Frozen Tracks

38

WINTER SAT ON THE FLOOR AND STEERED THE POLICE CAR THROUGH tunnels made of chairs and tables and a sofa. There was a blue light rotating on the roof. He switched on the siren as the car went past the door. He switched it off.

Simon had agreed to accompany Winter to the place where he had been found. That was how Winter had preferred to see it: agreed to accompany him. It felt important for Winter.

He knew that it was usually difficult for a child under seven to re-create an outdoor setting.

He had driven along various roads, back and forth. Where had the mister been taking Simon? To his home? Was he interrupted? Did anything happen? Did he see anything? Anybody? Did anybody see him? Did the mister throw Simon out of the car close to his home?

The police had made door-to-door inquiries everywhere, it seemed. Gone back to places where there had been no answer the first time around.

They had made inquiries along possible routes the car might have taken, makes of car, times, what the driver looked like. In-car decorations. Rearview mirrors. Items hanging from rearview mirrors. Green, perhaps. A bird, perhaps. A parrot, perhaps.

They had been in touch with the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company. Repair workshops. Salesrooms. Real-estate companies. Staffed multi-story parking garages.

They had checked all the cars owned by staff at the nursery school. Cars that had been parked nearby, were parked nearby.

Simon had tried to explain something. They were sitting on the floor.

Winter tried to interpret it. He knew that several studies suggested that a child’s memory was very consistent and reliable when referring to situations that had affected its emotions and had been stressful. He knew this, regardless of what university researchers might say about the ignorance of him and his colleagues.

Between the ages of three and four, children have a particularly good memory for things that are emotionally charged and central to a situation, while they can forget details that are less important in the context.

Several years after being kidnapped, children could still supply accurate details of things central to the abduction, but often got peripheral details wrong.

That meant that the details the children spoke about were significant.

Nevertheless, everything had to be regarded with skepticism, of course, and carefully considered. He had heard of a case where a five-year-old boy had been asked to describe what he had seen and experienced while with his abductor. The boy made some gestures and said he had seen “one of those things that have lots of telegraph wires hanging from it.” The interviewer took him out in a car, in the hope that the boy would be able to point out what he meant. In the end he indicated a high-voltage electricity pylon, broad at the base and getting narrower toward the top.

But in fact he’d been trying to describe something else. In the abductor’s house the police found a souvenir, a model of the Eiffel Tower. That’s what the boy had meant.

Simon hadn’t pointed anything out, hadn’t spoken about anything. But was there something? That was what Winter was trying to find out now.

He had tried to transport the boy back to that horrendous journey again. So far Simon hadn’t said anything about it.

“Did you see anything from the window in the car?” Winter asked.

Simon hadn’t answered. Winter suggested they should park the police car in the garage under one of the chairs.

“You’re a good driver,” said Winter.

“Can I drive again?” asked Simon.

“Yes, soon,” said Winter.

Simon was sitting on the carpet, moving his feet as if practicing swimming strokes.

“When you went with that man,” said Winter. He could see that Simon was listening. “Did you go for a long ride?”

Simon nodded now. Nodded!

“Where did you go?”

“Everywhere,” said Simon.

“Did you go out into the countryside?”

Simon shook his head.

“Did you go close to home?”

Simon shook his head again.

“Do you think you could show me? If we went together in my car?”

Simon didn’t shake his head, nor did he nod.

“Your mom and dad could go with us, Simon.”

“Followed,” Simon said suddenly, as if he hadn’t heard Winter.

“What did you say, Simon?”

“He said follow,” said Simon.

“Did he say follow?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand,” said Winter.

Simon looked at the car again, then at Winter.

“We followed,” said Simon now.

Winter waited for the rest of the sentence that never came.

“What did you follow, Simon?”

“Follow the tracks,” said Simon.

“The tracks?” asked Winter. “What tracks do you mean?”

He was sitting in front of a boy who was translating into English what somebody had said to him in Swedish. Assuming they had been speaking Swedish. Or had they spoken English? He couldn’t ask that right now.

“What tracks do you mean, Simon?” Winter asked.

“Follow the tracks,” said Simon again, and Winter could see that the boy was growing more agitated, the trauma was coming back.

Simon burst into tears.

Winter knew full well that he shouldn’t sit a weeping child on his knee, shouldn’t hold him, or touch him during the interview. That would be unprofessional. But he ignored that and lifted Simon onto his knee. Just as he’d tried to console Bengt Johansson the previous day, and now he did the same to Simon Waggoner.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep going, not for too much longer. He would need consoling himself. He saw himself on the flight to Málaga, a picture of the future for a fraction of a second. What state would he be in by then?

