Death Angels

18

THE SNOW HAD STOPPED AND EVERYTHlNG HAD FROZEN OVER night. The Monday morning sun had bleached the edge of the cold front.

Bergenhem shuddered in the kitchen, made some coffee and opened the blinds. The trees outside the window were wrapped in mist, which slowly dissolved as the colors of the day reappeared, coming back from their resting place, he thought, reinventing themselves and gliding back into the objects all around him. A juniper bush lost its transparence just after the clock struck eight. The fence emerged from behind its curtain of white, and his car glistened under its snowy blanket as if startled by the first dashes of sunlight.

He had the afternoon shift. Martina was asleep. He felt vaguely restless, a low murmur in his chest. He drank his coffee quickly and put the cup in the dishwasher, then went into the bathroom and splashed some water in his eyes. As he brushed his teeth, he probed the jagged edge of one of his canines and felt an icy coldness there when he rinsed out his mouth.

He tiptoed back to the bedroom and picked up his clothes from the Windsor chair next to the doorway. Martina stirred in her sleep, or half stupor. The sheet had slipped down and revealed her thigh, a spring hillside in the midst of a snowy landscape. Walking over to the bed, he ran his fingers over her bare skin and grazed it with his lips. She murmured something and moved again without waking up.

He put on his heavy sweater, boots, leather jacket, hat and gloves. The fresh snow was in the way, and he had to kick the door open.

He took the shovel that was leaning against the house and hacked at the frozen crust, plowing his way down the driveway to the car. This summer you are building a carport, he told himself. Assuming you can get hold of cheap wood.

He brushed the snow off the hood and windshield as best he could and tried to open the driver’s door to get a scraper, but the key wouldn’t go in. He stared dumbfounded through the window at the can of lock lubricant in the inside pocket of the passenger door.

He tried the other doors and the trunk, but they were all frozen shut. In the shed behind the car, he dug out a nine-inch length of wire, which he managed to slide through the crack in the door, and he was finally inside. He grabbed the lubricant, sprayed the lock, waited a few seconds and then worked the key in. Putting the bottle in his jacket pocket, he scraped the entire windshield. He was pleased with himself, as if this interlude had prepared him for the trials and tribulations of the day.

The ignition sputtered for a few seconds before turning over. He put the defroster and heat on high. A Phil Collins song was playing on the first station he came to. He flipped the dial for a while but soon tired of it and slid R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People in the tape deck instead. It had been number two on the Billboard charts in the winter of 1992, when he had taken a long field trip to London during his last semester at the Academy. He had gotten drunk at a pub in Covent Garden and found himself in bed with a party girl in Camden. He could never quite remember how they had wound up at her place. Automatic for the People. My automatic is for the people, he’d said, because that’s a cop’s job, and he’d gulped down some more wine while she giggled under the sheets.

He had met Martina the following spring.

As Bergenhem drove south, the open fields quickly gave way to glass and concrete. In Torslanda, smoke poured out of Volvo’s main assembly plant on his right. Ahead loomed the Älvsborg Bridge. The glitter of oil tanks almost blinded him as he approached the abutment.

The second wave of the morning rush hour rolled across the freeways as commuters descended from the north into downtown Gothenburg.

Driving onto the bridge, he glanced quickly to his right, and when he reached the top, he saw a clear purple stripe below the rising sun. From this vantage point, the horizon changed according to the time of year. It was impenetrable on most winter days, as if someone had built a wall over the water. But on mornings like this, you could see through the shimmering light as it slowly turned to blue. The city had pulled back its curtains.

Leaving the bridge behind him, he continued west with no destination in mind. This restiveness had whispered in his ear for as long as he could remember, though it had grown louder the last month or two. He wondered whether it had to do with the blunt little cone that stuck out from Martina’s belly, and he felt ashamed of himself.

