Frozen Tracks

5

IT WAS ONLY IN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES THAT JANNE ALINDER went out in a patrol car, but this was one of those occasions, and typically all hell broke loose as he drove sedately along the beautiful boulevard. The streetcar ahead of him suddenly ran amok and almost bounced over the intersection and became a sort of hard air bag for the cars that crashed into it from all directions.

“

Saatana perkele,” said Johan Minnonen, who was born in Finland and became a Swedish citizen and then a police officer, and seldom spoke a word of Finnish.

Alinder immediately called for reinforcements. It looked bad. Cars had gone up the sides of the streetcar and then fallen back down again. They didn’t need much speed for that to happen. He could hear somebody screaming. He could hear an engine that wouldn’t shut up despite being in its death throes. He could hear sirens. He could see the lights. Somebody screamed again, a woman. An ambulance appeared. It must have been just around the corner when he sent out the emergency call. A squad car raced up, and another, and a patrol car fitted with the new roof lights that spattered light out in circles over the whole county.

Nobody had died. It turned out that there was one broken arm and a few sprains and bruises caused by air bags inflating. A drunk who had been standing next to the streetcar driver’s cab had been thrown against the windshield without smashing it. On the other hand, the drunk’s forehead had been smashed, but none of his brains had run out as far as they could see.

He’ll soon be able to start enjoying life again, Alinder thought as the drunk was carried off to the ambulance.

Alinder had been the first to enter the streetcar once he’d persuaded the shocked driver to open the doors. Alinder had looked around: the man bleeding at the front; a woman sobbing in a loud howl; two small children crammed into a seat beside a man with his arm still around them to protect them from the crash that had already happened. Two young men in the seats behind. One was black and the other white and looking pale in the various lights streaming in. The black man might also be pale.

The driver had been sitting motionless, staring straight ahead, in the direction he would have been driving in peace and quiet if only he’d done his job properly and obeyed the traffic lights. There was a smell of liquor, but that might have come from the man lying on the floor and blocking the way into the driver’s cab. Yes, that was no doubt the source; he looked like a real mess. But then again, the driver might have had a drop or two, it was known to happen.

The driver had slowly turned to look at him. He seemed calm and uninjured. He had picked up his briefcase and placed it on his knee. Alinder hadn’t been able to see anything unusual about the cab. But what do they normally look like? That wasn’t his strong suit.

There had been something hanging from a peg behind the driver. Alinder thought it was some sort of toy animal, or a little bird perhaps, green in color and almost the same as the wall. It had a beak. Looked like a mascot.

The driver had swung around on his chair, raised his left hand, taken down whatever it was, and stuffed it into his briefcase. Hmm. A mascot. We all need some kind of company, Alinder thought; or protection, perhaps. To ward off bad luck. But that bunch of feathers hadn’t been much use on this occasion.

The streetcar had been half full. When he looked around he saw that people had started to get off. His fellow officers whose job would be to stop them hadn’t arrived yet.

“I’d appreciate it if you could stay inside the streetcar until we’ve got the situation under control,” he said.

Two young men with half their heads covered in piercings had looked around but continued on their way out through the door. Not that I blame them, Alinder had thought. Or intend to stop them. I can’t stop them, there’s no time for that.

There was no sign of the black man nor the white man any longer.

The driver was sitting in front of him. He was in some kind of shock, but it wasn’t bad enough to prevent him from saying something, now that he was about to start the interview.

At least he was sober.

He was fair-haired and about forty years old, and his eyes had a piercing sharpness that almost made Alinder want to turn around and see what the man was looking at straight through his head.

His uniform was badly cut and ill fitting, more or less like the one Alinder was wearing. He held his cap in his hand, twirling it around like the earth around the sun, around and around and around. He had a tic in his left eye. He’d hardly spoken, just mumbled and nodded when they’d finally managed to worm their way out of the circle of curious bystanders at the scene of the accident.

Alinder had noted his name and address.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” said Alinder, switching on the tape recorder and testing his pen by drawing a little peaked cap on the sheet of paper in front of him. “Looks like you got a little out of sync with the traffic lights, is that right?”

The driver nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Why?” asked Alinder.

