Frozen Tracks

15

THE CHILDREN WERE ASLEEP. HALDERS AND ANETA DJANALI WERE on the sofa, and Halders was listening to U2. All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

He had flashes of black memories.

He didn’t know if Aneta was listening. She was contemplating the rain lashing the glass door leading out onto the patio.

It’s a beautiful day, sang Bono. He could hardly be heard above the noise of the rain that was getting louder now. Perhaps this is an Irishman’s idea of a beautiful day, Halders thought. Or a Gothenburger’s.

He felt Aneta’s hand around his neck.

“Do you want that massage now?”

He bowed his head slightly; she got up and stood behind him and started massaging his damaged vertebrae.

He could feel himself relaxing as she massaged away.

Stuck in a moment you can’t get out of, sang Bono. Exactly. That was a good thing right now.

Was it a year ago that his ex-wife was killed? It was in the beginning of June, he remembered that. The school final examinations had taken place in mid-May, so the seniors had graduated already, but his children still had a few days left in the term. It had been hellishly hot, and hell had continued for him.

They caught up with the bastard eventually. Halders had tried to track him down himself, but failed. Then he’d been injured in the course of duty. An idiotic injury. Caused by an idiot-himself. No, he thought, as Aneta kneaded the back of his neck like a professional, it wasn’t me, then. It was somebody else.

The bastard hit-and-run driver was a pathetic type who was not worth pummeling to death. When Halders saw him, long afterward, the cretin meant nothing to him anymore. He felt no hatred. He had neither the time nor the strength for that. He’d needed all his strength for the children, who had been slowly beginning to understand what had happened to their lives. Nothing would ever be the same as before. Margareta’s voice had gone, her body and her movements. They had been divorced, he and Margareta, but that didn’t matter.

“Mom’s in heaven now,” Magda would sometimes say.

Her big brother would look at her without comment.

Maybe he doesn’t believe her, Halders sometimes thought, as he sat with them at the breakfast table. Doesn’t believe in heaven. Heaven is up there in the sky, just something we can see from the earth. It’s the same up there as it is down here. Mainly air and rain, and big distances between everything.

“How’s it feel now?” asked Aneta.

Slow down my beating heart, sang Bono, in a voice that could have been black, as black as Aneta’s hands that he could see on his shoulders. One hand on his chest. Slow down my beating heart.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said.

Angela drove through the rain. It was really evening now, even if the transformation had been barely noticeable. She smiled. December was almost here, and she was looking forward to the Christmas holidays. Her work with her patients was getting more arduous. They grew more tired as the year drew to a close, and she too became more tired. She had managed to get time off between Christmas and New Year’s. Erik had muttered something earlier on about going to the Costa del Sol. She had hoped that Siv would call. She got along well with Siv. She also got along well with a blue sky and some sun and a glass of wine and charcoal-grilled langoustines.

But first she had a few errands to run in Haga. The shopping mall would be open until eight this evening.

She crossed over Linnéplatsen and down Linnégatan, checked her rearview mirror, and saw the blue light rotating, suddenly, silently, as if a helicopter had landed behind her, soundlessly.

The police car was still there. She wondered why they’d been called out. I can’t pull over here to let them pass. Now they’ve switched on the siren. Yes, yes, all right, I will pull over as soon as I can.

She saw a spot outside a pub and pulled into it.

The police car parked behind her. The light was still spinning, as if they’d just reached the scene of a crime. She couldn’t see anybody lying on the pavement.

She looked in the mirror again and saw one of the officers get out of the car, and she turned icy cold, totally mute, completely filled with terror, as everything she had been through not so very long ago came back to her, the memories were there, like beams of light spinning around in circles. She had been… kidnapped by a man in a police uniform. She had been stopped by somebody she thought was a police officer, and Elsa had been in her stomach…

There was a tap on the window, and she could see his black glove. She didn’t want to look. More knocking, and she looked, quickly. She saw his gesture: Roll down this window.

She felt for the panel on the door but couldn’t find the button. Now. The window rolled down in a series of nervous jerks.

“Didn’t they teach you at driving school that you’re supposed to stop when a police car tells you to?” he said, and there was brutality in his tone.

She didn’t answer. She thought: Didn’t they teach you the basics of politeness and civility at police school? Have you even been to school? Primary school?

“We’ve been behind you for ages,” he said.

“I… I didn’t think… it was me you were after,” she said.

He looked at her, seemed to be studying her face. His own face was in shadow, flecked with the evening’s electric lights. There was hardness in his eyes, perhaps even something worse than that. A desire to hit something or somebody. A calculated provocation. Or maybe he’s just tired. Everybody gets tired by work. She was tired out herself at the moment. Even so she could still behave in a civilized manner.

She knew a few police officers by sight, but this wasn’t one of them. She glanced in the mirror to see if there was anybody else in the police car, but she couldn’t see anything through the rain streaming down the rear window of her Golf.

Her first week in a small car, and this happens.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Driver’s license,” he said.

She found it eventually. He checked it and said: “Angela Hoffman?” and she nodded.

He took a couple of steps back. She assumed he was running a check on her name. For a moment she wished she had Erik’s surname. Mr. Brutal Face would recognize it. Mumble something and give her back her license and drive off with his fucking blue light and harass some other victim.

