them at least. She seemed to be standing there, looking at the boy or maybe something on the floor next to the stroller. Maybe it didn’t make any difference to her. He moved to one side, out of the way of people flooding in and out. He was standing ten meters away from her. She didn’t see him. She moved the stroller closer to one of the counters. She looked around. He didn’t understand what she was doing.

She walked away. He saw her go to another counter, and then he lost sight of her. He waited. He could see the stroller, but nobody else was looking at it. He was standing guard while the woman was away, doing God only knows what.

He kept watch. People walking past no doubt thought the stroller belonged to somebody at one of the nearby counters. Maybe someone who worked there. He looked around but there was no sign of the woman. He checked his watch, but he didn’t know what time it had been when she left and so he didn’t know how long she’d been away.

He took a few paces toward the stroller, and then a few more.

When Ringmar got home he could feel that there was something seriously wrong. Even as he took his shoes off in the hall he could sense that the silence was heavier than usual. He hadn’t heard a silence like that before in this house. Or had he?

“Birgitta?”

No answer, and there was nobody there when he went to the kitchen, up the stairs, through the rooms. He didn’t turn on the lights upstairs as the neighbor’s illuminations were quite enough to fill the rooms with a yellow day-before-the-day-before-the-day-before-the-day glow.

Back downstairs he called his daughter’s mobile. She answered after the second ring.

“Hi Moa, it’s your dad here.”

She didn’t answer. Perhaps she’s nodding, he thought.

“Do you know where your mom is?”

“Yes.”

“I tried to call her but there was no reply, and when I got home there was nobody there.”

“Yes.”

“Where is she then? Did she go shopping?”

Ringmar could hear her rapid breathing.

“She’s gone away for a while.”

“Eh? Gone away? Where to? Why? What’s going on?”

That was a lot of questions, and she answered one of them: “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Where she’s gone.”

“Didn’t she say?”

“No.”

“What the hell is this?!” said Ringmar. I’d better sit down, he thought. “I don’t understand a goddamn thing,” he said. “Do you, Moa?”

She didn’t reply.

“Moa?” He could hear a noise in the background, as if something was moving fast. “Moa? Where are you?”

“I’m on the streetcar,” she said. “On my way home.”

Thank God for that, he thought.

“We can talk when I get there,” she said.

He waited on edge, opened a beer that he didn’t drink. The thousand lights in the neighbor’s garden suddenly started flashing. What the hell, he thought. They’re winking like a thousand yellow compound eyes, like stars sending messages down to earth. Pretty soon I’ll have to stop by and pass on an unambiguous message to that stupid bastard.

The front door opened. He went into the hall.

“It’s probably not all that bad,” was the first thing his daughter said. She took off her coat.

“What is going on?” asked Ringmar.

“Let’s go into the living room,” she said.

He trudged after her. They sat down on the sofa.

“Martin called,” she said.

“I understand,” he said.

“Do you?”

“Why didn’t she talk to me first?”

“What do you understand, Dad?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? He wants to see her but under no circumstances does he want to see me.” He shook his head. “And she had to promise not to say anything to me.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Moa.

“When’s she coming back?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“So he’s not that far away?” said Ringmar.

She didn’t answer. He couldn’t see her face, only her hair, which was speckled with the flashing light from the idiot’s garden.

“So he’s not that far away?” Ringmar said again.

“She’s not going to meet him,” Moa said eventually.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mom isn’t going to meet Martin,” said Moa.

“What do you know that I don’t know?”

“I don’t know much more than you do,” she said. “Mom called me and said that Martin had been in touch and she would have to go away for a short while.”

“But what the hell did he say, then? He must have said something that made her take off?!”

“I don’t know.”

“This is the kind of thing that happens to other people,” he said.

She said nothing.

“Aren’t you worried?” he asked.

She stood up.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Up to my room. Why?”

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” he said. “I can see it in your face.”

“No,” she said. “I have to go to my room now. Vanna’s going to call me.”

He stood up, went to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of beer, went back to the living room, and sat down on the sofa again. Birgitta didn’t have a mobile: If she did he could have left her a message, said something, done something. This is a situation I’ve never been in before. Is it a dream? Or is it something I’ve said? Something I’ve done? What have I done?

Why had Martin called? What had he said? What had he said to make Birgitta pack a bag and take off? Without telling her husband.

