Frozen Tracks

26

WINTER KICKED OFF HIS SHOES AND DROPPED HIS OVERCOAT ON the floor where he stood. Angela was watching.

“Pick it up!” he said, pointing to the coat.

“Not so loud. Elsa’s asleep. She had a stomachache and was being a handful.” Angela looked at the overcoat, then at him. “You don’t have the voice of a bully.”

He headed for the kitchen.

“Are there any leftovers?”

“You’ll have to go sleuthing in the pantry.”

“We don’t have a pantry.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table, as usual. Winter was thinking about Smedsberg’s kitchen, not to mention Carlström’s combination: cowshed and kitchenette.

“What was it like out on the flats?”

“Flat.”

“Did that surprise you?”

“Yes, it did, in fact. Sometimes it was like being at sea.”

“There’s an illness you can get out on the prairies,” said Angela. “Simply by living there.”

Winter thought about the men they had met that day.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“In the USA they call it ‘the sickness.’ ”

“Not bad. Why can’t all illnesses have nice simple names like that?”

“People go mad in states like Wyoming and Montana. In those enormous prairies there are no reference points. All you can see is a vast flat plain and the horizon.”

“Like being at sea, like I said.”

Angela poured out more tea.

“There’s nothing to look at, no trees, no houses, no roads with cars or buses. People lose their sense of direction. Lose their senses in the end.”

“So all you’d need to stay sane would be an outhouse within sight?” said Winter.

“That would be enough, certainly.”

“The people living where we were today certainly seem odd, but there are a few outhouses scattered around,” said Winter.

“Did you find the boy? The medical student?”

“No. And nobody expected we would.”

“Why did you go there, then?”

He didn’t answer, poured out some more tea, buttered another slice of rye bread, placed a piece of Stilton on it, cut a wedge from his apple.

“Did you just need to get away for a while?” Angela asked.

“Something happened out there,” said Winter.

“What do you mean?”

He took a sip of tea and a bite of his open sandwich. The radio on the countertop was churning out the latest weather forecast: colder, clearer, a chance of snow for Christmas.

“Something happened out there,” Winter said again, sounding serious. “I had a strange feeling in one of the houses we visited.”

“What are you basing that feeling on?”

“The sickness,” he said, grinning over his teacup.

“Are you pulling my leg?”

“Of course.”

But he wasn’t pulling anybody’s leg. Angela had seen that, and later, much later, he said so, after they made love and he got up to fetch two glasses of mineral water. He’d longed for a Corps, but didn’t have the strength to go out onto the balcony.

“You know that I have a sort of intuitive ability,” he’d said. “You know that.”

“What was it, then?”

“When Bertil and I drove home, we agreed that one of those elderly men, the older one, was lying through his teeth. You can tell. I mean, it’s our job to decide if people are telling the truth or lying.”

“Does it always matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“People lie for different reasons. I can see that myself. Some just come out with a lie, without knowing in advance that they’re going to lie. But it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t turn them into criminals. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are concealing something horrific.”

“No, but that was precisely the feeling I had out there. That there was something-something major that was being concealed. Something horrendous has happened. Do you understand? The old man we spoke to had something in his past that he didn’t want us to know about.” Winter took a drink of the mineral water. “But I also think the other one, Smedsberg’s father, was lying. I don’t know what to think. I don’t even know if it’s relevant.”

“He probably got nervous when two snobby chief inspectors from the big city showed up.”

“We’re not snobby.”

“Really? Were you wearing overalls?”

“Of course. Bought them in the village general store.”

He emptied his glass. He could see her profile.

“Do you think he had that boy Kaite shut up somewhere?”

“Hidden away? No.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know, like I said. But I do know we need to talk to the other old man again, Carlström. Before that, though, I need to speak to Smedsberg.”

He noticed that she nodded slightly.

“At the same time we need to talk to these children, and have another word with their parents.”

“It’s awful,” she said.

“It could be even worse than we think,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

“I’ve tried to think this one through, looking for a possible pattern that might become clearer if we get some more facts, memories. Pictures. Objects. Things. If there is a pattern, it probably won’t make matters any easier. And if it gets more complicated it will also become… more horrendous.” He stretched out his hand, rubbed her shoulder that was firm but soft. “Can you see the way my thoughts are going?”

“That it will get worse,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That it could go on and on.”

“Yes.”

“But what can be done, though?” she asked. “Lock up the children? Have armed guards posted at day nurseries and children’s playgrounds, and schools?”

“It might be enough if there were more staff.”

“Ha!”

“But there’s no hundred percent certain way of stopping anybody who’s determined to hurt somebody.”

“So all you can do is wait?”

“Certainly not.”

“What would happen if the press announced that there was somebody out there. Waiting. Or preparing himself.”

“It wouldn’t be good,” he said.

“But what if you have to? What if you’re forced to inform the public?”

“There are various ways of doing that.”

“I’ve seen that little boy, Waggoner.” He could hear her breathing. “How is that possible? Eh? What makes a person do something like that?”

How is it possible to be rational and clear in reply to a question like that, he thought.

“I know there simply isn’t a rational and clear answer to that kind of question, but it has to be asked, don’t you think?” He could see that she was looking at him now. He could see a glint in her eye. “Don’t you think? Why? You have to ask why?”

“The answer to that question is what we’re always looking for,” he said.

“Is it enough?”

“Discovering why? I don’t know. Sometimes there is nothing.”

“No reason, you mean?”

“Yes. Why does somebody commit a serious crime? Is there only one reason? Is there a series of different reasons? Are they linked? Is it possible to analyze them logically? Should one even try to think logically if the crime, or crimes, are driven by chance and a lack of logic?” He looked at her again. “There could be so many possibilities. It could be pure lunacy, acute mental illness. Bad memories. Revenge.”

“Is that common? Revenge?”

“Yes. Revenge against somebody who has treated you badly. Directly or indirectly. Yes, it certainly is common. It can go a long way back.”

“A long way back in time?”

“A long way back,” said Winter again. “The past casts shadows. You know that. It happens so often. To find the answers now you have to pin down a

then. What happens now has its origins in that then.”

“So that could apply in this case as well? With the assaults on those students? As well as to the abuse of the boy?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“They are two different things, but still.”

“Hmm.”

“Aren’t they two different things?”

“Well…”

“You’re hesitating.”

“No, I’m thinking about this searching backward through time. Digging. Looking for answers.”

“You and your colleagues are acting like investigative journalists, you mean?”

“No. More like archaeologists. Archaeologists of crime.”