Never End

14

Halders had chosen to play Led Zeppelin at the funeral, toward the end. Aneta Djanali recognized the tune, of course. It was something new for Winter, who was sitting in the third row with Angela and Elsa. The music sounded big in the little church.

Hanne Ostergaard conducted the service. She had been working part-time as a vicar for the police for several years. Somebody to talk to after disturbing experiences.

I must admit that she's been a rock since Margareta died, Halders thought.

"Led Zep was her favorite band," Halders had told Djanali an hour before the funeral. "She has memories associated with that tune, as I do." Then he'd said: "That's something we share. Memories." He'd looked at her. "Do you think it's inappropriate? The choice of music?"

"No. People often choose their own music at funerals nowadays."

"I haven't been to one in ages."

"Led Zeppelin is good," she said.

"It's only a song, anyway."

Halders stood beside his children as the soil was scattered over the coffin. No cremation. It was raining, but that would probably ease off during the day.

He spoke to people afterward, but didn't register what they said. The children stayed close to him.

"Is Mommy in heaven now?" Magda asked.

"Yes," he said.

Magda looked up and the clouds seemed to part in all directions. There was blue in the middle.

"Look, a hole!" she shouted, pointing upward. "Mommy can pass through that hole!"

He tried to look at the sky, but all he could see through the tears was a blur.

"Can you see the hole in the sky, Hannes?" Magda turned to look at her brother.

"There's no hole," he said. "It's just space." He looked down at the ground, which was wet.

"Oh, yes there is," she said, taking down her hand and grasping her father's hand tightly. "Oh, yes there is."

They were driving to the rocks south of Gothenburg. It was twice as hot now, after the rainy days. Angela was driving. Elsa was in the car seat in the front. Winter was in the back, looking out over the fields glistening in the sunshine. He asked Angela to turn off the air conditioning and rolled down the window, so that he could appreciate the smells.

They parked the car. He carried Elsa on his shoulders as they walked over the field. They paused to look at a foal resting in the grass. The mother was standing by its side, nuzzling her offspring.

There was nobody else in their little inlet. Winter changed quickly, walked down to the water's edge with Elsa, and kept dipping her into the sea. Angela took over, and he swam out. It was calm. He lay on his back and watched Angela and Elsa on their blanket on the rocks.

The oppressive feeling he'd experienced earlier sunk down through his body and under the surface of the water. There was not much of it left when he turned over and swam even farther out. He lay on his back again, and gazed at his family, who had become smaller.

Halders had looked as if he were sinking after the funeral. Winter didn't know when he'd come back to work. Tomorrow, or never. Impossible to say.

During the funeral Winter had felt like stone. It had been hard to raise his heavy body from the pew. Earlier memories came back to him, from recently, when Angela had been so close… when Elsa… when what was Elsa… when he'd stood outside that door as if frozen fast to the floor, as heavy as stone. He'd felt his own life falling, faster and faster, down into the bottomless depths.

He closed his eyes and felt the sun on his face. A boat passed by, a hundred meters out into the creek, but he kept his eyes closed. Gulls cried. A voice came floating over the water. There was a smell of gas, wafted toward him from the boat by the slight breeze.

"You almost turned into a dinghy out there," said Angela when he walked up, wetter than he'd ever been. "Firmly moored."

"I didn't know I was that good at floating."

"I know the reason," she said, poking him in the stomach, which was just a little bit rounded. He couldn't see any sign of a potbelly when he looked down. Elsa poked him as well, several times. She almost hurt him.

"All that needs is just one fifteen-k jog," he said. "Come to think of it, I could run back home." He had his sneakers in the trunk. It was a lot more than fifteen kilometers to the center of town. Perhaps too much more? No.

"Do you dare eat that?" she said, nodding in the direction of the baguette with chicken salad he had just picked up.

"Yes," he said, and Angela suddenly burst into tears. She wiped her eyes. Winter put down his sandwich and leaned over the blanket to hug her. Then Elsa started crying. He included her in his embrace as well.

Elsa tunneled between them and crept out. Angela wiped her face again and gazed out into the bay, where boats of various sizes were sailing.

"I was so sad when I saw Fredrik and the children," she said.

