Frozen Tracks

7

HE WAS AT KAPELLPLATSEN, STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE square. The high-rise buildings concealed the sun that would remain up in the northern sky for a bit longer.

Halders turned his head, and felt how stiff it was. He couldn’t swivel his head around anymore. The blow to the vertebrae at the back of his neck had left behind this physical reminder. He could just about manage to turn his head to the right, to the left was worse. He’d had to learn to turn his body instead.

Other memories were worse. He had once run all the way across this very square with Margareta when they were very young and very hard up and very happy. The number 7 streetcar had already left and he had stood in the way and nearly been run over. But it had stopped. And Margareta had nearly died laughing once she’d gotten over the shock. And now she really had died, not just nearly died-hit by a drunk driver, and it was debatable whether or not he’d gotten over the shock, or ever would. God only knows. They’d been divorced when it happened, but that didn’t mean a thing. Their children were still there, as a reminder of everything that life stood for. That’s the way it was. If there was a meaning at all, that was it. Magda’s face when lit up by the sun at the breakfast table. The spontaneous joy in the little girl’s eyes that turned into diamonds in that flash of light. The feeling inside him. At that moment. Happiness, just for one second.

Still, despite everything he was on the way back to some kind of normality. The banter that morning had been a positive sign. He was glad about that. Therapy? Could be.

He was glad that Aneta had caught on, and played along.

Maybe the two of them were going somewhere together. No, not maybe. We are going somewhere together. Very slowly, very carefully.

He turned around, slowly, carefully. The student had come up the steps from Karl Gustavsgatan. Maybe he was tired. Certainly a bit drunk. Beer. Aryan Kaite, as black as could be, like Aneta; and what a name! Aryan. Perhaps a plea from his parents, it had struck Halders when he talked to the kid after he’d come around. An Aryan black man. Weren’t they the first humans? Africans?

This one was studying medicine.

A horrible wound to the head. Could have killed him. The same went for the others. He thought about that as he stood by the steps looking down at the paving stones sparkling in the sunlight. All of them could have been killed, but nobody had died. Why? Was it a coincidence, a stroke of luck? Was that the intention? Were they meant to survive?

This is where the blow had been delivered, in the square, Kapellplatsen. Then darkness.

Linnéplatsen was surrounded by tall buildings that were new but meant to look old, or at least in time blend in with the century-old patrician mansions.

Jens Book had been clubbed down outside Marilyn’s, the video store. Halders was standing there now. There were five film posters in the windows, and all of them depicted people brandishing guns or other weapons.

Die Fast! Die Hard III! Die and Let Die! Die!

But not this time either. Jens Book was the first victim. Studying journalism. The Aryan, Kaite, was the second. Jakob Stillman the third. In the same department as Bertil’s daughter, Halders remembered, and moved to one side to avoid a cyclist who came racing down from Sveaplan. Gustav Smedsberg was the fourth, the yokel studying at the university of technology, Chalmers. Branding iron. Halders smiled. Branding iron my ass.

Book was the one with the worst injuries, if it’s possible to grade them like that. The blow had affected nerves and other things, paralyzing the kid on his right side, and it was not clear if he would recover mobility. Maybe he wasn’t as lucky as I was, Halders thought as he backed out of the way of a cyclist evidently determined to ride straight ahead. Halders very nearly fell through the door of the video store.

He thought about the blows again. First the one he’d received. Then the ones that had injured the young men.

It had all happened so quickly. Wham, no warning. Nobody noticed anything in advance. No footsteps. Just wham. No chance of defense, of protecting themselves.

No footsteps, he thought again.

He watched the cyclist ignoring a red light and riding straight over the crossroads, displaying a splendid contempt for death. Die? Pfuh!

The cyclist.

Have we asked about a possible cyclist? Have we thought about that?

He had interviewed the Aryan himself, but there had been no mention of a bicycle.

Had the attacker been riding a bike?

Halders stared down at the pavement, as if there might still be some visible sign of bicycle tracks.

Lars Bergenhem had some news before lunch. Winter was smoking a Corps. The window overlooking the river was open a couple of centimeters, letting in air he thought smelled more distinctly than his cigarillo smoke did. The Panasonic on the floor was playing

Lush Life. Only Coltrane today, and in recent weeks. Winter had unfastened two buttons of his Zegna jacket. Anybody coming into his office now who didn’t know any better would think he wasn’t working. Bergenhem came in, saying:

“There was no newspaper delivery boy there.”

Winter stood up, put his cigarillo down on the ashtray, turned down the music, and closed the window.

“But the kid saw him,” he said as he was doing this. “Smedsberg.”

“He says he saw somebody with newspapers,” said Bergenhem, “but it wasn’t a newspaper delivery boy.”

Winter nodded and waited.

