Frozen Tracks

37

THE CITY WAS STILL WHITE WHEN HE DROVE SOUTH. METHENY and Haden oozed calm from the CD, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

He was blinded for a second as he drove into the tunnel. There was no light. On the way to the darkness at the end of the tunnel, he thought. A horrific thought.

It occurred to him that he’d forgotten to look for the Christmas presents from Angela and Elsa.

Snow lay like cold powder on the fields. Beyond them the sea formed a concave mirror. It wasn’t moving at all.

The Bergorts’ truck was bathing in one of the day’s first sunbeams as he got out of the car. There were Advent candles in two of the windows.

He could smell fresh-brewed coffee as he stepped into the hall.

Kristina Bergort offered him a coat hanger.

“I apologize for disturbing your Christmas Eve,” said Winter.

“But this is important,” she said. “God, it’s awful.”

He could see the open newspaper on the kitchen table: What happened to Micke? The police have no leads.

He could smell the pungent scent of Christmas hyacinths through the living room door. That was the dominant Christmas smell as far as he was concerned, full of memories.

“I just made coffee.”

“Thank you.”

Winter sat down. He could see the illuminated Christmas tree through the door to the living room. Did Elsa have a Christmas tree in Nueva Andalucía? Surely his mother would have dreamed up something. Lights in the palm trees in the garden? That made him think of Bertil. Where was Bertil supposed to be going this morning?

Smedsberg. The other students.

“What’s Maja doing?” he asked.

“She’s watching TV. Kids’ shows.”

“Where can we go?”

“Well, you didn’t want to be in her room, so I thought maybe we could use Magnus’s room. It’s a sort of little office. And sometimes I sit there and do some sewing.”

“OK.”

“Shall I tell Maja?”

“Yes, please.”

The routine, if that was the right word for it, was the same as usual, and the same as at Simon Waggoner’s home: Winter squatting down on the floor and displaying a genuine interest in the child. Being a nice man. Merry Christmas, Maja. I have a little girl just one year younger than you. Her name is Elsa.

She looked down. She’d said her name very quietly when they were introduced.

He led the way into the room.

“So, here we are,” he said.

She didn’t want to follow him.

“Erik just wants to have a few words with you in there,” said Kristina Bergort to her daughter.

The girl shook her head. She was bouncing a little ball that went off course and disappeared into the room. Winter was in there already.

“Aren’t you going to fetch the ball, Maja?”

She shook her head again.

“That’s Daddy’s study,” said Kristina Bergort.

“Where’s Daddy?” asked the girl.

“He has to work, darling. I told you that this morning.”

On Christmas Eve, Winter thought. Is there anybody else in Sweden who needs to work on Christmas Eve?

“Don’t want to,” said Maja.

“We can move to the kitchen,” he said. “Why don’t you bring along some paper and crayons, Maja?” He wanted her undivided attention, but he wanted something else as well.

He set up the camera next to the door.

She was perched on her chair like a bird. The smell of coffee had dispersed, but the hyacinths were still there.

His questions had started to zoom in on her meeting with the stranger.

Winter had started by asking Maja about her favorite colors. They’d drawn something using them, and then something with colors she didn’t like as much. She knew her colors, all of them.

“Did you lose your ball, Maja?”

She looked at the ball on the table between them.

“The other ball,” said Winter. “The green ball.”

“That’s gone,” she said. “I lost the green ball.”

“Where did you lose it?”

“In the car,” she said.

“In what car?”

“The mister’s car.”

Winter nodded.

“Were you sitting in the mister’s car?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What color was that car, Maja?”

“It was black,” she said, but she didn’t look sure.

“Like this?” said Winter, and he drew a black line.

“No, not that black.”

He drew a blue line.

“No.”

A different blue.

“Yes!”

“So the mister’s car was this color?”

“Yes! Blue!”

Maybe they’d hit the jackpot. But then again, a witness claiming to recognize a color was among the most unreliable pieces of evidence in existence, with the possible exception of car makes. Somebody could swear to God that it was a white Volvo V70 that had driven away from the scene of the crime, but shortly afterward it could be established that it was a red Chrysler Jeep. That sort of thing. It had become more difficult to distinguish between makes of cars since their cloning procedures had become more sophisticated. They all had the same slick design, the same nuances. He’d thought a lot about that. He’d had to.

