Never End

26

Winter called Halders. He'd just gotten up and was sitting on the balcony. Invisible birds were singing from a sky where two jets had painted a cross.

"I'll see what I can do," Halders said.

"How are things?"

"It's hot already."

"How's it going?"

"I said I'll see what I can do, didn't I?"

"OK, OK."

Halders looked up and saw a new cross. The old one had already melted into the sky.

"As you can hear, there's still a bit of the grumpy old Halders left," he said.

"There's hope yet, then."

"I'll be coming in shortly," Halders said.

"We'll try to find the flat where one missing boy lives in the meantime."

"You'll have to do that, at least." Halders paused. "I'll pay a visit there later."

He took the road alongside the river. The white pleasure boats twinkled on the water like sparklers. The asphalt felt soft under the tires. It smelled like a different country. Julie Miller was singing "Out in the Rain" on Halders's CD player. Halders turned up the volume and sang his way through his journey westward as the sun punched at the roof of his car.

As he turned off the roundabout the silencer on his exhaust suddenly gave way. People turned their heads to stare at him.

The high-rise buildings in Frolunda swayed like drunks in the thin air. He parked outside one of them, diagonally opposite McDonald's.

The elevator didn't work. He took the stairs up to the sixth floor. There was graffiti all over the walls, letters on cracked concrete. Stains everywhere, like black blood. A smell of piss and cooking had solidified in the stairwell between floors. Children screamed through closed doors, grownups shouted in a thousand different languages. He passed a man in a turban, a woman behind a veil, a man in a vest who passed by hugging the wall. He could see the madness in the man's eyes.

A door opened on the fifth floor and a young woman emerged with a double stroller containing two small children, who looked up at him in silence. The woman pressed the elevator button. "It's not working," Halders said. She pressed again. "I have to go and buy food," she said.

Halders went up one more floor and rang the bell. Mattias answered after the third ring.

"I wasn't posh enough for them," he said, when they were on the sofa under a big window.

Halders nodded.

"Can you understand that?"

"I've even been through it myself."

"You mean it's happened to you, too?"

Halders nodded again. He could see the sky and a reproduction of a painting of a field full of sunflowers next to the window. "You were there yesterday, weren't you?" he said. "Or outside the house, at least."

"Who told you that?"

Halders didn't answer.

"That bastard of an old man, wasn't it?"

Halders shrugged.

"Jeanette hasn't said anything, has she?"

"Why don't you let her go, Mattias?"

"What do you mean, let her go?"

"You know full well what I mean."

"I did that ages ago. Let… everything go."

"Really?"

"Then you guys come nosing around all the time."

"That's because something else has happened."

"Yes, I read about it. But I don't under-"

He stopped when Halders held the picture of the boy in front of his nose. It was an enlargement of the graduation party photo.

"Do you recognize him?" Halders asked.

"No," said Matthias after a short pause. "Who is he?"

"You mean you haven't read about it?"

"No. Read? Read what?"

"This is a witness we'd like to get in touch with, but he's disappeared."

"You don't say."

"We've been told that he lives here."

"Here?" said Mattias, looking around as if expecting to see the boy enter the room.

"In this area."

"It's a pretty big area. A hundred thousand. A hundred thousand idiots."

Halders spelled out the address.

"But that's the other side of the Arts Center, isn't it?"

A woman had answered the door on the top floor, the fourth.

"He lives on the next floor down, I think," she'd said, when she'd looked at the photograph Winter had showed her. It was the same as the one Haiders had just shown Mattias on the other side of the Arts Center.

"Do you recognize this face?"

"Yes… I think so. At least, I've passed somebody on the stairs who looks like him."

They went down the stairs.

"I've seen him going in there." There were three doors on this landing. She pointed at the middle one. "That one."

The name plate said Svensson.

Winter pressed the bell, but couldn't hear it ring. Nobody answered. He knocked, twice. The woman was still standing beside him.

"Thank you very much," he said, turning toward her.

She looked disappointed.

"We might get in touch with you again if we need any more help," Winter said.

"Well… OK, if you do…," she said, going back up the stairs and looking behind her.

Winter knocked on the door yet again, but nobody answered.

"Have you checked up on her old man yet?" Mattias asked. "What do you mean?" "Have you spoken to Jeanette about it?" "Have you?" "Don't need to." Halders made no comment. "Why don't you nail him?" Mattias said. "Tell me how we can do that." "Follow him." "You mean keep a watch on him and see what he's up to?"