He drove to Frölunda Square, turned around and came back through Gnistäng Tunnel. His mind went blank in the darkness, and he had to blink and shake his head when the sky reappeared and the sunlight stung his eyes. Fear struck him suddenly, like a premonition. He was cold, but the heat was already as high as it would go. Driving back over the bridge, he stared straight ahead the entire length of it.

Winter’s taxi swerved in and out near Mölnlycke, found a spot in the outer lane and zoomed past an airport bus. There’s plenty of time, he thought. It must be a matter of professional pride for the driver to get you there as fast as possible.

The phone hummed in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He pulled out the antenna and answered.

“Erik!” His mother sounded slightly out of breath. No doubt she had just jogged from the kitchen table to the refrigerator and back. “Are you at home?”

“I’m on my way to the airport.”

“You’ve always been such a smart boy, Erik.”

Winter looked at the driver, who was staring fixedly at the road as though he were considering whether to veer over to the right lane and smash his way through the guardrail into the cliff.

“You’re a traveling man,” she continued. “They always need you someplace.”

“I spend most days going back and forth between the Vasaplatsen subway station and Ernst Fontell Square,” he said.

“Fontell what?”

“It’s the square in front of police headquarters, on Skånegatan Street.”

“I see.”

“There’s all my traveling for you. Sometimes I even ride my bike.”

“So where are you going now? Not on your bike, I hope.”

“ London.”

“It’s a dreary city. But I’m proud of you anyway.”

“That’s what you always say.”

Beneath the static on the phone line, Winter thought he heard fragments of words that clung to each other like the language of another planet. “What were you calling about?” he asked.

“Do I need a reason to call my son?”

“We’re at the exit ramp now,” he lied.

“Since you wanted to know, I called Karin Malmström yesterday. She said you had been very kind to them.”

Winter looked out the window.

“She also told me that Lasse has taken it extremely hard. She was surprised to find out that she could handle it better than him.”

The taxi slowed down and weaved its way over to the right lane toward the exit. Winter heard a rumble behind them and turned around. The airport bus had caught up, apparently poised to zip into the priority lane a hundred yards ahead.

“It’s a tough time for them,” Winter said.

“What did you say?”

“They’ve got a lot to work through before they can come to terms with Per’s death.”

“Fucking idiot!” the taxi driver screamed. His eyes, which had suddenly turned wild, snapped to the rearview mirror. The bus had screeched to a halt a few inches behind them. “Those assholes are out of their minds,” he said to Winter’s reflection. “They drive like there’s no tomorrow.”

Winter put his hand over the phone. “They’ve got a schedule to keep.”

The driver snorted.

“What did you say?” his mother asked.

“Nothing.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’re at the airport now.”

“Don’t forget to call your sister.”

“I promise. Bye, Mom.”

“Watch out in Lond…”

But he had already lowered the phone and hung up.

At check-in, a murmur of expectancy ran through the long line to Winter’s right; the Canary Islands were a popular destination. Handing his ticket and passport to the attendant, he requested an aisle seat, in an exit row if possible to leave more room for his long legs.

While the attendant prepared his boarding pass, he thought about all the passenger lists his team had received. It was a thankless task, trying to keep track of everybody who had flown from Gothenburg to London the past two months, mainly for the purpose of having something to shove in the face of the reporters and police honchos demanding signs of progress. When we’ve got three thousand more officers and two extra years to work on the case, he thought, we’ll go through all the lists and hope that nobody was traveling under a false name.

Was Macdonald’s group in the same predicament-staring at a pile of passenger lists, never knowing what they might show? After receiving his boarding pass, Winter watched his suitcase bounce away on the conveyor belt. He smiled at the attendant, then walked upstairs to security.

Djanali could see her breath. The cold shadows under the apartment building smarted after the sunshine at the end of the street.

“You’re not so used to this kind of thing, are you?” Halders asked.

“What do you mean?”

“All this cold. It must come as quite a shock to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They call it snow.” He snatched imaginary flakes out of the air.

