Frozen Tracks

24

THEY WERE INSIDE THE CITY LIMITS NOW. WINTER COULD STILL detect the rotten smell of the countryside in the car. If he was lucky it would accompany him up to Angela and Elsa. Or unlucky. Angela would say something about the house in the country. Or lucky. She might be right.

Coltrane was playing away on the CD player. A pickup truck passed by, driven by a man wearing a Santa Claus hat. Coltrane’s solo vibrated through the Mercedes and Winter’s head. Another person wearing a Santa Claus hat drove past.

“What the hell’s going on?” said Ringmar.

“Parade of the Santa Clauses,” said Winter.

“Don’t you have any carols?” Ringmar asked, nodding toward the CD player.

“Why not sing along?” said Winter. “Make up your own words.”

“While coppers watched their crooks by night too thinly on the ground, a villain slipped past with his swag and didn’t make a sound.”

He fell silent.

“Encore,” said Winter.

“Fear not, said Winter, we shall make your life a living hell. We’ll track you down and sort you out and lock you in a cell.”

“The best carol I’ve heard in years,” said Winter.

“And it isn’t even Christmas yet,” said Ringmar.

Winter stopped at a red light. The opera house was glittering like its own solar system. The river behind it was red in the self-confident glow. Well-dressed people crossing the road in front of him were on their way to see some opera or other he didn’t even know the name of. Not his kind of music.

“It’s not going to be much fun this Christmas,” said Ringmar softly as they set off again.

Winter glanced at him. Ringmar was staring ahead, as if hoping to see more Santa Clauses who might put him in a better mood.

“Is it Martin you’re thinking about?”

“What else?” Ringmar was gazing out over the water that had lost the glitter from the opera house by now, and instead was reflecting the motionless cranes on the docks on the other side, rising skyward like the skeletons they were. “I’m only human.”

“I’ll have a word with Moa,” said Winter. “I’ve said that before, but I really will this time.”

“Don’t bother,” said Ringmar.

“I mean that I’ll speak indirectly to Martin. First Moa and then perhaps Martin.”

“It’s between him and me, Erik.”

“From him to you, more like,” said Winter.

Ringmar made a noise that could have been a quick intake of breath.

“I sometimes lie awake at night and try to figure out what particular incident caused all this,” he said. “When did it happen? What started it? What did I do?”

Winter waited for him to continue. He exited the highway in order to take Ringmar home. Mariatorg was the same small-town square it had always been. Young people were loitering around the hotdog stand. Streetcars came and went. There was the drugstore, as in all little towns, the photo shop, the bookshop that he sometimes stopped in to buy the occasional book for Lotta and the girls on the way to Långedrag.

It had been Winter’s own local square when he was growing up in Haga, in the same house his sister and her children now lived in.

“I can’t find it,” said Ringmar. “That incident.”

“That’s because it doesn’t exist,” said Winter. “Never did.”

“I think you’re wrong. There’s always something. A child doesn’t forget. Nor does a teenager. Adults can forget, or regard whatever happened as something different from what it was. In the child’s eyes, at least.”

Winter thought about his own child. All the years in store for them both. All the individual incidents.

He drove up to Ringmar’s house. It was illuminated by the neighbor’s Christmas lights in the same way that the river had seemed to be ablaze with the gleam of the opera house.

Ringmar looked at Winter, whose face looked like it had been caught in searchlight beams.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Ringmar with a thin smile.

“Very. And now I understand the real reason why you can’t sleep at night.”

Ringmar laughed.

“Do you know him well?” Winter asked.

“Not well enough to march into his garden with my SigSauer and shoot out all the lights and be confident he’d get the message.”

“Want me to do it for you?”

“You’re already doing enough for me,” said Ringmar, getting out of the car. “See you tomorrow.” He waved goodbye and walked up the path that was lit up by the luminous forest outside the neighbor’s house. You can get all the light therapy you need here, Winter thought. Light therapy. About ten more days and they would be lounging back in the Spanish garden with the three palm trees, overlooked by the White Mountain, and listening to the rhythmic music created by his dear mother as she mixed the second Tanqueray and tonic of the afternoon in the kitchen bar. Some tapas on the table, gambas a la plancha, and jamón serrano, a dish of boquerones fritos, perhaps un fino for Angela and maybe one for him as well. A little cloud in the corner of his eye, but nothing to worry about.

