Frozen Tracks

4

INSPECTOR JANNE ALINDER ANSWERED THE FIRST CALL OF HIS evening shift three seconds after it had started. He hadn’t even sat down.

“Police, Majorna-Linnéstaden, Alinder,” he said, flopping down onto his swivel chair. It creaked under his weight.

“Hello, is that the police for Linnéstaden?”

Come on, didn’t I just say that? he thought. It was always the same. Nobody ever listened. Was it his fault, or the caller’s? What did they want confirming? It would be better just to say “hello” since the question was bound to come anyway.

“This is the police station in Tredje Långgatan,” he said, spelling it out in detail.

“It’s my little girl,” said the voice: it could belong to a young woman, or a middle-aged one. He was not very good with voices. Especially women’s voices. He’d often spoken to somebody on the phone who sounded like what’s-her-name, that sexy newsreader on channel 4, only to find out when he met her, the caller that is, that she looked like Old Mother Hubbard and had been using a bus pass for years. And vice versa. A voice like gravel and a body like Marilyn Monroe.

“Who am I speaking to?” he asked, pen poised. She introduced herself as Lena Sköld.

“Something odd has happened,” said Lena Sköld.

“Start from the beginning and let’s hear all about it,” said Alinder, the usual routine.

“I can’t understand it.”

“What happened?”

“It’s my little daughter… Ellen… She told me she met somebody this afternoon.”

“Go on.”

“When she was out in the woods, a nursery-school outing. At Plikta. The children’s playground. It’s at the inter-”

“I know where it is,” said Alinder.

Only too well, he thought. He’d spent years there when the children were little. He’d stood there, usually feeling frozen stiff, sometimes hungover, but he’d gone there with the kids even so because Plikta was closest to their apartment in Olivedalsgatan and he couldn’t think of any reason to say no. He was glad he hadn’t said no. Those who don’t say no get their reward in due course. Those who do say no get their punishment from the children later on when they flee the nest without so much as a backward glance.

“She says she met a man there. A mister, as she put it. She sat in his car.”

“What do the staff say?”

“The nursery-school staff? Well, I called one of the girls who was with them but she didn’t notice anything.”

Alinder waited.

“Is it normal for them not to notice anything?” asked Lena Sköld.

It depends if anything has happened, thought Alinder.

“Where is your daughter now?” he asked.

“She’s sitting at the table here in front of me, drawing.”

“And she told you she was in a car with a man. Have I understood that correctly?”

“That’s how I understand it, in any case,” said Lena Sköld.

“So she went off with somebody? Without the staff noticing?”

“Yes.”

“Is she injured?”

Straight to the point. It’s better to come straight to the point.

“No, not as far as I can see. I have actually looked. Just now. It was only an hour ago that she mentioned it.”

“An hour?”

“Well, two maybe.”

“How does she seem?”

“Well, happy, I suppose. As usual.”

“I see,” said Alinder.

“I didn’t have anybody to ask about what I should do,” said Lena Sköld. “I’m a single parent and my husb… er, my ex is not somebody I’d turn to about anything at all.”

I’ll take your word for it, Alinder thought. This town was full of real bastards, and their exes were better off keeping as many miles away from them as possible. The children as well.

“Do you yourself believe what Ellen says?” he asked.

“Er, well, I don’t really know. She has a vivid imagination.”

“Children do. So do a lot of adults.”

“Are you referring to me?”

“No, no, it was just something that slipped out. A throwaway comment.”

“I see.”

“What did you say about Ellen’s imagination?”

He could hear the girl now. She must be sitting right next to her mother at the table. He heard the word “imagination” and heard Lena Sköld explaining what it meant, and then the girl asked another question he couldn’t catch. Then the mother’s voice was back on the line.

“Sorry about that, but Ellen was listening to what I said. She’s gone to her room now to get some more paper.”

“Her imagination,” said Alinder again.

“She makes up quite a lot, to be honest. Imaginary things, or imaginary people. People she says she’s been talking to. Even here, at home. In her room. It’s not unusual for children, I suppose.”

“But you decided to call here.”

“Yes, I suppose that does sound a bit odd. But it was different somehow. As if she hadn’t made it up this time. I don’t really know how to explain it. But I sort of believed it. Not that she said much, though.”

“And the ‘it’ you say you believed was that she’d been in a car with a strange man, is that right?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Anything else?”

“Candy, I think. I think she was given some candy.”

“How old is Ellen?”

“Four.”

“Does she speak well?

“Pretty well.”

“Has she said any more about the car? Or about the man?”