They tried showing the child various makes of car, but it wasn’t possible to narrow it down.

He took a piece of paper, and drew a car using a blue pencil. It could have been a Volvo, or a Chrysler. In any case, it had a basic outline, and four wheels.

Maja laughed out loud.

“Was this the car?” he asked.

“No, don’t be silly,” she said, but coquettishly.

“Why don’t you draw it, then?”

“I can’t,” she said.

Winter slid his drawing over to her.

“Let’s help each other,” he said. “Why don’t you draw yourself?! Where were you sitting in the mister’s car?”

“It wasn’t that car,” said Maja.

“Let’s pretend that this was the mister’s car,” said Winter.

He took a yellow pencil and drew a head in the front seat. She took a black one, and drew an eye, a nose, and part of a mouth. A profile of a face.

“Where was the mister sitting?” Winter asked.

“We can’t see him,” said Maja.

“What would he have looked like if we could see him?” Winter asked.

She drew a head in black, and on top of it something that could possibly be a cap.

“What’s that?” asked Winter.

“That’s the mister’s hat.”

Before Winter had time to ask his next question, she drew a green dot in front of her portrait of herself sitting in the car.

Her ball, Winter thought. Perhaps it was on top of the dashboard until he took it. Assuming that’s really where it vanished. If any of this really took place.

But he asked even so, pointing at the green dot.

“What’s that, Maja?”

“That’s the mister’s birdie,” she said.

Aneta Djanali met Kalle Skarin for the second time. The first meeting had suggested that something might have been taken from Kalle.

“The car,” Kalle had said.

They had gone through all the things he had at home, and what was missing.

“He usually took it with him,” Berit Skarin had said. “I couldn’t find it, so maybe…”

Now Kalle was playing with a new car on the carpet. Aneta Djanali was sitting beside him. Kalle had proved to be a bit of an expert on cars, and might have identified the abductor’s car as a Japanese make, possibly a Mitsubishi. He had pointed at the Lancer as if he had recognized the car model, but he had been less sure of the colors.

He hadn’t heard any bad words on the radio.

“Did the mister have any toys, Kalle?” asked Djanali.

“Kalle got candies,” said the boy, interrupting his brrrruuumming with the car, which was a Chrysler Jeep.

“Did the mister have candy?” Djanali asked.

“Lots of candy,” said Kalle.

She asked about what kind of candies, what they looked like, what they tasted like. She should’ve conducted this part of the interview in Gothenburg’s best candy shop so that they could compare different ones, but that might have been too distracting.

“Candy!” said Kalle, who wasn’t too concerned about details. Unfortunately.

“Was there a toy in the mister’s car, Kalle?”

“Brrrrruuuuuum.”

He drove the car in circles, in a figure eight. She saw his little head and thought of the injured Simon Waggoner, and Micke Johansson who had disappeared. Was there a connection? They didn’t know yet, so what could they do? They were doing their best at the moment.

Kalle Skarin might have met the same person as Micke Johansson. She thought about that again now. His head bowed over the car and the gray carpet that was thin but soft.

It had been a very short meeting. Why? What did he want from Kalle? Was Kalle a part of a pattern? The other children: Ellen, Maja, and then Simon. Was there a pattern in the different meetings? Were they building up toward something? Did the man change? Why did he assault Simon? Was that a step on the way? Was he preparing himself? For what? For Micke Johansson? She didn’t want to think about that, not now, not ever in fact.

Erik had spoken to the forensic psychologist. There were various possible scenarios, all of them frightening.

We have a goal, and that is to find Micke Johansson. Please help me, Kalle.

“Brrrruuuuuuumm,” said Kalle, and looked up. “Birdie.”

“What did you say, Kalle?”

“Birdie.”

“Did the mister have a birdie?”

“Birdie?” said Kalle, parking by the edge of the carpet.

“Was the birdie called Billy?”

“Birdie.”

“Birdie,” she repeated.

“Said Kalle. ‘Birdie,’ said Kalle!”

“I heard you say Birdie,” said Djanali.

Berit Skarin had been sitting in an armchair during the interview. Kalle had forgotten about her, as had Djanali. But she heard the mother’s voice now: “I think he means that the birdie said his name. Said Kalle to him.”