Winter was waiting outside. He thought he saw the man who hated darkies walk by and gape at him from the other side of the playground. It was too hot for children to be playing there. Every window in sight was open. Winter felt very thirsty, and checked his watch.

Halders approached from over the playground. He handed over a Coke with ice.

"McDonald's," he said, taking a swig from his own.

"You've saved my life," said Winter, half emptying it in one gulp.

"Don't exaggerate," said Halders, looking up at the building. "Did you find it?"

"A woman thinks she's seen him going into one of the apartments on the third floor."

"Thinks?"

Winter shrugged.

"Is that enough for us to be able to go in on?" Halders asked. "You're in charge of this jamboree."

Winter took another drink.

"Yes," he said.

"I like it," said Halders. "Have you contacted the owner of the buildings?" "Here he comes now," said Winter, indicating the man walking toward them.

The apartment smelled stuffy. If only we could measure the age of air, lots of things would be very different, Winter thought: nobody's been here since June 18. That's when the windows were closed.

"Cozy," said Halders, when they'd finished going through the apartment in their protective overshoes.

There was a stripped bed in one of the two rooms, the smaller one. A lonely looking little table and a sort of armchair in the bigger room. In the kitchen were a larger table and two wooden chairs. That was all. No decorations, no flowers, no pictures, nothing to suggest any character. No curtains, just Venetian blinds, closed.

There was nothing at all in the bathroom. No toothpaste, no toothbrush, no bottle of shampoo.

"You can't take it with you when you go," said Halders, looking around again. His voice echoed around the bare rooms. Winter could see the beads of sweat on his brow.

"We'd better start looking for Mr. Svensson," Winter said.

Halders laughed ironically. "I know a sixth-hand apartment when I see one."

"Even so, there must be a first-hand lease," said Winter. "The beginning of the chain."

On the way out Winter went up to the next floor and knocked on the helpful woman's door. She seemed pleasantly surprised when she answered.

He showed her another photograph. She nodded, several times.

"I'm quite sure," she said.

"The girl has been here," said Winter, as they walked through the playground to the car. "Angelika Hansson. The neighbor saw her with our man."

"An observant neighbor."

"Indeed."

"Some people see more than you would expect them to," said Halders.

"I think she's reliable."

"So the girl has been here."

They had come to Winter's car. The paintwork was hotter than hell.

"He was in the photograph taken at her graduation party. They knew each other."

"But her parents didn't recognize him."

"There can be lots of explanations for that."

"At this stage? When we're looking for whoever killed their daughter?"

"Strange things happen to people," said Winter, touching the paintwork again. "How much is it possible to explain? Explain properly?"

"Let's get out of here," said Halders. "I'm coming with you. I'll get my car later."

They drove through the tunnel, past Längedrag. There was a lot of traffic heading for the seaside.

"I'm selling my apartment," Halders said. "It's going to be the house for me from now on."

Winter's mobile rang in its holder on the dashboard. He listened, said, "Thank you," and hung up.

"There is a Svensson on the lease, but he doesn't actually live there."

"Who does live there? Actually."

"Watch this space," said Winter. "Sara's looking for the next link in the chain."

"Who might lead us to the third?"

"We might come across a name we recognize."

They came to the roundabout next to the park.

"Let's take a look," said Halders.

Winter parked a hundred meters away. They walked over the grass. There was a slight whiff of damp from the pond. Lots of people were standing in it, up to their thighs in water. Others were in the shade of the trees. No cooler, but at least they were protected from the sun. A little line of parents with children snaked back from the ice cream van.

The police tape had been taken down. It seems so long ago, Winter thought. Another age.

"You can almost see as far as the place where the Nöjd girl was killed," said Halders.

Winter looked. It was hidden by trees, but that was the place all right. You could walk over the grass to it, if you wanted to.

"Nothing new from the eggheads playing with the tape?" Halders asked.

Winter shook his head, and looked at the hollow, the clump of trees, and the bushes. It looked cold, it was so dark in there. Another world.

"One of these days we'll see him come over the grass and stand in front of that damn rock," Halders said.

Winter said nothing.

"Then he'll take out the leash and look for the dog he doesn't have."

Winter closed his eyes. Halders didn't speak. Winter could hear faint sounds from the pond, as if somebody was treading water. A faint noise, but a sign of life. He opened his eyes again and looked at the hollow and the surrounding trees. It was a dead spot, would always be dead. Grass shouldn't grow there. No leaves on the trees. Nothing but rocks, darkness. He could hear the voice on the answering machine in his mind, the grunting, the drowning out of the faint sounds of life coming from all around him. It would be there to the very end.