“I checked with Göteborgs Posten delivery office and on that particular morning, the day before yesterday, their usual employee for that round called in sick just before it was time to start delivering, and it took them at least three hours before they could find a replacement. So that would have been at least two hours after Smedsberg was attacked.”

“He could have been there anyway,” Winter said.

“Eh?”

“He could have called in sick but showed up anyway,” Winter said again. “He might have started to feel better.”

“She,” said Bergenhem. “It’s a she.”

“A she?”

“I’ve spoken to her. There’s no doubt. She has an awful cold, and a husband and three children who were all at home that morning and give her an alibi.”

“But people received their morning papers?”

“No. Not until her replacement showed up. According to GP, in any case.”

“Have you checked with the subscribers?”

“I haven’t had time yet. But the girl at GP says they had lots of complaints that morning. As usual, according to her.”

“But Smedsberg says he saw somebody carrying newspapers,” Winter said.

“Did he really say that he’d seen the actual newspapers?” Bergenhem wondered.

Winter sorted through the pile of papers in one of the baskets on his desk and read the report on the interviews Ringmar had submitted.

Ringmar had asked: How do you know it was a newspaper boy?

Because he was carrying a bundle of newspapers and went into one of the buildings, and then I saw him come out again and go into the next one, Smedsberg had replied.

Was there a cart outside with more newspapers? Ringmar had asked.

Good, Winter thought. A good question.

No. I didn’t see a cart. There could… No, I didn’t see one. But he was definitely carrying newspapers, that was obvious, Smedsberg had answered.

“Yes,” said Winter, looking at Bergenhem. “He said that this person was carrying newspapers and went in and out of apartment buildings in Gibraltargatan.”

“OK.”

“But there was no cart-don’t they usually have one?” Winter said.

“I’ll check,” said Bergenhem.

“Check who the replacement was as well.”

“Of course.”

Winter lit his cigarillo again and exhaled smoke.

“So, we might have a fake newspaper boy here, hanging around the area at the time of the attack,” he said.

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting. The question is: Is it our man? And if it isn’t-what was he doing there?”

“A mental case?” Bergenhem suggested.

“A mental case pretending to be a newspaper boy? Well, why not?”

“A mild form.”

“But if he is our man, surely he must have planned it. A bundle of newspapers etcetera. On the spot at that particular time.”

Bergenhem nodded.

“Did he know that Smedsberg would go that way? Or did he know that somebody or other would come by? That students often stagger over Mossen in the early hours? In which case it could have been anybody?”

“Why go to the trouble of lugging newspapers around?” Bergenhem said. “Wouldn’t it have been enough simply to hide?”

“Unless he was using that disguise or whatever we should call it, that role, to establish some kind of security,” Winter said. “Melt into the background, create an atmosphere of normality. What could be more normal at that hour than a hardworking newspaper boy?”

“Maybe he even made contact,” Bergenhem said.

Winter drew on his cigarillo again and watched it growing murkier outside. The sun had wandered off again.

“That had occurred to me too,” he said, looking at Bergenhem.

“Can’t I ever have a thought of my own?” Bergenhem wondered.

“Well, you said it first,” said Winter with a smile.

Bergenhem sat down and leaned forward.

“Maybe they spoke to each other. It’s pretty harmless to exchange a few words with a newspaper boy.”

Winter nodded, and waited.

“Maybe they did make some sort of contact.”

“Why didn’t Smedsberg say anything about that?” Winter asked.

“Why do you think?”

“Well, it’s possible. Everything’s possible. They exchanged a few words. The guy continued on his way. The newspaper boy went on delivering.”

“Come on, Erik. That can’t be what happened. Smedsberg would have told us about it if it was.”

“Give me another theory, then.”

“I don’t know. But if they made contact and exchanged more than a few words, Smedsberg must be concealing something from us.”

“What would he be concealing from us if that’s the case?”

“Well…”

“Does he want to hide the fact that he spoke to a stranger? No. He’s an adult, and we are not his parents. Does he want to hide the fact that he was a bit drunk and doesn’t want us to remind him and others of that fact? No.”

“No.” Bergenhem repeated Winter’s word, knowing where he was heading.

“If this hypothetical reasoning leads us to wonder what he wanted to hide, it might have to do with his orientation,” Winter said.

“Yes,” Bergenhem agreed.

“So what is he trying to hide from us?” Winter inhaled again and looked at Bergenhem.

“That he’s gay,” said Bergenhem. “He made some kind of contact, this fake newspaper boy responded positively, maybe they were heading for Smedsberg’s dorm, and all hell broke loose on the way there.”

“But we’re living in the twentieth century in an enlightened society,” Winter said. “Or in the twenty-first, actually. And why would a young man want to conceal his orientation to the extent of shielding a person who tried to murder him?”

Bergenhem shrugged.

“Well, why would he?” asked Winter again.