The driver shrugged, still twirling his cap around and around.

“Come on now,” said Alinder. “Was the drunk putting you off?” A leading question, but what the hell, he thought.

The driver looked up at him, those remarkable eyes.

“The man lying at the side of the driver’s cab had quite a few in him,” said Alinder. “What was he doing there? When the crash happened?”

The driver’s mouth moved, but no words came out.

Is he a mute, Alinder wondered. No, Gothenburg Tramways wouldn’t employ a mute driver. A driver has to be able to communicate. Is he still in shock? Can that make people mute? Huh! What an ignorant bastard I am.

“You have to answer the question,” he said.

The man twirled his cap.

“Can’t you talk?”

The cap, around and around.

OK, thought Alinder. Let’s try this. He slid forward a glass of water, but the man didn’t touch it.

His briefcase was standing by his chair, the kind all the streetcar drivers have. Alinder had always wondered what was inside them whenever he saw a driver walking toward his streetcar, like a pilot on his way to his aircraft. Alternative routes? A bit more difficult in a streetcar than up in the air. Harder to drive around and around Brunnsparken while waiting to approach your stop than to circle over the airport at Landvetter.

He knew one thing that was in the briefcase, but that had nothing to do with the accident.

“Was there something wrong with the lights?” he asked.

The driver didn’t reply.

“But you drove through a red light,” said Alinder.

The driver nodded.

“It’s a very busy intersection,” said Alinder.

The driver nodded again, somewhat hesitantly.

“Things could have turned out a lot worse than they did,” said Alinder.

The driver was looking elsewhere now. Ex-driver, Alinder thought. He’s not going to be driving anymore streetcars until this incident has been thoroughly investigated by the tramways people as well.

“We can help you,” said Alinder.

“H-h-h-h-h-h,” said the man.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho-how?”

So you’re a stutterer, poor bastard, thought Alinder. Is that why? Or is it the shock after the crash?

“We can help you by going through exactly what happened,” he said.

“Th-th-th-th…”

“Yes?”

“Th-th-th-the o-o-o-oth-oth-other,” said the driver.

“The other? You mean the other man?”

The driver nodded.

“The other man. Which other man?”

The driver jerked his head as if he were looking down at something on the floor.

“The man lying on the floor? Is that who you mean?”

The driver nodded. Alinder looked at the tape recorder, and the tape spinning around and around. All the nods and head shakes are duly recorded, he thought. All the st-st-st-st-stutters.

“Am I to interpret that as meaning the man distracted you while you were driving?”

They were preparing for a party. They had invited mainly recent parents from the prenatal group they used to attend, looking trim and fit after all those relaxation exercises. Angela had kept in touch with several of the girls, and he was surprised to discover he got on well with several of the men. Despite a considerable age difference.

“That’s because you are still so immature,” Angela said.

“And I’m so used to always being the youngest,” he retorted, opening another bottle of wine.

“Is that something worth striving for?”

“No, but that’s the way it’s always been.”

“Not anymore,” she said.

“Still.”

“Phone your mom,” she said. “You’re still the youngest in her family.”

“The youngest detective chief inspector in Sweden.”

“Is that still true?”

“Ask my mom!” he said, and the phone rang and they both guessed it was his mother calling direct from Nueva Andalucía: It was typical of her timing. He picked up the receiver, but it wasn’t her.

He recognized the voice, though.

“Long time no see, Erik.”

“Likewise, Steve.”

DCI Steve Macdonald had been his partner in a difficult case some years previously. Winter had been over in London, in the suburbs around Croydon where Macdonald’s homicide squad operated, and the pair had become friends. Long-distance friends, but still.

Macdonald had been in Gothenburg for the dramatic climax of the case. They were the same age, and Steve had a set of teenage twins.

“We’re coming over,” Steve Macdonald announced. “The kids want to see the land of the midnight sun.”

“More likely the land of the midday moon at this time of year,” Winter replied.

“Anyway.”

“When are you coming?”

“Let’s see, where are we now? Er, late November. They have a long holiday starting early in December, and so we thought: Why not? Otherwise it’ll never happen.”