In an ideal world, he thought as he drove past Slottsskogsvallen on the way home. I’m not sure that’s the world I’m living in right now. I’ll have to be sitting back in the plane before I believe anything at all.

He drove back onto the highway. This morning he’d been driving in the opposite direction. Good Lord, was it just this morning? He and Halders had been sitting in silence, staring straight ahead.

“How are things, Fredrik?”

“Better than last Christmas. That wasn’t much fun.”

Winter had noticed that Bertil had used the same expression as Fredrik: not much fun. Well, they have a point, perhaps. When things were good it was fun.

Halders had spent last Christmas alone with his two children, Hannes and Magda, six months after Margareta had been killed in a hit-and-run accident.

Aneta Djanali had spent a few hours with Halders that Christmas Eve. Winter had never discussed that with Fredrik, but Aneta had stopped by Winter’s home one autumn day similar to today, but about a month earlier. She hadn’t come to ask for Winter’s blessing, but she wanted to talk just the same.

They had talked for a long time. He was glad to have her on his team. He was glad he had Fredrik Halders, and he thought Fredrik and Aneta were glad they had each other, even if he didn’t know exactly how they had managed it.

“Are you staying at home this year?” Winter had just negotiated the new roundabout east of Frölunda Square. There was not much traffic.

“Eh?”

“Will you be celebrating Christmas at home?”

Halders hadn’t answered. Perhaps he hadn’t heard, or preferred not to.

They drove along the coast road, where seaside vegetation had stiffened in yellow and brown, belts of reeds like a forest of spikes. Birds circled overhead, searching for food. There had been very few people in the fields or in the streets. They hadn’t seen many cars.

Later the same day Winter would compare this countryside with the more remote solitude away from Gothenburg, where everything was so flat.

“Have you bought a Christmas tree?” Halders asked out of the blue.

“No.”

“Neither have I. It feels like such a production, a little job like that.” He looked up from out of his thoughts. “But the kids want a tree.”

“So does Elsa,” said Winter.

“What about you? And Angela?”

“If it’s a little one,” said Winter.

“All the dropped needles are a major nuisance,” said Halders. “I always manage to get a tree that sheds its needles before you can say Merry Christmas. By Boxing Day the whole living room has turned into a green field. All you need is twenty-two men and a referee’s whistle.”

“Did you see the Lazio match yesterday?” Winter asked as they turned right by the jetty. The houses seemed to have been carved out of the cliff. It was a long time since he’d last driven along here.

“No, but I saw Roma.”

Winter smiled.

“Lazio’s an old fascist team with neofascist fans,” said Halders. “They can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“Here we are,” said Winter. His house was near the end of a cul de sac. There was a Christmas tree on the front lawn, but the lights were not on.

“The house on the right,” Winter said.

“Looks very nice. Is Daddy at home now, do you think?”

“Keep calm when we get inside, Fredrik.”

“What do you mean? I’ll be the good cop and you can be the bad one.”

Magnus Bergort shook hands, firmly and warmly. There was a look of confidence and curiosity in his eyes, as if he had been looking forward to this visit. His eyes were blue, the transparent variety. Mentally unbalanced was Halders’s reaction. Pretty soon he’ll make a chain saw out of food-processor parts and mete out justice to his family.

Bergort was wearing a black suit, dark blue silk tie, and shoes that shone more brilliantly than stainless steel. His hair was straight and blond, with a perfectly straight parting. Führer style, thought Halders, and said: “Thank you for taking the time to meet us.”

“No problem,” said Bergort, “as long as I can get to the office by half past ten.”

The kitchen had been cleaned recently and smelled of perfumed detergent. A seagull could be seen circling around through the open window. Pans and knives and other kitchen utensils were hanging from hooks on the walls. Stainless steel.

The girl was at her nursery school. Winter had said that would be the best time to come.

“What’s your work, Mr. Bergort?” Halders asked.

“I’m an economist. Analyst.”

“Where?”

“Er, in a bank. SEB.“ He ran his hand through his hair, without a strand falling out of place. “Please call me Magnus.”

“So you advise people on what to do with their money, is that right, Magnus?” asked Halders.

“Not directly. My work is more, how can I put it-working out a long-term financial strategy for the bank.”