Winter had asked Maja Bergort about the mister’s birdie. She couldn’t remember a name. Was it a parrot? Winter had asked. The reply he got was not 100 percent certain. We’ll have to get pictures of all kinds of birds, he thought. Starting with parrots. Where in Gothenburg do they sell that kind of thing?

The parrot Maja Bergort spoke about was hanging from the rearview mirror, or so he gathered from his follow-up questions. If it really was a parrot. What she called a parrot might have been one of those tree-shaped things supposed to remove nasty smells from your car. No, not this time, not this one.

Maja’s arm gave a sudden twitch.

“Does your arm hurt, Maja?”

She shook her head.

Winter could hear Kristina Bergort moving around the house. He had asked her not to stay in the kitchen while he spoke to Maja. He heard her again, close by. Perhaps she was listening. Maja didn’t see her.

“Have you had a pain in your arm, Maja?”

The girl nodded solemnly.

“Was the mister nasty to you?” Winter asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Did the mister hit you?” Winter asked.

She was drawing circles now with the black pencil, circles, more and more circles.

“Did the mister hit you, Maja? The mister you sat in the car with? The mister with the birdie?”

She nodded now, up and down, without looking at Winter.

“Was that when you got those marks?” Winter asked.

He held his own arm, tapping at the inside of it.

She nodded without looking at him.

There was something wrong. She was drawing more circles now, one on top of the other, like a black hole on which the center grew smaller and smaller every time. The darkness at the end of the tunnel, Winter thought again. The same terrible thought.

There was something wrong here.

“What did the mister say when he hit you?” Winter asked.

“He said I was bad,” said Maja.

“That was a silly thing to say,” said Winter.

She nodded solemnly.

He thought of the difference between the truth and a lie. There was something evasive about Maja now. A lie, even if he had led her into telling it. Had the man hit her? Which man? There could be several reasons why children don’t say who did it. And there could be several reasons for why they tell lies. But in most cases they feel threatened, he thought, as Maja filled in her tunnel and started on a new one. Children are scared, they want to avoid being punished. They sometimes want to protect somebody they are dependent on. Children want to avoid feeling guilt, embarrassment, or shame. It can sometimes happen that the traumatization makes it impossible for them to distinguish between reality, fantasy, and dream.

“Did the mister hit you many times?” asked Winter. The man had become several now, or two.

She didn’t answer. The pencil had stopped moving, halfway through building a tunnel. Winter repeated his question.

She held up her hand, slowly. Winter could see three fingers pointing up at the ceiling.

“He hit you three times?” Winter asked.

She nodded, extremely solemnly now, and looked at him. He heard a deep intake of breath behind him, turned around, and saw Kristina Bergort, who could no longer hide behind the half-open kitchen door.

In the car on the way back he spoke to Bertil, who was in police headquarters going over all the interviews, which were spreading in all directions now-or maybe some of them were heading in the same direction.

“It’s very quiet here,” said Ringmar. “You can hear your own feet on the stairs.”

“Has Aneta come back yet?”

“No.”

“Is she aware that she has to wait until I get back?”

“Aneta is no doubt just as eager to speak to you as you are to her, Erik.”

He drove around the Näset roundabout. A car ahead of him had a Christmas tree strapped to its roof. It looked a bit desperate, a last-minute transaction.

“I think Bergort beats his daughter,” said Winter.

“Should we bring him in?” asked Ringmar without hesitation.

“Damned if I know, Bertil.”

“How sure are you?”

“I’m fairly certain. The girl made it very obvious, between the lines. With her body language.”

“What does her mother say?”

“She knows. Or suspects it, in any case.”

“But she hasn’t said anything?”

“You know how it is, Bertil.”

Silence.

Oh my God, what have I said? thought Winter.

“That’s not what I meant, Bertil.”

“OK, OK.”

“I tried to talk to her, but she seems to be scared as well. Or wants to protect him. Or both.”

“He seems to have a solid alibi,” said Ringmar.

They had checked up on all the parents involved, as far as possible. The problem with Bergort was that he didn’t work regular hours and had a lot of freedom. Was Magnus Himmler Bergort, as Halders called him (among other things), something more than just a child beater?