Simon’s parents made no complaint when he left, but he felt very guilty. What had he done to the boy?

“We’re just as anxious as you,” said Barbara Waggoner. “It’ll be all right.”

Simon raised one hand when Winter left, holding the car in the other one. An elderly man, Paul Waggoner’s father, eyed Winter up and down from beneath bushy eyebrows, and mumbled his name in a thick accent as he held out his hand. Tweed, port wine nose, slippers, unlit smelly pipe. The works. Winter folded his Zegna overcoat over his arm, fastened a button in his suit jacket, collected his belongings, and went out to the car. He had taken his video equipment into the house with him but hadn’t used it.

His mobile rang before he’d got as far as Linnéplatsen.

“Any news?” asked Hans Bülow. “You said we were going to help each other. In a meaningful way.”

“Will there be any newspapers published tomorrow?” Winter asked.

“

GT runs every day,” said Bülow. “Every day all year round.”

“Shouldn’t there be a law to prevent that?”

“How’s it going, Erik? You sound a bit tired.”

“I need to think about it,” Winter said. “About what to publish. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

“Will you really?”

“I said I would, didn’t I? You have my top-secret professional mobile number, don’t you? You can get through to me at any time, can’t you?”

“Yes, yes, calm down. Bye for now.”

Shortly afterward the phone rang again. Winter thought he recognized the breathing even before the caller spoke.

“Any more news?” asked Bengt Johansson.

“Where are you calling from, Bengt?”

“Ho… From home. I’ve just gotten back.” He could hear the breathing again. “Nobody’s called me.” More breathing. “Has anything happened? Anything new?”

“We’re getting tips all the time,” said Winter.

“Are there no witnesses?” asked Johansson. “The place was flooded with people. Has nobody contacted you?”

“Lots of people have been in touch,” said Winter.

“And?”

“We’re going through all the tips.”

“There might be something there,” said Johansson. “You can’t just put them to the side.”

“We’re not putting anything to the side,” said Winter.

“There might be something there,” said Johansson again.

“How’s Carolin?” Winter asked.

“She’s alive,” said Johansson. “She’ll live.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“She doesn’t want to talk. I don’t know if she can.”

Winter could hear the pause. It sounded as if Johansson was smoking. Winter hadn’t smoked at all so far today. I haven’t had a smoke today. The craving had vanished without a trace.

“Could she ha… have done something?” asked Johansson. “Could it have been her?”

“I don’t think so, Bengt.”

No. Carolin wasn’t involved, he thought. They had started off by including that as a possibility. Everything horrendous was a possibility. But they hadn’t found anything to suggest that there was any substance to the thought, not as far as she was concerned, not under the circumstances. She was overcome by guilt, but of a different kind.

He drove along the Allé. There were remains of snow in the trees. Traffic was heavy, the shops were still open. Service was good. There were more pedestrians in the Allé than on a normal weekday, carrying more packages. Of course. We are slowly becoming a population of consumers rather than citizens, but you don’t need to moan about that today, Erik.

He stopped at a red light. A child wearing a Santa Claus hat passed by accompanied by a woman, and the child waved at him. Winter looked at his watch. Two hours to go before the traditional Christmas Donald Duck program on TV. Would this boy make it home in time? Was it as important now as it used to be? Winter wouldn’t be home in time. Elsa would be able to watch last year’s Donald on her grandma’s VCR. He’d made sure the cassette was in their luggage.

Still red. A streetcar rattled past, festive flags flying. Lots of passengers. He watched it forging ahead. Another streetcar approached from the opposite direction, a number 4. A bit of snow between the lines. The tracks for streetcars heading in both directions were side by side here. In the middle of the road. It was possible for a car driver to follow them.

The tracks.

Was it the streetcar lines Simon Waggoner had been talking about? That might have been a question Winter would have asked if they had continued their conversation, but the boy had started crying and Winter had brought the interview to a close and not continued with his line of thought.

He’d be able to call shortly: “Please ask Simon if…”

Had they been following the streetcar lines, Simon and his abductor? A specific route, perhaps? Was it a game? Was it of significance? Or were “the tracks” something completely different? Tracks on a CD? Railway tracks? Some other kind of tracks? Fantasy tracks in a mad abductor’s imagination? Simon’s own tracks. He cou-

Angry honks from the car behind. He looked up, saw the green light, and took off.

A group of young men were playing soccer on Heden. They seemed to be having fun.

He parked in his allocated spot. As usual, the Advent candles were burning in every other window of police headquarters-the money-saving symmetry that Halders had griped about.

Reception had been deserted by its usual line of the good and the bad: the owners of stolen bicycles, police officers, legal aid lawyers on their way to and from the usual discussions about will-he-won’t-he be released, car owners, car thieves, other criminals at various stages of professional achievement, various categories of victim.