He took a swig of beer, and the illuminations outside continued to flash and twinkle. He looked out of the window and saw that some kind of portal with lights had been created outside the neighbor’s front door. That was new. He clutched the bottle in his hand and stood up. He saw his neighbor come out and turn around to admire his garden of light. Ringmar heard the phone ring and Moa’s voice when she answered. He waited for her to shout down to him, but she continued talking. Vanna, no doubt, a fellow student who wore flowery shirts. Would do well as a lawyer.

He kept on staring at his idiotic neighbor. It looked as if the stupid bastard were fixing up some more floodlights in one of the maple trees. Ringmar slammed the bottle down onto the glass table with a loud bang and went out onto the veranda facing the lights. He didn’t feel the frost through his socks.

“What the hell are you doing now?” he yelled straight across the flashing Dipper and the Great Bear and the Little Bear and everybody and their brother.

The neighbor’s discolored and moronic face turned to look at him.

“

What the hell are you doing?!” screeched Ringmar, and even as he did so he recognized that this was not the way to behave, that you didn’t take out your own frustration or worries on other people, he knew that full well, but just then he didn’t give a shit about that.

“What’s the matter?” asked the neighbor, who Ringmar knew was some kind of administrator in the health service. A real butcher, in other words, as Winter’s Angela would have said. I’ll bet that bastard administrates fucking light therapy at the hospital, Ringmar thought.

“I can’t take any more of your stupid lights in my face,” said Ringmar.

The neighbor stared back with his stupid face. How can anybody like that be allowed to live? Where are you, God?

“My whole house is bathed in light all night long from your goddamn yard, and it only gets worse,” said Ringmar in a louder voice than usual, to make sure the administrator heard. “Thank God Christmas will be over soon.” He turned on his heel, went back inside, and slammed the door behind him. He was shaking. I managed that quite well. Nobody got hurt.

He was woken up at midnight, out of a dream that was brightly lit.

“Bertil, it’s Erik. I need your help. I know it’s late, but it can’t be helped.”

He could see the light was on in Winter’s office as he crossed the parking lot. It was the only lit window in the north wall of police headquarters.

A man was sitting on the chair opposite Winter.

“This is Bengt Johansson,” said Winter. “He’s just arrived.”

Ringmar introduced himself. The man didn’t respond.

“Have you been there?” Ringmar asked, turning to Winter. “To Nordstan?”

“Yes,” said Winter. “And I wasn’t the only one searching. But the place is empty.”

“Oh my God,” said Bengt Johansson.

“Tell us your story one more time,” said Winter, sitting down.

“This isn’t the first time,” said Johansson. “It’s happened once before. They called from the kiosk. It was only a few minutes that time.”

Ringmar looked at Winter.

“Tell us about what happened,” said Winter.

“She was supposed to pick up Micke,” said Johansson. “And she did. Eh! We’d agreed that they’d go out for an hour or so and buy some Christmas presents, and then she’d bring him back home to me.” He looked at Ringmar. “But they never showed up.” He looked at Winter. “I called her at home, but there was no answer. I waited and called again. I mean, I had no idea where they might go.”

Winter nodded.

“Then I called various people I-we-know, and then I checked the hospital.” He mimed a phone call. “And then, well, then I called here. Criminal emergency, or whatever they call it.”

“They called me,” said Winter, looking at Ringmar. “The mother-Carolin-had left the kid at H & M near the entrance, and vanished.”

“And vanished?” said Ringmar.

“Shortly before six. Loads of people. They closed at eight.”

Winter looked at Johansson. The man seemed as if he had come face-to-face with a horror that must have been worse than anything Ringmar had dreamed recently.

“Bengt here started calling when they didn’t turn up. And eventually got through to us, as he said.”

“Where’s the boy?” Ringmar asked.

“We don’t know,” sighed Winter. Johansson sniffled.

“Where’s the mother?” asked Ringmar. “Is the boy with her?”

“No,” said Winter. “Bengt mentioned a few places he hadn’t gotten around to phoning, and she was in one of them.”

“What kind of places?”

Winter didn’t answer.

“Pubs? Restaurants?”

“That kind of place, yes. We found her and identified her, but the boy wasn’t with her.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Nothing that’s of any help to us at the moment,” said Winter.

Johansson showed signs of life.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“Is there someone who can keep you company for the time being?” Winter asked.

“Er, yes. My sister.”

“One of our colleagues will give you a lift home,” Winter said. “You shouldn’t be on your own.”