"Yes. I took it pretty hard too."

"I hope it turns out alright."

"He's going to try to keep going." Winter fumbled for his packet of cigarillos. "He doesn't want to take time off. Not much, at least."

"I hope it turns out alright," Angelika said again.

They drove home as dusk started to fall, when the red of the traffic lights mixed with the red glow of the sunset. No running home this time. Elsa was asleep in her seat. Her head was to one side, and a stream of dribble hung down from her mouth and onto her sweater. Angela drove fast and well, better than he did. He relaxed into his seat. His body was warm from the sun and salt, dry, his skin stiff in a pleasant way.

It was quiet in Vasastan, but not deserted. There were lots of people sitting at the sidewalk cafes.

Angela parked in the basement garage. Elsa was still asleep when they put her into her stroller.

"Let's have a beer," Winter said.

They sat in the nearest sidewalk café with an empty table and ordered two glasses of draft beer. There was a smell of cooking, and of heat from the day wafting along between the high stone buildings.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

Angela shook her head.

"Well, I am," he said, and ordered a grilled salmon steak. Angela changed her mind. The food was served, they ate, and Elsa slept in her stroller next to the table. There were several parents there with children asleep in their carriages. Three teenage girls walked by and started laughing when one of them said something into her mobile telephone; Winter thought of his three girls, at that very moment, and for the first time that's exactly how he thought of them, his three girls, and he pushed his plate away and ordered another beer when the waiter came by; he glanced at Angela, but she didn't want any more.

"I'm driving out to Påvelund tomorrow morning," he said. "To the Wagners'." She didn't react, and adjusted something next to Elsa's face. Several more teenage girls walked by.

By ten o'clock the next morning he was with Bengt and Lisen Wägner. It was Saturday.

"I apologize." "For God's sake, don't do that," said Bengt Wägner. "You can come and live here if that's what it takes to find out what happened to Beatrice."

"Who," said Lisen Wägner. "Who happened to Beatrice." "Yes," said the man, looking at his wife. "Who did it." They ushered him into her room. The morning sun was filtering through the Venetian blinds. There was no need to turn on the light.

"I want to look at all the photos you have of Beatrice," Winter said. He saw Lisen Wägner give a start, a slight but nevertheless obvious reaction. "I'm sorry, I didn't put that very well. I mean the ones taken during that last year." Oh, God. The woman looked even more worried. How should he word it, in order not to put his foot in his mouth? Whatever he said turned out to be wrong.

"Why?" Bengt Wägner asked.

"I don't really know." He turned to look at the man. "I'm looking for something. So that I can compare. A particular place."

"You looked at everything when… when it happened," said Lisen Wägner. "You took nearly everything away and went through it. All the photos, too."

"I know."

"Why didn't you find anything then?"

Winter stretched out his arms.

"If you didn't know what it was then… why do you think you know now?"

Winter told them as much as he could.

"An exposed brick wall?" Bengt Wägner said. "I can't think where that might be, but that doesn't mean Beatrice never went there, of course."

"I didn't see all the photographs," said Winter. "And I don't remember anything like that either. But things can take on a greater significance in the light of new events."

"Here's a box full anyway," said Lisen Wägner, who'd gotten the photos from the dressing room at the other end of the Beatrice's bedroom.

Winter sorted through the photos in the same way he'd done in Angelika Hansson's room. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Outside, inside.

Lisen Wägner came in with coffee and a warm Danish pastry smelling of vanilla. Winter adjusted the blinds as the sun moved, and it grew darker in the room. He could see Bengt Wägner through the window.

Eventually he'd picked out five pictures in which Beatrice was sitting in something that could have been a restaurant or a pub, whether outside or inside. There was no sign of an exposed brick wall, nothing that resembled the backdrop in Angelika's pictures. One of her parents was in three of the photos, and both of them in one of the others.

He looked out of the window and saw Bengt Wägner still hovering around the flower beds with his pruning shears. Winter went out and showed Wägner the photographs. He recognized the location immediately. She often went there.

"Are there any more photos?" Winter asked.

"I have no idea."

"Is it possible that she might have kept any photos somewhere else?"

Wägner seemed to be thinking that over. He put his shears down on the lawn. Lisen came out to join them, and Winter asked her the same question.

