Death Angels

12

YOU HAD TO MAKE UP YOUR MlND HOW MUCH OF THE NEIGHBOR hood to cover-which buildings and which particular entrances. That meant all the tenants who lived in the chosen locations had to be questioned, no matter how heavy an accent they had, or how much they smelled of garlic, or how dirty they were-what we in this country call dirty, ventured a grinning twenty-five-year-old investigator fresh from the National Police Academy, his youthful cynicism intact. A seed of racism that could only grow, Winter thought, making a mental note of the man’s name. You’re far from enlightened yourself, he mused, but little shitheads like him can go find somebody else to work for.

Jamie had died on the fifth floor while the cars passed by on Chalmersgatan Street below, and Winter thought about a possible connection with Geoff ’s dormitory half a mile away. It was pure speculation at this point.

The buildings in this part of the city clung to each other, massive as cliffs carved out millions of years ago. The police walked up and down stairways, knocked on doors, drew muttering replies, invoked vague memories of incidents that nobody had paid any attention to when they’d happened and couldn’t say much about now.

Lasse Malmström had continued to put on his suit and go to work, and on the afternoon of the third day it all caught up with him.

It wasn’t only Per’s body, which had just arrived by plane.

Time was like a stone wall. He was having gruesome thoughts. As the plane was landing, he had hoped for a second that one of the wings would fly off and the whole runway would go up in flames.

Then the world ceased to exist for him. No job, no suits, silence all around and almost nothing he wanted to remember. Everything he thought he knew was gone, his refuge a place deep within.

The last thing he needs to hear is that you feel his pain, Winter thought.

The morning light flooded the living room, adding a shimmering veneer to the silence. A two-day-old beard deepened the wrinkles on Lasse’s face. He rubbed his chin nonstop, and it sounded like a nail file, or a rake unearthing frozen leaves. “What’s the latest?” he asked.

Winter stalled. “Anything particular you want to know?”

Lasse stroked his chin even harder. “I read the papers until Per’s body came back,” he said. “It seems like a hundred years ago.”

“The fact that two kids were murdered here in Gothenburg around the same time as Per might be due to any number of things,” Winter began.

“Things?”

“I mean motives, however twisted they might be.”

“I don’t know if that’s supposed to make me feel hopeful or discouraged.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I mean if more police are working on it, investigations are going on in different places, that’s a good thing even if the murders turn out to be unrelated.”

It occurred to Winter that he would have felt the same way in Lasse’s shoes.

“The more people get killed, the harder you guys try, and then maybe the murderer will be captured, or whatever the hell you call it.”

“You could be right.”

“Here I’m talking like there was some kind of connection between the murders, but I don’t know anything about it, and maybe you don’t either.”

“It’s one of our theories, but we’re working on some other threads too.”

“You’ll keep me informed of everything, right?” Lasse looked Winter straight in the eye for the first time.

“No matter what happens, I’ll make sure to keep you posted. That’s what we always do, and I’m not about to start changing things now.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“We don’t just sit around and twiddle our thumbs and wait for someone else to figure it all out. We’re constantly coming up with new ideas. We have a good system that we stick to, and the investigation is always moving forward.”

“Got it.”

It’s really true, Winter thought. You’re not just saying this. He’s listening to you now. The dog that’s barking outside has jolted him back to his senses, and he’s stopped rubbing his chin. Now’s the time to spring the question. “There’s something I need to ask you, Lasse.”

“Shoot.”

“You know we’re trying to find out as much as we can about Per’s habits-the people he hung out with, his girlfriends, all that kind of thing.”

“Yes.”

“All that kind of thing,” Winter repeated. “We talked to his girlfriend, or that’s what we thought at first.”

“What?”

“She wasn’t his girlfriend after all.”

“You just lost me there, Erik.”

“You or Karin told us that she was Per’s girlfriend, but that’s not how she described it.”

“You know how it is at that age. They must have broken up or something.”

“It’s more like they had never gone out, not really.”

“And here I thought that I was the one having trouble getting my words out. What are you trying to say-that they were only friends, or that Per never got it together to screw her?”

Winter didn’t like either alternative.

“Answer me, for Pete’s sake.”

“More like the latter,” Winter said finally.

“He never screwed her. Is that what you mean by keeping me informed?”

Winter started to answer, but Lasse interrupted him. “Is this some kind of newfangled interrogation method, Mr. Investigator?”

“Please try to understand, Lasse. This is the type of information that’s absolutely essential if we’re going to get the answers we need.”

“What fucking answers?”

“We’ve got to find out as much as we can about Per and his… interests.”

“Like whether he was a fag?”

“Was he?”

Lasse dropped his eyes and started rubbing his chin again. “Leave,” he said quietly.

“Pull yourself together, Lasse.”

“You ask me if my son was a pervert, and then you tell me to pull myself together?”

“I don’t know a thing about Per’s sexual orientation. That’s why I’m asking.”

Lasse sat with his head bowed over the coffee table and finally looked up at Winter.

“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” Winter insisted.

Lasse muttered something indecipherable.

“Sorry, I didn’t get what you said.”

“Hell if I know.”

Winter waited.

“I can honestly tell you that I have no idea. It’s true that he didn’t date a lot, but I never thought much about it. I was a late starter myself.”

The dog continued to bark, as if it couldn’t stop until Lasse’s ordeal was over. It’s not his dog but it’s a kindred soul, Winter thought.

“Have you talked to Karin about it?” Lasse asked.

“Not yet.”

“Ask her.”

The dog stopped barking.

“I’m really sorry to put you through all this,” Winter said.

“I’m telling you the truth. Even if I knew Per was gay, I wouldn’t lie to you about it.”

How would Lasse have reacted if Per had told him he was gay? Winter remembered the way Mats had been the last year of his life-so fragile and tormented by feverish dreams. “There’s nothing for anyone to be ashamed of,” he said.

“You mean that I was ashamed of Per.”

“No.”

“I don’t have anything against gays, but this came a little suddenly, that’s all.”

“We don’t know anything yet, I assure you. But we can’t ignore any possible clues.”

“Go ahead and talk to Karin and his friends. Do you need to search his room again to check this out?”

“No, but I appreciate your cooperation.”

As he was walking out, Winter glanced over at his sister’s house. He had spent part of his childhood there and come back to visit on occasion. After her divorce, she had grown a little too neurotic to be a general practitioner. Things got better when she bought the house from their parents and moved back in along with her children.

Nobody’s home, you can call tonight, he thought.