She calmed down. She could have made her irritation obvious. Or her fear. But that might only make things worse.

Maybe we should get married? I could add Winter after Hoffman.

I might feel safer in the streets then.

A wedding by the sea.

Admit that you have thought about that.

The officer returned and handed back her license, muttered “Angela Hoffman” again, and returned to his car and the blue light that had been spinning around nearly the whole time and attracted a little group of people on the sidewalk, curious to see the criminal whose papers were being examined by the long arm of the law. Curious to catch a glimpse of the criminal’s haggard face, she thought, as she made a racing start and headed north, having forgotten what pointless errands she was going to run in these parts, and she turned eastward into the first street she could find and was home five minutes later and outside the apartment door from the basement parking lot in another four, and shortly afterward her boots ended up in two corners of the hall.

“I thought you’d brought guests home with you,” said Winter coming out of the kitchen with Elsa in his arms. “It sounded like the SWAT team busting through the door.”

“Hold on while I count to ten,” she said.

“Hard day at the office?”

“Only afterward,” she said. “I was stopped by one of your colleagues on the way home.”

“A roadblock?”

“No. Sheer harassment.”

Elsa was struggling in his arms, wanting both to greet Angela and to finish her evening meal.

“Just a minute,” said Winter, going back to the kitchen, sitting Elsa on her chair, and letting her continue eating. There was food all over the table.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Angela, who had come into the kitchen still wearing her overcoat.

She left the room.

Shortly afterward he heard her crying somewhere else in the apartment.

He picked up the telephone and called his sister.

“Hello, Lotta. Is Bim or Kristina at home this evening?”

“Bim’s here. What’s up?”

“Do you think she could babysit for us on extremely short notice?”

“There are bastards in every job,” said Winter.

“Somebody like that is not fit to be a police officer,” she said. “You can’t behave like that.” She was holding her wineglass in her hand.

“I can easily find out who it was,” he said.

She had seen the furrow between his eyes. He would be capable of doing something drastic. There was a dark streak inside him that could turn him into-anything at all. For one brief, horrific moment.

“And do what?” she asked.

“You’d rather not know,” he said, and took a sip of their Puligny-Montrachet.

“Let’s forget about it,” she said, taking a drink and looking out of the window. “We’re here now.” She looked at him and nodded her head toward the white functionalist building on the other side of Lasarettsgatan. “I like the curtains in my old place.” She looked at the balcony and the window beside it, up on the fifth floor. There was a light on.

There was a good view from the apartment, in all directions, from the top of Kungshöjd.

He nodded.

“I miss it, sometimes,” she said.

He nodded again.

“I was there for quite a few years,” she said.

“So was I,” he said.

“For you it was more like an overnight place,” she said with a smile. “Although you seldom stayed all night.”

“I miss the view,” he said.

“This place didn’t exist then,” she said, looking around the restaurant.

Bistro 1965 was new, and this was the second time they’d been there, and it wouldn’t be the last. Perhaps they would be the first regular customers.

Angela’s pilgrim mussels grilled with coriander came with pumpkin purée. After all, it had been Halloween not long ago, she’d thought as she ordered it. Winter’s slightly smoked goose fillet came with eggplant and vanilla oil.

“It’s good,” she said.

“Hmm.”

“Should we feel bad for leaving Elsa?” she said, taking a sip of water.

“We can take the menu with us and read it out loud to her tomorrow evening,” he said.

“I might want to read it myself,” she said, looking at the gastronomic glossary attached to the back of today’s menu. “Do you know what escalavida is, for instance?”

“It’s a purée made from paprika and onions and eggplant and lemon, among other things.”

“You’ve already read this.”

“Of course I haven’t.” He took a sip of wine and smiled.

“What’s gremolata?”

“That’s too easy.”

“Good Lord.” She looked up. “Get off your high horse.”

“Come on, give me a real challenge.”

“Confit?”

“Too easy.”

“Vierge?”

“Vierge?”

“Yes, vierge.”

He glanced down at the menu he had on his knee. “That’s not on the list.”

“Eh! I knew you were cheating.”

A car passed by in the street outside. The evening had cleared up. There were stars visible in the sky above Angela’s former home.

When he’d gone there for the first time, he’d been in uniform. It wasn’t while he was on duty. Are you mad? she’d asked him. The neighbors will think I’m a crook.

I forgot, he’d said.

How can you forget a thing like that? she’d asked.

“What are you smiling at?” she heard him say.

“That first time,” she said, nodding in the direction of the apartment building that was gleaming in the light from the streetlamps. A car was coming up the hill from Kungsgatan. “You came in uniform.”

They continued the conversation. It calmed them down. There’s always a feeling of absolute privacy when you’re sitting in a public place surrounded by strangers, Winter thought. A strange paradox.

He took a sip of wine. His glass now contained Fiefs de Lagrange, to accompany the rack of lamb with gremolata, ragout with lima beans, and artichokes, and this vierge that he hadn’t thought about when he ordered: a light sauce made of virgin olive oil, tomato, lamb stock, garlic, and herbs. He’d had a taste of Angela’s red wine risotto.

The waitress changed the candle. There were fewer people in the restaurant now. Winter’s mobile rang in the inside pocket of his jacket.

Elsa, Angela thought.

“Hello?” said Winter.

“It’s Bertil. Sorry to disturb you.”