“Good thinking. But that’s very soon.”

“Gothenburg’s almost commuting distance from London.”

“Mmm.”

“Do you think you could arrange a good hotel in the center of town? By ‘good’ I mean one that comes up to my modest standards. Not yours.”

“You must stay with us, of course,” Winter said.

“No, no. Beth’ll be coming as well, so there’ll be four of us.”

“You’ve been here before,” Winter reminded him, and pictured Steve, glass in hand, on the balcony one warm evening in May, very nearly falling over the railing to the ground twenty meters below. They’d been trying to relax after all the awful happenings of the previous weeks. “You know we have plenty of room.”

“What I saw was mainly the kitchen and the balcony, and to tell you the truth, I don’t remember many details.”

“It’s so big that my modesty prevents me from telling you just how big. And I don’t suppose you’re planning to stay for six months.”

“Of course we are.”

“That’s OK.”

“Three days.”

“That’s also OK.”

“Well…”

“You know our address,” Winter said. “We can sort out the practical details a couple of days before you arrive.”

“I shall be on holiday,” Macdonald said. “I don’t intend to be practical.”

“I was thinking of the beer and whiskey.”

“I’ll bring that with me. A thirty-year-old Dallas Dhu plus a Springbank that’s out of this world, I can promise you. Older than we are, as well.”

Macdonald grew up near Inverness on a farm, not far from the village of Dallas in Speyside.

“I think I’d better take vacation as well,” Winter said.

“How about that! The DCI’s getting more cooperative.”

“Or lazy.”

“In that case I’ll be happy to impose on you. How are Angela and Elsa?”

“Just fine.”

“Well, then-”

“See you later, alligator,” Winter said, then wondered why on earth he’d come out with such a corny expression. Maybe because he was feeling cheerful.

But there wouldn’t be a reunion in fact, no Dallas Dhu and no Springbank. Not this time. Before the end of November Steve Macdonald would phone to say that one of his twin daughters had had an attack of bronchitis that was threatening to develop into pneumonia, and they’d have to cancel their trip.

There were more people in the flat than he could remember ever having seen there before. Men and women and children. It was a good party. Nobody talked shop, and as far as Winter was concerned that was the main criterion for a successful occasion. He’d prepared two sides of lamb that he carved for the buffet, and nobody complained about the taste of the lamb nor that of the the oven-baked potatoes with herbs nor the salsa with roast chili served in order to warm the guests up.

Nor the cherry pies for dessert. The espresso. The calvados and grappa and the bottle of marc that more guests wanted to taste than he’d expected when he put it out.

It took him three tries before he finally managed to open his briefcase, but Bill was lying on top and hadn’t been damaged at all. Now Bill was hanging from his peg and he could almost hear his Rotty doing those funny voice imitations. He could hear him now! It was such fun!

The policeman had talked for ages, and he’d also started talking after a while, when the band around his throat had loosened and everything calmed down.

The girl laughed straight at him and he could see her holding her arms out and Bill swinging backward and forward. The film ended, and he rewound it and watched it again. They’d had so much fun. He watched her putting some candy into her mouth. He saw his own right hand touching her, then pulling back quickly, quickly. Like stroking down.

You’re so soft, Uncle had said. You’re so soft to touch.

He’d been sitting on the train. A lady had asked him where he was going. He’d laughed.

Mom!

Mom!

She’d been waiting for him at the station, and the town was very big. Where he lived with his dad wasn’t a town at all, but this one was big. Enormous.

Mom!

My little boy, Mom had said.

You can call this man Uncle, she’d said.

Uncle had taken him by the hand, and touched his head.

My little boy, Uncle had said.

Uncle lives here with me, Mom had said.

Or you with me, Uncle had said, and they’d laughed, and he laughed as well.

They’d had a marvelous dinner.

This is where you’ll sleep, Mom had said.

The next morning she’d gone to work in town, a long, long way away.

Do you want to go for a little walk? Uncle had asked.

They’d gone for an enormous walk in one direction, and just as far back again.

I can feel that you’re cold, Uncle had said when they got back home. Come here, my boy, and I’ll warm you up. You’re so soft. You’re so soft to touch.