"As a bookmark," she said.

"Yes, of course," said her husband.

"She sometimes used a photograph as a bookmark," said Lisen Wägner. "That was something she'd done ever since she was a little girl."

What books? Winter thought. There were about four or five meters of books on the shelves in her room, and possibly fifty meters more in the living room.

Winter went back to Beatrice's room and started going through the books one by one. After half an hour Bengt Wägner came and asked if Winter would like to stay for lunch. He said he would.

He had a meter of books to go when he got back to work. He opened every one, but found nothing.

"There are some in the attic as well," said Bengt Wägner. "Children's books. A box full of them."

"Could you get them, please?"

Wägner disappeared, then came back with an oblong-shaped box. Winter looked through the books; stories about young boys and girls. There was also a series of books with green covers for young adults. In the third book from the top there was an envelope glued to the inside of the front cover. He looked at Bengt Wägner, who shook his head.

"Never seen it before."

"When did this box go up into the attic?"

"I don't know."

"Who took it up?"

"Beatrice."

"When?"

"A long time ago, Erik." Wägner looked out of the window at the shadows under the trees. "It's a long time since she died." He turned back to look at Winter. "It might have been that same… summer. After she finished school." He looked back at the shadows outside. "As if something had come to an end. She'd kept lots of stuff from the time when she was… growing up. And then that was all… in the past." The sun was shining in from the left and reflected in Wägner's eyes, full of tears. "Time for something new," he said, still gazing out of the window.

Winter carefully cut open the envelope. Without touching it with his fingers, he tipped the contents into the plastic bag he'd put on the desk.

There were two photographs.

Winter recognized the location immediately. Beatrice was sitting at a table with plates and glasses in front of an exposed brick wall. There was a shadow up to the left. It was the same place, the same camera angle. A different young woman, though.

"Don't show this to Lisen," Bengt Wägner said.

"Have you ever seen this photo before?"

"No. And promise you won't show it to Lisen," he said again.

"I might have to."

"OK. But wait a little while."

"Do you recognize where this might have been taken?"

"No."

"Not even somewhere that could be a little bit similar? Vaguely familiar?"

"That wall is pretty distinctive. I'd have remembered if I'd ever been there. Wherever it is."

"Angelika Hansson, the most recent victim, had been there as well."

"Really?"

"I have a photograph. Same camera angle. Same lighting. Same wall."

"Let me see."

Winter produced the photographs of Angelika. There was no doubt. No doubt at all.

"Good Lord," said Wägner. "What does this mean?"

"I don't know yet."

"You'll have to find this place."

"Yes."

"I hope it's here in Gothenburg." Wägner looked at Winter. "I mean, she did go on a few trips with friends."

"I know."

"Maybe the other girl did as well. Angelika."

"Yes."

"So it might be there," said Wägner. " Cyprus, or Rhodes."

"We'll see."

"Why had she hidden the envelope?"

"Is that how you see it? That it was hidden?"

"That's what it looks like, yes."

"But she hadn't thrown the pictures away."

"Why should she want to do that?" Wägner said.

"I don't know either."

"Can there really be a link between this and… the girls, I mean… With… their deaths?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Winter. "Or trying to exclude."

"So you'll be looking for this place?" said Wägner.

"And the photographer," said Winter.

"I don't think they knew each other," said Wägner. "Beatrice and… Angela."

"Angelika."

"I don't think they knew each other. Beatrice would have mentioned her." He looked at the photograph of Angelika sitting in front of the brick wall. "I would have recognized her if I'd seen her before. There aren't that many black girls in Påvelund." He looked again at the picture of Beatrice. "It seems to be a nice place. She looks like she's having fun, at least."

"Do you think you can say when this picture was taken?"

"Not off the top of my head."

"Roughly."

"She looks just like she did… toward the end." Wägner turned to face Winter with a pained expression on his face. His voice sounded thick. "Did you hear what I just said, Inspector? She looks just like she did. It's a good thing Lisen isn't here."

Winter said nothing. Wägner's voice returned to normal.

"It could have been newly taken, if you see what I mean." He looked at Winter again. "I think we'd better talk to Lisen after all. She's better than I am at… details."