Frozen Tracks

11

“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF I SAID ‘BICYCLE’?” ASKED HALDERS.

“Is this some kind of word association game?” wondered Jakob Stillman.

“-What?” said Halders.

Stillman eyed the detective inspector with the shaved head and rough polo-necked shirt and jeans and heavy shoes. Who was he? Was there a mix-up during the arrest of a gang of aging skinheads?

He rolled carefully to one side. His head followed his body, and hurt. He couldn’t shake off this constant headache. And this conversation was not making things any better.

“Word association game,” he said. “You say something and I associate it with something else.”

“If you’d said ‘bicycle,’ I might have said ‘hit in the head,’ ” said Halders.

“Yes, that’s a natural association.”

Halders smiled.

“Do you understand what I’m getting at?” he asked.

“Is this how you conduct all your interviews?” Stillman wondered.

“You’re studying law, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t you gotten to the chapter on cognitive interrogation methodology?”

Stillman shook his head, which was a mistake. It felt as if something was loose inside it.

“Let’s go on,” said Halders. “Do you think it’s possible that whoever attacked you was riding a bicycle?”

“I saw just a body, as I said to your colleague. And it all happened too quickly.”

“Maybe that’s why?” said Halders. “He was riding a bike?”

“Well, I suppose that’s a possibility.”

“You can’t rule it out?”

“No. I guess not.”

Halders checked his notes, which were detailed and comprehensive. It seemed that after the blow to his head he’d become more inclined to make notes. As if he didn’t really trust his own mind anymore. Before that he’d often managed with notes recorded on the inside of his eyelids; but now he needed a notebook and a pencil.

“When Bert… DCI Ringmar asked you about the noises you’d heard-it seemed obvious that you didn’t think they were human sounds. What might they have been, then?”

“I really don’t know.”

“What would you say if I said ‘bicycle’?” said Halders.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Jens Book.

“I asked you if you’d met anybody after you’d left the party and before you were attacked, and you answered yes and no.”

Book said nothing.

“It’s an answer you really ought to elaborate on,” said Ringmar.

“I did meet somebody,” said Book.

“Who did you meet?”

“It has nothing at all to do with this,” said Book.

“Why do you find it so hard to tell me?” Ringmar asked.

“For Christ’s sake, can’t I be left in peace?”

Ringmar waited.

“It’s as if I’ve committed a crime,” said Book. “I’m lying here paralyzed and smashed up and… and…” His face contracted and he burst into tears.

Ease off now Bertil, Ringmar thought.

“If you tell me who you met, that can help me to find whoever it was who attacked you,” he said, and had the feeling that he’d said precisely that before, many times, to many victims.

“OK, what the hell,” said Book. “I met a guy, OK?”

“That’s completely OK,” said Ringmar.

“OK,” said Book again.

“Why was it so difficult to say that?”

The boy didn’t respond. He was studying something behind Ringmar’s head but Ringmar knew that there was nothing there to look at, nothing but a blank wall covered in paint that had never glistened. Hospital wards are very much like Lutheran assembly halls, he thought, or maybe chambers for ascetic sects: Life is but a journey to death, and this is an opportunity to get there a bit quicker.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“A… just a guy.”

“A friend?”

Book nodded, carefully. It seemed like a solemn moment, as if he were about to reveal his big secret. Which was exactly what he did.

“A close friend?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to ask you how close,” said Ringmar. “But I must ask you if you met him at his place.”

“Yes.”

“I need his address.”

“Why?”

Ringmar didn’t answer that question. Instead, he asked:

“Did he go with you when you left?”

“Go with me?”

“When you left his home.”

“Yes. Just a short way.”

“What time was that?”

“I can’t remember.”

“When was it? In relation to when you were attacked.”

“Er… Half an hour before, maybe.”

“He lives near there, does he?”

Book didn’t answer.

“Were you still together when you were attacked?”

“No.”

“Where did you part?”

“A bit… A bit farther up the street.”

“In Övre Husargatan?”

“Yes.”

“Where exactly?”

“Just past Sveaplan.”

“When?”

“When, er, it was just before that bastard came and knocked half my head off.”