Johansson said nothing.

“I’d like you to go home and wait,” said Winter. “We’ll be in touch.” Maybe somebody else will be in touch as well, he thought. “Could you call Helander and Birgersson, please, Bertil?”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Ringmar. They were still in Winter’s office. Winter had tried to get in touch with Hanne Östergaard, the police vicar, but she was abroad on Christmas leave.

“A family drama of a more difficult kind,” said Winter. “The mother left the boy all alone and hoped that some kind soul from the staff would look after him. Or some other generous passerby.”

“Which might be what happened,” said Ringmar.

“It looks like it.”

“But now he’s disappeared,” said Ringmar. “Four years old.”

Winter nodded, and drew a circle with his finger on the desk in front of him, and then another circle on top of that.

“Where’s the mother now?”

“At home, with a couple of social workers. She might be on her way to Östra Hospital by now-I expect to be informed at any minute. She’d been drinking at the pub, but not all that much. She’s desperate, and very remorseful, as you’d expect.”

“As you’d expect,” said Ringmar.

“She went back after a while, she couldn’t say how long, but the boy was no longer there, and she assumed he’d been taken care of by the authorities.”

“Did she check via the emergency police number?”

“No.”

“And she never called her husband? Bengt Johansson?”

Winter shook his head.

“They are divorced,” he said. “He has custody.”

“Why did she do it?” Ringmar asked.

Winter raised both arms a bit.

“She can’t explain it,” he said. “Not at the moment, at any rate.”

“Do you believe her?” asked Ringmar.

“That she abandoned the boy? Yes. What’s the alternative?”

“Even worse,” said Ringmar.

“We have to work with all possible alternatives,” said Winter. “We need to check the father’s alibi as well. The important thing is that the child is missing. That’s what we need to concentrate on.”

“Have you been to their home? The Johanssons’? The father?”

“Yes,” said Winter. “And we’re tracking down everyone who was working at the time on that floor of the shopping center. The first.”

“So somebody might have abducted the kid?” said Ringmar.

“Yes.”

“Is this a pattern we recognize from before?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly,” said Ringmar. “But it doesn’t really fit in with the previous cases. The others.”

“It might,” said Winter. “This boy, Micke, went to a nursery school in the center of Gothenburg. Not all that far away from the others we are involved with, including mine-or Elsa’s rather.”

“And?”

“If there’s somebody stalking the day nurseries from time to time, keeping them under observation, it’s not impossible that the person concerned could follow somebody after they’ve picked up their child.”

“Why?”

“To see where they live.”

“Why?”

“Because he or she is interested in the child.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason as in the earlier cases.”

“Calm down now, Erik.”

“I am calm.”

“What’s the reason?” Ringmar asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

Ringmar eased off. He recognized Winter’s fervent involvement, and his own.

“Perhaps it’s easier to abduct a child if you’ve been keeping it under observation for some time,” said Ringmar.

“Perhaps.”

“Instead of just marching up and wheeling the stroller away. I mean, the mother might have been within reach.”

Winter nodded. He tried to picture the situation but wasn’t very successful. There were too many people in the way.

“For Christ’s sake, Erik, we could be dealing with an abducted child here.” Ringmar rubbed away at his eye. “Or I suppose it’s possible that the boy woke up and staggered off all by himself?” He peered out from underneath his rubbing. “It’s a possibility.”

“We have lots of officers searching,” said Winter.

“Down by the canal?”

“There as well.”

“Do you have a picture of the boy?”

Winter pointed at his desk, where a little photograph must have been lying all along.

“We’re busy making copies,” Winter said.

“You realize what will happen once the wanted notice becomes public?” Ringmar said.

“Goodbye secrecy,” said Winter.

“And all the rest follows, like it or not.”

“Just as well,” said Winter.

“The media will give us hell,” said Ringmar.

“Can’t be helped.”

“I get the impression, Erik, that… that you’re looking forward to it.”

Winter said nothing.

“This is going to be some Christmas,” said Ringmar. “You’re on your way to Spain, I gather?”

“I was. Angela and Elsa are flying tomorrow. I’ll follow when I follow.”

“I see.”

“What would you have done, Bertil?”

“It depends what we suspect this is all about. If it’s the worst-case scenario, then there’s no question about it,” said Ringmar.

“We’ll have to interrogate the children soon,” said Winter.