“We’ll have to ask him,” said Bergenhem.

“We will. Why not? It would explain a lot.”

“One other thing,” Bergenhem said.

“Yes?”

“It’s connected.” Bergenhem looked at Winter. “Where are the newspapers?”

“Yes.”

“He was carrying a bundle of papers, but not a single subscriber received one and we haven’t found any.”

“We haven’t looked,” Winter said. “We’ve assumed that the papers were delivered.”

“That’s true, of course.”

“They might be around there somewhere. A pile of them. It would be useful if we could find them, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“But when we spoke to the newspaper delivery people, we’d taken Smedsberg’s word for it that he’d seen a newspaper boy at that particular time.” Winter scratched his nose. “Why do we believe that if we have reservations about other parts of his story?”

“So we need to find other witnesses who saw a fake newspaper boy at that place and at that time,” said Bergenhem.

“Yes, and we’ve already started on that.”

Bergenhem stroked his hand across his forehead, from left to right. His four-year-old daughter had already acquired the same habit.

“This line of reasoning could shed new light on the other attacks,” he said.

“Or cast a shadow over them,” Winter said. “Maybe we should backpedal, not get ahead of ourselves.”

Pedal, he thought the moment he’d said it. A bicycle. Perhaps the attacker had ridden up on a bike. That would explain the speed, the surprise. A silent bike. Soft tires.

“But just think,” Bergenhem continued. “Four attacks, no witnesses of the actual violence, no trace of the attacker. The victims didn’t see or hear anything, or not much at least.”

“Go on,” Winter said.

“Well, maybe they all made contact with the person who clubbed them down.”

“How? Did he pose as a newspaper boy every time?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he posed as something else, somebody else, so as not to scare them.”

“Yes.”

“Have we checked this newspaper boy business in connection with the other cases?” Bergenhem asked.

“No. We haven’t gotten that far yet,” said Winter.

“It would be worth following up,” Bergenhem said. “We haven’t asked the people living in the areas concerned about newspapers.”

Yes, Winter thought. You don’t get answers to unasked questions.

“And then,” Bergenhem said, “there’s the business of the other victims’ sexual orientation.”

“All gay?”

Bergenhem made a gesture: Could-be-a-possibility-but-how-do-I-know.

“Young gays who spotted an interesting possibility and paid dearly for it?” asked Winter.

“Could be,” Bergenhem said.

“So they fell victim to a gay basher? Or several? A homophobe?”

“It’s possible,” said Bergenhem. “And I think there’s just one attacker.”

“And what’s the orientation of the culprit?” Winter asked.

“He’s not gay himself,” Bergenhem replied.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” said Bergenhem. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Are gays nonviolent?”

“Gay bashers aren’t homosexual, are they?” said Bergenhem. “Is there such a thing as a gay gay basher?”

Winter didn’t respond.

“This attacker isn’t gay,” said Bergenhem. “I know we can’t rule anything out, but I already have a very strong feeling that it isn’t the case here.”

Winter waited for Bergenhem to say more.

“But it’s too early to think anything about anything,” Bergenhem said.

“Not at all,” said Winter. “This is the way we make progress. Talking it over. Dialogue. We have just talked ourselves into a possible motive.”

“And that is?”

“Hatred,” said Winter.

Bergenhem nodded.

“Let’s assume for the moment that these four young men don’t know one another,” said Winter. “They have no common background, nothing like that. But they are linked by their sexual orientation.”

“And the attacker hates gays,” said Bergenhem.

Winter nodded.

“But how did he know that his victims were gay? How could he be so sure?”

“He didn’t need to wait long,” said Winter. “Only long enough to be invited to go home with them.”

“I don’t know…”

“You were the one who started this line of reasoning,” Winter said.

“Was I?”

“Yes.”

“OK. But maybe the attacker knew all four of them.”

“How could he?”

“It could be that he has the same predilections. Maybe they knew each other from some club. The Let’s All Be Gay Club, I don’t know. A pub. Confidential contacts. In any case, it developed into a drama of passion.”

“With quite a lot of people involved,” Winter said.

“There could still be more,” said Bergenhem.

Winter scratched his nose again. It was possible that they were on entirely the wrong track. Then again, they might have made progress. But this was just a conversation, just words. Words were still the most important tools in existence, but everything they’d been talking about now needed to be followed up with questions and more questions and actions and visits to streets and staircases and new interviews and telephone interviews and reading after reading after reading after run-through after run-through.

“There’s another one as well,” said Winter, “and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.”

“What’s that?”

“If there really was a fake newspaper boy there, if we can get Smedsberg’s claim corroborated by others, how could this person have known that he would be able to operate that morning undisturbed?”

Bergenhem nodded.

“He must have known the real one was indisposed. Otherwise the real one and the fake one might have bumped into each other. But she didn’t show up. How could he have known that?”