“Bring him in,” said Winter.

“Will he be in his office?”

“Yes.”

“OK.”

“I’m going to the Waggoners’ now,” said Winter.

They hung up. Winter drove along the main road leading to the other end of Änggården. Here comes Santa Claus. Have you all been good little boys and girls?

The traffic was denser than he’d expected. Normally he would be sitting with a cup of excellent coffee and a large sandwich of freshly roasted ham at this time-at least, that had been normal for the last three years. We’ll never get through it all, Angela always said. This is the best part, he would say. The first slice after roasting.

No Christmas ham this year, not here in Gothenburg. No Christmas tree, not at the moment at least. He saw several desperate men with Christmas trees on their car roofs, an odd sight for somebody on their first visit from, say, Andalucía. This is Sweden: Take up thy fir tree and drive. Where to? Why?

Porqué? He suddenly felt an intense longing for some peace and quiet, some food, a strong drink, a cigarillo, music, his woman, his child, his… life, the other one. He could see Maja’s face, the photograph of Micke on Bengt Johansson’s desk. Simon Waggoner. And just as suddenly the longing had vanished, he was back at work. He was on his way, on the move. You can never let yourself stop, as Birgersson used to say, but less often now. Never stand still. Never lack faith, never doubt, never let it get to you, never run away, never cry, always put up with everything. Bullshit, Winter thought. Birgersson had also gotten the message, but later.

He turned off at the Margretebergs junction. The attractive wooden houses were at their best. Torches were burning in the cautious daylight. It was a clear day. The sun could be glimpsed here and there in the gaps between the houses. There was still a thin layer of snow on paths and lawns. God was smiling.

Winter saw some children in a playground in the center of town. There were a lot of grown-ups with them. Two men turned to look as he drove slowly past in his black Mercedes: Who was he, what was he doing here?

He parked outside the Waggoners’ house.

A wreath was hanging on the front door.

There was a smell of exotic spices in the hall.

“For us tomorrow is the big day,” said Paul Waggoner with his English accent, as he took Winter’s overcoat and hung it on a coat hanger. “Tomorrow’s Christmas Day.”

“Is that pudding I smell?” asked Winter.

“Which one?” asked Waggoner. “We’re making several.” He gestured toward the living room. “My parents have come over from England.”

I’ll call Steve Macdonald when I get home, Winter thought. Or maybe from the office. Merry Christmas and all that, but maybe he can do some thinking for me, before all that pudding gets to work on him.

“How’s Simon?”

“He’s doing pretty well,” said Waggoner. “He’s speaking only English at the moment, has been for a few days now. It just happened. Perhaps he wanted to prepare himself for his grandparents.”

“I’d better speak English to him, then,” said Winter.

“Maybe,” said Waggoner. “Will that be a problem?”

“I don’t know. It might be an advantage.”

It was the same room as before. Simon seemed more relaxed, recognized Winter.

“Will you get any Christmas gifts this evening?” Winter asked.

“Today and tomorrow,” said Simon.

“Wow.”

“Grandpa doesn’t really like it.”

“And this is from me,” said Winter, handing over a package he had in his shoulder bag.

The boy took it, obviously pleased. There was a gleam in his eyes.

“Oh, thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” said Simon again.

He opened the little package. Winter had thought about giving the boy a watch to replace the one that had disappeared. Should he or shouldn’t he? In the end he’d decided not to. It could have been regarded as a bribe in return for information. By Simon. Perhaps it was.

Simon held up the squad car, which was one of the latest models. It was an expensive toy, with a lot of details. The word POLICE was painted on the side. He couldn’t very well give the boy a remote-controled Mercedes. CID model.

The police car could be driven wherever there was no speed bump in the way.

“Want to try it?” Winter asked, handing over the control panel that was hardly any bigger than a matchbox.

Simon put the car down on the floor, and Winter showed him the controls without actually touching anything himself. The car took off, and crashed into the nearest piece of furniture. Winter bent down and turned it in the right direction. Simon reversed, then drove forward. He switched on the siren, which was very loud for such a little car.

I wonder if he heard the siren when he was lying on the ground? Winter thought. When they had found him?

“Great,” said Simon, looking up with a smile.

“Let me try it,” said Winter.

It was fun.