Never End

10

It was raining when Winter left the police station. It was still hot, but the atmosphere was close, and he could feel sweat bead up on his brow, as well as rain in his hair. The grass next to the parking lot had turned greener after just a few minutes, and the air was heavy with the smell of it. This was the first rain for over a month.

Suddenly the sounds coming from the traffic on all sides were different. The swish of tires on wet asphalt. A softer sound.

The colors were clearer than when he'd last driven through the center of town. Not many people were wearing rain gear. Three young men naked from the waist up danced over the Allé when he stopped at a red light. One of them gave Winter a thumbs-up. He nodded through the windshield of his Mercedes.

He drove through the tunnel, then turned off and continued along minor roads until he pulled up outside the house. The rain had stopped by the time he got out of the car. There was no wind. His back felt sweaty despite the air conditioning.

The house looked as melancholy as it always did. It was more than two years since he was last here. They'd kept in touch. Birgersson as well, but the fact was that Winter had felt a… stronger need to stay in contact with Beatrice's parents. Maybe a duty, in addition to his professional reasons. Their daughter's murderer was still out there somewhere. They were prisoners of that crime for the rest of their lives, bound by the memory and the sorrow. Shut up forever inside the brick house that was so heavy and dark in the mist; the windows were black, the door closed, but it opened as Winter walked along the short path from the gate. Bengt Wägner came out, closing the door behind him, and shook hands with Winter.

"Lisen won't come out," Wägner said. "She's lying down. It all came back to her."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. It's no use trying to pretend it never happened," said Wägner. He took a few steps onto the lawn that had stopped growing in the heat wave. "It's best if Lisen confronts her grief. Otherwise it'll be worse. And worse still next time." He looked at Winter. "So, it's happened again."

"A girl called Angelika Hansson."

"In the same place…"

"Yes."

"Exactly the same place?"

"It seems so."

"And another girl has been attacked, too, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Also raped?"

Winter nodded again.

"No doubt there's more than one rapist running loose in town?"

"Depending on how you count them, there are several," Winter said.

"But there's one who's special," said Wägner.

"It's a hypothesis."

"Does it make sense to work on that basis?"

"I think so."

"What good does it do us?" Wägner gave a snort, almost like a dry little laugh. "What do we get out of it?"

Winter lit a Corps, exhaled, and watched the smoke mix with the air that was growing clearer now that the last of the dampness from the sky was sinking into the grass at their feet.

"If we can find a link it could help us. It could be of enormous help to us."

"How? What link could there be?"

Winter took another drag on his cigarillo. He'd offered one to Wägner, who'd accepted it, and who now lit up.

"Angelika Hansson's murderer could be the same one who murdered Beatrice. Neither you nor I can stop thinking about the fact that he's still on the loose. It's devastating for you, I know, but I can't forget it either."

"But what kind of a link do you expect to find by going through all that shit all over again?" said Wägner, puffing at the cigarillo and studying the smoke as it rapidly became invisible.

"If there's something in common, we'll find it," said Winter. "That's what's going to help us."

"But what could it be? That really means something?"

"It could be anything at all."

"You've read all the documents and reports and all the rest of it several times, Erik. Over and over again. Surely there can't be anything you've missed?"

"I haven't had anything to compare it with."

"No, I can see that. But there must be lots of things that can be… well, in common, without meaning anything at all. Obviously there are three girls about the same age. Maybe with the same interests, for all I know. The same hobbies, perhaps. The same favorite parts of town. Maybe… maybe they used to go to the same places. You said all three had just graduated. Good God, there's tons of things they have in common. There must be. How will you know what's important and what's not when you read it and compare?"

"I can only hope that I see it."

"Hope? Is that the best we can wish for?"

Winter gave a little smile and took another puff.

"Pretty strong, these things," said Wägner, looking at the long, thin cigarillo in his hand. "I was going to buy a pack a few months ago, but they didn't have any."

"I'm the only one smoking them," said Winter. "And when they don't make them anymore, I'll give up."

"But you won't give up on… Beatrice."

"Never."

"Will you… we… will we find that bastard?"

"Yes."

"Now you're hoping again."

"No. By the end of this summer we'll have gotten him."

"It could be a long summer," said Wägner, looking up at the sky.

Winter called from Wägner's lawn. Halders answered after four rings. Winter drove back eastward and found the house in Lunden, following the instructions Halders had given him. Halders's car was parked outside. Winter pulled up behind it.

"I could have come down to the station," said Halders, who was waiting at the gate.

"I was out anyway."

"It's a great job, lots of freedom, eh?"

"Do you have anything to drink?"

"Will low-alcohol beer do?"

Winter said it would and followed Halders into the house.

"I hadn't been here for four years or so."

"Not at all?"

"Only to the gate." Halders took a can out of the fridge. "Here you go."

Winter opened the can and drank.

"I can get you a glass."

Winter shook his head and took another gulp. It was light in the kitchen. There were no piles of unwashed dishes on the draining board. No crumbs on the countertop. Hanging on the wall over the kitchen table was a framed poster from the sixties advertising a toothpaste that no longer existed. Next to the telephone in front of Winter was a tear-off wall calendar, and he noticed that the date was old. Nobody had torn off the pages from day to day. Winter knew what date it showed without needing to figure it out.