“I want his name and address,” said Ringmar.

“Don’t we all?”

“I mean your friend’s,” said Ringmar.

It was more or less dark when they assembled again in Winter’s office. There wasn’t enough light in there to fill the corners.

“Can’t you put that bloody cigarillo out just for once?” said Halders.

“I haven’t even opened the pack yet,” said Winter, with a look of surprise on his face.

“Prevention is the best cure,” said Halders.

Ringmar cleared his throat and spread some of his papers out on the desk that Winter had just tidied.

“It was hard for the kid to come out with it,” said Ringmar. “For Book, that is.”

“I hope you managed to convince him that in principle we couldn’t care less about his sexual orientation,” said Winter.

“It’s that ‘in principle’ that could get in the way,” said Ringmar.

“Was his friend at home?”

“No reply when I called him.”

“We’ll have to pay him a visit.” Winter looked at Bergenhem. “Will you have time this evening, Lars?”

“Yes. Just a formal check, I take it?”

“No,” said Halders. “Bring him in here and give him a good whipping.”

“Is that an attempt to be sarcastic?” said Bergenhem, turning to face Halders.

“Attempt?” said Halders.

“The time is absolutely crucial, Lars,” said Winter. “But you know that as well as I do.”

“His pansy friend didn’t do it, for Christ’s sake,” said Halders.

“But he might have seen something,” said Ringmar.

“In which case he’d have come and told us about it already,” said Halders.

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” said Bergenhem.

“What what’s like?” asked Halders.

“Having to be secretive about it,” said Bergenhem.

“No-but you do, do you?” wondered Halders.

“It takes a lot of courage to come out, or whatever they call it,” said Bergenhem without seeming to have heard what Halders had said.

“Really?” said Halders. “How come then that you can’t open a newspaper nowadays without reading about how some celebrity fairy has just come out of the closet?”

“It’s different for celebrities.”

Ringmar cleared his throat again.

“Got a sore throat, have you, Bertil?” Halders turned to look at Ringmar.

“Fredrik,” said Winter.

Halders turned to look at Winter.

“There’s something these four kids have in common, and it’s not their sexuality,” said Winter. “Can you repeat what you told me earlier, Fredrik?”

“I did a bit of checking up,” said Halders. “They’ve all lived in the Olofshöjd student dorm.”

Bergenhem whistled.

“The same goes for about half of all Gothenburg students, past and present,” said Halders.

“Even so,” said Bergenhem.

“Kaite and Stillman still live there now,” said Winter.

“Smedsberg moved to the Chalmers student dorm,” said Ringmar.

“Why?” Bergenhem wondered.

Nobody knew at this stage.

“And Book shares an apartment in Skytteskogen,” said Halders. “No doubt they’ll have to make it handicapped accessible now.”

“What are we going to do about Olofshöjd?” asked Winter. “Any suggestions?”

“We don’t have enough personnel,” said Ringmar.

“We can check their halls, though,” said Bergenhem. “The one where Kaite and Stillman live.”

“Their rooms are in different halls,” said Halders.

“Kaite said something odd when I spoke to him,” Winter said. He fumbled for his pack of cigarillos in his breast pocket, and noticed Halders staring hard at him. “We were talking about Smedsberg having seen a newspaper delivery boy, and Kaite was wide enough awake to ask how the fake one could have known that he wouldn’t run into the real one.”

“Maybe he just took a chance and risked it,” said Bergenhem. “The fake one, that is.”

“That’s not the point,” said Winter. “The thing is that Kaite said ‘her’ when he was referring to the usual delivery person. ‘He could have bumped into her,’ he said. How could he know that it was a woman?”

“Maybe a slip of the tongue,” said Bergenhem.

“Don’t you think that’s a very odd slip of the tongue?” said Winter.

“It could be that in a guy’s world, it’s always women who deliver newspapers,” said Halders. “In his dreams. He lies awake and hopes they are going to drop in on him in the wee hours.”

“How does this fit in with the gay theory?” wondered Bergenhem.

“Don’t ask me,” said Halders. “That’s yours and Erik’s theory, isn’t it?”