“So you advise your firm on what to do with its money?” Halders asked. Winter looked at him.

“Well… Ha ha! I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“Is there any other strategy for a bank apart from the financial one?” asked Halders.

“Er… Ha ha! Good question. Obviously it’s mostly about money.”

“That’s a problem I recognize; I have a similar problem myself,” said Halders. “Money. Before you have a chance to sit down in peace and quiet and analyze your finances, they’ve disappeared.

Putz weg. Verschwunden.”

“Yes…”

“Do you have any standard tips, Magnus? How the hell a man can hang onto his cash before it’s all gone?

Verschwunden? ”

“Er, I’m sure I can-”

“Maybe we should hold off on that,” said Winter. “Magnus has to get back to work soon, and so do we.” Winter thought he could detect a look of relief on Bergort’s face. Just wait, my friend. “What we’re mainly interested in is what might have happened to Maja.”

“Yes, it’s a very strange story,” said Bergort without hesitation.

“What do you think happened?” Winter asked.

Is Magnus Führer aware of what we’re really talking about? Halders asked himself.

The man looked at his wife. Kristina Bergort looked as if she were going to explain everything now, for the first time. Explain what?

“Kristina told me and we, er, well, I spoke to Maja and she says that she sat in a car with a mister.”

“What do you think about that yourself?”

“I really don’t know what to think.”

“Does the girl have a lively imagination?” asked Halders.

“Yes,” said Bergort. “All children do.”

“Has she said anything like this before?”

Bergort looked at his wife.

“No,” said Kristina Bergort. “Nothing quite like this.”

“Anything similar?” Winter asked.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Bergort.

“Has she mentioned meeting a strange man in different circumstances?” said Halders.

“No,” said Kristina Bergort. “She tells us about everything that happens, and she would’ve mentioned it.”

Everything, Halders thought. She tells them about everything.

“She lost a ball, is that right?” Winter asked.

“Yes,” said the mother. “Her favorite ball that she’s had God only knows how long.”

“When did it vanish?”

“The same day she… talked about that other business.”

“How did it happen?”

“How did what happen?”

“Losing the ball.”

“She said that this man was going to throw it to her from the car, but he didn’t. He said he was going to throw it.”

“What did he do, instead?”

“He drove away with it, if I understand it correctly.”

“What does she say now? Does she still talk about the ball?” Winter asked.

“Yes. Nearly every day. It wasn’t all that long ago.”

Halders sat down on a chair and seemed to be looking out of a window, but then he turned to face her.

“You decided very quickly to take her to Frölunda Hospital.”

“Yes.”

“What made you reach that decision?”

He noticed Kristina glance at her husband, “Magnus Heydrich,” who seemed to be standing at attention in the doorway. Heydrich hadn’t sat down at all during the interview, but had checked his watch several times.

“We thought it would be best,” he said.

“Did she seem to be injured?”

“Not as far as we could see.”

“Did she say that somebody had hit her?”

“No,” said Kristina Bergort.

“You know that we are working on a case in which a stranger abducted a little boy and later injured him?”

“Yes. You explained that when you called yesterday,” said Kristina Bergort.

“I haven’t read anything about that,” said Magnus Bergort. “Haven’t heard anything either.”

“It has been reported in the press, but without any exact details. You understand? This is a conversation in strictest confidence. We have spoken to some other parents who have been through something similar.”

“What’s going on?” asked the mother.

“We don’t know yet. That’s why we’re asking.”

“Did Maja have any injuries?” asked Halders, just beating Winter to it.

“No,” said Mrs. Bergort.

“Weren’t there a few bruises?”

“How do you know that? And if you knew, why did you need to ask?” said Kristina.

“The inspector who met with you previously told us about it. But we wanted to hear it from you.”

“Yes, of course. Bruises, yes. She fell off the swing. On her arm, there.” She held up her own arm, as if that were proof of what she was saying. “They’re better now.”

“They couldn’t have had anything to do with this… encounter with the stranger?” Winter asked.

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“As I said, it was the swing.” She was sitting on the chair, but only just. “Like I said.” She looked at her husband, who nodded and checked his watch again. He was still standing in the doorway, like a tin soldier in uniform. “She fell off the swing.” She held up her arm again. “Fell!”

There’s definitely something wrong here, Winter thought.