“No. But then we haven’t spent the whole evening talking about it. She said something when she came home, after I picked her up, and then I asked her something, and I started thinking, and then I called the woman from the nursery school, and then I phoned the police and… Well…”

Alinder looked at the sheet of paper in front of him. He’d noted her name and address and her day and evening phone numbers, and a summary of what she’d said. There was nothing else he could do now. But he took it seriously, as much as he could. The girl might well have been with somebody, in a real car. That was possible. Or she might just have been in a big wooden car. There was one like that at Plikta. Perhaps she’d suddenly enlarged one of her friends at the nursery school ten times over. Perhaps she’d been dreaming about candy, millions of bags of candy, just like he could dream about marvelous meals and dishes, now that eating was more important to him than sex.

“If she says anything else about, er, about the meeting, write it down and let us know,” he said.

“What happens now, then?”

“I’ve noted down everything you’ve said, and I’ll write a report on our conversation and file it.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you think we ought to do, Mrs. Sköld?”

“I’m not ‘Mrs.’ anymore.”

“What should we do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to the staff at the nursery school again, and I might get back to you.”

“Good.”

“But, well, I suppose it is possible she’s made it all up. I mean, she’s not nervous or anything like that. Doesn’t seem to be frightened or worried or anything.”

Alinder didn’t respond. He glanced at his watch. He jotted down another note.

“What did you say your name was? Did you say?”

“Alinder. Janne Alinder.”

“Oh yes, thank you.”

Something occurred to him. Might as well do this properly, now that they’d started.

“Just one other thing. Check to see if there’s anything missing. If Ellen has lost anything.”

The city swished by on the other side of the big windows, just as naked this evening as this morning and yesterday and tomorrow. He was more or less in a dream, but he was doing his job perfectly. Nobody could have grounds for complaint about what he was doing.

Good afternoon, good afternoon.

Yes, I can open the center doors again, no problem.

Of course I can wait for half a minute while you come running from over there even though we should be on our way now if we’re going to stick to the schedule, but I’m not some kind of a monster who just drives off.

There were drivers like that, but he wasn’t one of them, certainly not.

People like that ought to get themselves another job. They certainly shouldn’t be driving passengers around, he thought, as he increased the speed of the windshield wipers. The rain was getting worse.

He enjoyed this route. He’d been driving it for so long, he knew every curve, every corner, every cranny.

He could drive buses as well. He also had his favorite bus routes, but he wasn’t going to tell anybody what they were. Not that anybody ever asked, but he had no intention of telling them even if they did.

Maybe he’d told the girl what they were. It was funny, but he couldn’t remember. Oh yes, he remembered now. He’d touched her, and it had felt like the down on a little bird, with the tiny bones just underneath, and he’d left his hand there, and he’d looked at his hand and it was trembling, and he knew, he knew at that very moment, as if he’d had second sight, could see into the future, what he could do with the g-g-g-girl if he left his hand there, and he’d hidden it then, hidden it inside his jacket and his pullover and his shirt, hidden it from himself and from her, and then he’d hidden his face so that she couldn’t see it. He’d opened the door for her and helped her out, and then he’d driven off. When he got home he had-

“Are we ever going to move, or what?”

He gave a start, and in his rearview mirror he could see a man almost leaning into the streetcar driver’s cab. That wasn’t allowed. The driver mus-

“It’s been red and green and purple and white ten times, so when are you going to move your fucking ass?” said the man, and he could smell the stench of alcohol through the protective glass shielding him from the horrible creature on the other side.

“

Get moving!” screamed the horrible creature.

Horns were sounding from behind.

Horns were sounding from the sides. He looked ahead and the lights changed and he-

“

Get moving for fuck’s sake!” yelled the horrible creature, grabbing hold of his cab door handle, and he took off faster than intended and something happened to the lights that shouldn’t have happened, and he went along with the streetcar as it moved forward, he wasn’t the one driving anymore, it was as if the other man was at the controls, the horrible creature smelling of alcohol, a smell seeping through into his cab, and he was suddenly scared that the police would come and stop them right here and smell the liquor, and would think he was driving while under the influence, that he of all people, but he never touched a drop, and if they thought that, that he was driving while under the influence, he’d never be allowed to drive again. That would be disastrous.

He accelerated through the intersection as if to get away from the threat hanging onto his glass door, but the lights had already changed for traffic coming from the east and north and south and he ran straight into the back of a Volvo V70 that had just turned off the main road, and the Volvo rammed into an Audi that had stopped for a red light. Another Volvo drove into the right-hand side of the streetcar. A BMW rammed into the Volvo. He let the streetcar stop of its own accord. He couldn’t touch the controls, he couldn’t move. He could hear the police sirens in the distance, coming closer.

“

Get moving!” screeched the horrible creature.