“You don’t say.”

“They’ve never seen it back where you come from, right?”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“But I want to hear you say it.”

Halders watched his breath drift away, turned his head and looked down at Djanali’s face. “ Ouagadougou.”

“Excuse me?”

“ Ouagadougou, the place you come from.”

“Okay.”

“The capital of Burkina Faso.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Formerly known as Upper Volta.”

“Never heard of it.”

“ Burkina Faso,” he repeated.

“Is it anywhere near East Hospital in Gothenburg, where I was born?”

“The Ouagadougou branch.”

They both burst out laughing.

They opened a gate just down the street from the scene of the murder. It was their second round of the neighborhood, and they were looking for people who hadn’t been home before or had failed to return their calls. A little walkway ran from the entrance to the stairs that led up to Jamie’s apartment.

The late-morning sun was like a forty-watt bulb, startling by its very existence after the long winter.

Ringing the bell on the second floor, Djanali heard a hissing sound from somewhere else in the building, a voice in the apartment above and finally someone approaching the door. A man opened it all the way. He was somewhere between thirty-five and forty, with bushy hair, wide suspenders over a white shirt and unbuttoned cuffs as if he were in the middle of dressing, maybe for a party. An unknotted tie was draped around his neck. Must be a party, Djanali thought, a midweek bash for the fast crowd. He looks rather elegant in a degenerate kind of way, his hands trembling slightly, his eyes watery. A drinker.

“Can I help you?”

“Mr. Beckman?” Halders asked.

“Yes?”

“We’re from the police.” Halders employed his usual bumbling swagger.

He’s in his element here, Djanali thought, invading somebody’s privacy like this. That’s why he does the same thing year after year and never gets promoted. He doesn’t understand his own mind, or else he understands it all too well and there’s no longer anything he can do about it.

“And?” Beckman said, fiddling with his tie.

Italian, Djanali thought. Silk, could be expensive. Winter would know. “Do you mind if we come in for a second?” she asked.

“What for?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

Halders pointed at the stairs to remind him that anybody could be listening. “May we come in?”

Apparently convinced, or perhaps feeling like a couple of burglars had threatened him at gunpoint, Beckman backed up. Closing the door behind them, he ushered his guests through the hallway into a room that was bigger than any they had seen in the other apartments. Djanali took note of the height of the ceiling, the stucco, the amount of space, everything that had been so hard to judge in Jamie’s apartment. “You’ve got a big room here,” she said.

“I knocked out a wall,” Beckman explained.

“All by yourself?” Halders asked.

Beckman looked at Halders as if he were a comedian whose punch line hadn’t sunk in yet. “Is it about the murder?” he asked, turning to Djanali.

Halders stared at the far wall while Djanali returned Beckman’s gaze.

“The murder of the kid next door,” Beckman clarified.

“Yes,” Djanali said. “We have a couple of questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“Were you home around the time it happened? That would be about eleven-thirty at night.”

“I think so. But I had a flight to catch early the next morning.”

“When did you find out about the murder?”

“A few hours ago, as soon as I got back. It’s all over the place. Not that I watch much television, but they talk about it constantly. I’ve seen the headlines too.” He pointed at a pile of newspapers on the table.

Djanali walked over and saw the two most recent editions spread out on the floor. “So you just returned from a trip?”

“Early this morning.”

“Where did you go?”

“What difference does that make?”

“If it doesn’t make any difference,” Halders said, “you might as well answer the question.”

“I was on vacation in Grand Canary,” Beckman said. “Can’t you tell by my face?” All of a sudden he looked worried that he hadn’t gotten a suntan and had wasted all his money. He went out to the hallway, came back with a little tote bag and took out a ticket envelope. “Here’s the proof.”

“Do you remember ever seeing the kid?” Halders asked, not bothering to look at the envelope.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Did you ever see him go in or out of the building?”