"There's something fishy about her dad," said Halders. "Jeanette's dad."

"What do you mean?"

"Or between the two of them. There's something odd there."

"Can you be more specific?"

"There are several details on which their versions of events don't agree. The night she came home. After it had happened."

Winter had noticed the discrepancies. It wasn't uncommon. It didn't necessarily mean that one of them was lying, not consciously at least.

"I wonder which one of them's lying," Halders said. "I think it's her, and he knows but doesn't want to say anything."

"It happens."

"We've got to be tougher on them."

"On him, in that case." Winter emptied the can. "Jeanette needs to do some thinking. Get us off her back for a while."

"I wonder what time she got home," Halders said. "I don't think it was when she says." He went to the fridge and got a beer for himself. "But then why doesn't he say anything about it? I don't think he was asleep."

They had a witness who'd seen Jeanette coming home around three hours later than she'd said.

"She's the key," Halders said. He looked at Winter, came closer to him. "Jeanette Bielke is the key here. She went somewhere that night but doesn't want to say where."

The key, thought Winter. One of the keys.

"Her old man might know."

"We'll question him again."

"I'll question him."

Winter could see how tense Halders's face was. Not just the usual policeman's pessimism. The question was, how would it affect his work? How would Halders react in a critical situation? It could end up in tragedy if he made a bad decision then.

Should he take Halders off the case? What would be the right thing to do? Would it work itself out?

"There's another thing I've been wandering around thinking about," said Halders, sitting down at the kitchen table. "Sit down." Winter did as he was told. "Why haven't we found the guy who put a bun in Angelika's oven?

"I can't tell you why, Fredrik."

"It was a so-called rhetorical question."

"There's nobody in her circle of friends who knows," said Winter. 'Of those we've talked to so far. Nobody who wants to say anything, at least."

"That's really odd."

"She may have kept it secret. From everybody."

"Even from herself?"

"She may not have known," Winter said. "Or may have suppressed the thought that she was pregnant."

"Which amounts to the same thing," said Halders. "But he does exist. The father."

"One of her friends knows," Winter said.

"She must have had a number one boyfriend?"

"Not according to her parents."

"They know nothing about that kind of thing," said Halders. "Parents don't have a clue about what their former little children are up to." He looked at Winter. "Am I right, or am I right?"

"You are right in that parents might not always be completely reliable witnesses."

"We've got to find this guy," Halders said, making a face. "He would have been a parent too."

They had to find him. Winter felt the full burden of the case as he drove back to the police station. They had put a lot of resources into finding Angelika's boyfriend, but they had failed.

Maybe they'd solve the problem when they found the father of the child that would never be born. Maybe he murdered Angelika. Maybe it was as simple as that.

The man who murdered Beatrice was somebody else.

And the one who raped Jeanette somebody else again.

No.

He'd parked the car and was inside his office within five minutes. There were a few raindrops still on the ledge under the window he'd left open.

The phone rang.

"We've got a new witness," Bergenhem said.

"Oh?"

"It's… er, the murder of Angelika Hansson, that is. A young man who says he heard some strange noises as he walked past the park that night."

"Does the time fit?"

"Yes."

"What did he hear?"

"A hissing noise, he says. A repeated hissing."

"What did he do?"

"Kept on going. Sped up, in fact."

"He wasn't curious?"

"He thought it was a badger, and was scared."

Winter could understand that. He'd once been chased by a badger.

"But he doesn't think it was a badger anymore?"

"He's seen the news," said Bergenhem.

"And it was at the same spot?"

"It looks like it."

That evening they went to the park. Angela was licking away at an ice cream, Winter was in charge of the stroller, and Elsa was asleep, although she woke up when they were passed by a group of kids on Rollerblades.

"It was about time anyway," said Angela, and she picked Elsa up as she reached out for the ice cream. "No need to arrest them."

"She wants an ice cream," said Winter, carrying Elsa to the kiosk, only to find that it had just closed. The kid in charge of it was just about to get onto his bike and ride off, and Winter wondered whether he should order him to open up again. Elsa realized she wasn't going to get an ice cream, and was not pleased.

"She needs something to hold her attention," said Angela when they came back.

"It was closed," Winter said.

"Think of something else, then."

He carried Elsa to the pond and dipped her feet into the water: the tears turned to laughter. He dipped them in again and mumbled into her ear, then he looked over the water. It was all so familiar. He could see the little open area in front of the circle of bushes, and the trees, and the rock glinting in the last rays of the sun.

He could see a shadow to the left, just where the police tape blocked off the black opening. The shadow was motionless. Winter didn't move either until he felt Elsa squirming in his hands. He didn't take his eyes off the shadow, which had the shape of a person, even more so now as the sinking sun beamed farther in like a searchlight. The shadow moved.

Winter heard Angela say something just behind him, lifted Elsa out of the water, and dumped her in Angela's arms without a word, heard the child's disappointed cries as he sprinted behind the hedge to the left of the pond, came to the pathway on the other side of the bushes, and could see the opening and the cleft that was no longer lit up by the sun, and he pushed his way past a young couple and darted through the shrubbery and saw the trees and all the other nasty but familiar sights, and his pulse was racing as he felt for his gun that was in a closet a long way away.