The corridors echoed with Christmas-the lonely version of Christmas. The lights on the tree at the entrance to CID had gone out. Winter poked at the switch, and they came on again.

He bumped into Ringmar, who was on the way out of his office.

“What’s the latest, Bertil?”

“Nothing new from my nearest and dearest, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I tried to get hold of Smedsberg junior but failed,” said Ringmar.

“Are you coming home with me this evening?” asked Winter.

“Are you expecting to be able to go home?”

“If going home is in the cards.”

“I hope not,” said Ringmar.

“Would you prefer to sleep here?”

“Who needs sleep?”

“You, by the looks of it.”

“It’s only young guys like you who need to be dropping off to sleep all the time,” said Ringmar. “But we can rent a video and while away the gloom of Christmas Eve in your living room.”

“Your choice,” said Winter.

“

Festen,” said Ringmar. “A hot film. It’s about a fath-”

“I know what it’s about, Bertil. Come off it, for Christ’s sake! Otherwise we’ll-”

“Maybe I’d better go into hiding right away,” said Ringmar. “Are you going to report me to the police?”

“Should I?” asked Winter.

“No.”

“Then I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

“Do we have Bergort?”

“No. I didn’t get around to-”

“Where is he?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Is there anybody in his office?”

“Yes, there are a few. But he never showed up.”

“At home?”

“He hasn’t come back yet, according to his wife.”

“Damn it! I should never have let him slip through our fingers. But I told him not to be at home. I thought the girl wou-”

“You did the right thing, Erik. He would’ve taken off either way.”

“We’d better slam an APB on him right away.”

“But he’s not our kidnapper,” said Ringmar.

“He’s been abusing his daughter,” said Winter. “That’s enough to set the police on him as far as I’m concerned. We’ll have to see about the other business.”

The coffee room was quiet; they were the only ones there. Winter could see the day turning outside. A big spruce fir on a hill toward Lunden had been decorated and was glittering in the distance. He thought of Halders and his children. What were they doing now? Was Halders capable of boiling a ham, coating it with egg and bread crumbs, and roasting it for the right length of time?

“Something else has come up,” said Ringmar, putting two steaming mugs of coffee down on the table.

“Oh yes?” Winter blew at his machine-made coffee, which smelled awful but would do him some good nevertheless.

“Beier’s forensic boys got the results of the analyses of the boys’ wounds, and established a few other things.”

They had taped the injured students’ clothes and vacuumed their shoes, which was standard practice after violent crimes.

The children’s clothes had been carefully scrutinized in the same way, and the technicians had found dust and hair that could have come from anywhere until they had something to compare them with.

“They found some kind of clay,” said Ringmar.

“Clay?”

“There are traces of the same kind of mud on the students’ shoes,” said Ringmar. “And one of them-Stillman, I think-had it on his pants as well.”

“When did you hear about this?”

“An hour ago. Beier isn’t there, but a new officer came down to tell us. Strömkvist or something. I have-”

“And they’ve been working on this today?”

“They’re working overtime on the kiddies’ clothes, but the other stuff was sitting around doing nothing, as he put it. They had to put it on hold when the Waggoner thing happened, and the manslaughter out at Kortedala, and they just came back to it.”

“Anything else?”

“No. The rest is up to us. For the time being.”

“Mud. There’s mud everywhere. Gothenburg is full of mud. The town is built on clay, for Christ’s sake!”

“I know,” said Ringmar.

“It could be the mud outside the student dorms at Olofshöjd.”

“I know.”

“Have they started comparing?”

“Yes, but they can only do one thing at a time. The other-”

“There’s a quicker way,” said Winter.

“Oh yeah?”

“The mud out at Georg Smedsberg’s place.”

“You mean…”

“Bertil, Bertil. They were all there! There’s the connection! Gustav Smedsberg and Aryan Kaite were there, we know that. Why couldn’t the others have been there too?”

“Why haven’t they mentioned it, then?”

“For the same reason that Kaite didn’t mention it. Or lied about it. Or tried to keep quiet.”

“What is there to lie about?” said Ringmar. “What happened out there?”

“Precisely.”

“Why did they all go there together?”

“Precisely.”

“Did they witness something?”

“Precisely.”

“Are they being threatened?”

“Precisely.”

“Is that why they’re keeping quiet?”

“Precisely.”

“Were the assaults a warning?”

“Precisely.”

“Somebody will have to drive out there and do some digging,” said Ringmar.

“Precisely,” said Winter.

“What is this?” said Aneta Djanali, who was standing in the doorway of the coffee room.