“Sure.”

“You did?”

“We must have kept the same hours, because I caught sight of him a few times late at night. I’m a streetcar driver,” Beckman explained.

That makes a lot of sense, Djanali thought. Late hours are what I associate with streetcars-sometimes so late they don’t come at all. He looks more like a bank manager. She imagined Winter sitting calmly in a glass booth as his streetcar wound its way through the city. “Was he alone?” she asked, suppressing the image of Winter.

“What?”

“Was he by himself when you saw him?”

“Not every time.”

“No?” Halders asked.

“When was the last time you saw him with someone else?” Djanali asked.

Beckman seemed to be deep in thought. Suddenly the scene he was trying to conjure up appeared before his mind’s eye and the blood drained from his face. Taking a step to the side, he grabbed the table. “Gawd,” he said.

Halders stepped forward to support him. “What’s going on?”

He sees something very clearly, Djanali thought, and he’s wondering whether it was the devil himself. Don’t put words in his mouth. This is one of those precious moments you can’t afford to ruin. “When was the last time you saw him with someone else?” she repeated.

“It must have been that…” Beckman stammered.

“What did you say?”

He cleared his throat and got his voice back. “I saw him and a man together.” Then he fell to all fours. “Just a minute.” He leafed through the newspapers on the floor. “There was a date someplace.”

They could have told him the date but let him go on looking.

Beckman stood up with one of the newspapers in his hand. “Jesus Christ,” he said, examining his copy of the ticket. “It was the same night.”

“The same night as what?” Halders asked.

“The same night it happened,” Beckman said, looking from Halders to Djanali. “That must be when it was.”

“And you just figured that out?” Halders asked.

“My flight left early the next morning.”

“ Grand Canary?”

“Yes, Puerto Rico.”

“Are you telling me there’s a Puerto Rico in Grand Canary?”

“Yes, that’s the name of the resort, I think.” Beckman seemed to be second-guessing himself about where he had spent the past few weeks.

“Wherever you were, they sell Swedish newspapers,” Halders said.

“I didn’t read the papers,” Beckman said. He looked like someone had knocked the wind out of him.

Djanali made a sign to Halders to ease up.

“This is the first time I suspected anything,” Beckman continued.

“I understand,” Djanali said.

“The first time,” he repeated.

“Would you recognize the man who was with Jamie Robertson if you ran into him again?” Djanali asked.

Beckman threw out his hands. “I saw him mostly from the back.”

“But you’re sure it was a man, right?”

“Yes, and quite tall. They were going up the stairs when I passed by on the walkway. Or maybe they were waiting for the elevator.”

Halders looked at Djanali, then returned his gaze to Beckman. “We’d like you to come with us so we can discuss this in a little more detail.”

“More detail? Am I a suspect or something?”

“You have some very interesting information, and we want to give you the chance to remember as much as possible.”

“I’m awfully tired right now.”

Look, pal, Halders thought, don’t make me say that we can hold you for six hours and get an extension for another six.

“Okay, sure,” Beckman said after a slight hesitation. “If you’ll just excuse me for a minute.” He made a bolt for the bathroom, and they heard him vomit.

“What time does Winter’s plane take off?” Halders asked.

“Right now, I think.” Djanali glanced at her watch. “He said a quarter to eleven, and that’s in ten minutes.”

“Call him.” Halders pointed to the right pocket of Djanali’s jacket.

She took out her phone and dialed Winter’s number. “No answer.”

“He’s already turned off his phone and started to think about ordering a drink and flirting with the flight attendants.”

More retching from the bathroom.

“Call the airport,” Halders said.

“I don’t know the num-”

“ 941000.”

“You’re a walking phone book.”

“Just ask me anything.”

Djanali told the agent what she needed, and two minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave the gate, the woman who had just taken Winter’s boarding pass announced his name over the loudspeaker. Half an hour later he stepped out of his car in front of police headquarters.