Never End

18

A male witness had said he'd heard screams coming from the park. It had been about 2:00 a.m., or closer to 2:30. Half an hour to an hour after Beatrice had last been seen, entering the park.

Winter read through the Wägner case notes, the same thing over and over again. Winter read the witness's account, but nothing happened in that story, nothing emerged from it, he could see no subtext; he read it all again and tried to find the secret hidden underneath, but couldn't see it.

Something had happened, though.

Beatrice's final hours. He'd started interviewing some of the old witnesses again, her old friends. It was so long ago. They tried to remember, just as he was doing now. They'd gotten older, would be twenty-five soon. He'd spoken to four who'd been part of the group that last night. Two of them had kids now. Finished studying. A new life. One could still have passed for nineteen. One might pass for thirty. Where would Beatrice have been on that scale? What would she have looked like? I miss her, one of the women had said. I really miss her.

Winter compared what they'd said now with what they'd said before.

There was one thing that didn't match, not quite.

A blurred memory, perhaps, ravaged by time. But perhaps not.

That last night? Surely there's nothing else to add? He'd looked hard at Winter. Klas, an old friend of Beatrice's. Finished his studies. Does he realize he's a survivor? Does he think about it? Winter had felt for his packet of cigarillos in his breast pocket, a reflex action. He'd felt reflex pain when he groped for the packet: a tumor attached to his chest that had been cut away. He'd been having a sore throat. Felt worse since he'd stopped smoking. A cold spreading all over his body, waiting. Set free when the nicotine no longer protected him. Who had protected Beatrice? That last night. There was something that didn't add up. Klas remembered it all differently now. Or they'd asked the questions differently then. Beatrice hadn't been with the rest of them for the whole evening. Yes, they'd met up. But… sort of, afterward. Most of them had been out for a meal, but she'd showed up later and then she left again, and it had been a few hours before the rest of them went their different ways home.

Hang on. Winter thought back to what the case notes said. Hadn't they asked what had happened during the whole evening?

"Weren't you all together for the whole evening?"

"Not as I remember, no."

"What was she doing when she was not with you, then?"

"Her own thing, I suppose."

"What was her own thing?"

"I dunno."

"Oh, come on!"

"I don't know."

"What's the matter with you? Can't you see this is important?"

"Calm down, Inspector."

"What was her own thing?"

"There was some place she used to go to, I think."

"What place?"

"Somebody said something about her going to some place or other. A club. I must have said that when… when it happened. When she was murdered."

"No."

"I guess I didn't know for sure. She'd never said anything about it to me personally."

"And?"

"I wasn't sure, as I said. I probably didn't say anything because I didn't know for sure."

Winter looked hard at him.

"Who did know?"

"Nobody."

"But somebody said something."

"I don't know who it was. That's the truth. The truth!"

"You deserve a good beating."

Winter had blurted that out because he felt completely… unprotected and on edge. The nicotine that used to act as an inner protection, a barrier, had gone. There were other brands. A good man doesn't become less good because he changes his habits.

Klas had stared at him.

"I what?"

"I'm sorry. But this is something you ought to have said earlier."

"But it's just a little thing. And anyway, it's your job to… map out what she did."

That's the problem. There are gaps. Winter returned to the text in front of him. The male witness. But before starting to read again he stood up and paced up and down the room for a while, trying to subdue his craving for the poison. He turned on the kettle, made himself a cup of coffee, then sat down again.

The witness had heard screams. Winter read through the text for the umpteenth time. He'd been scared and rushed to get help. He'd met a couple about thirty-five years old, wearing white clothes. The couple had just walked through the park and, the woman thought, maybe seen somebody. According to the witness.

The police had never talked to that couple because they hadn't come forward.

He thought about that again. Why had they not come forward?

A man and a boy had been packing a car next to the park that night, perhaps at the very time that it happened. They had never been tracked down. Why had they not come forward either?

Winter drove to Lunden with his window down. He passed Halders's house, but that wasn't where he was going. Halders wasn't there. Halders was taking things a day at a time, an hour at a time. There was a hedge outside the house, about one and a half meters high. Winter could hear a dog barking.

He turned right about three blocks after Halders's house and stopped outside another house with another hedge. There was a brand-new BMW parked in the street outside. The car gleamed in the sun. Winter could feel the sweat under his shirt collar and down his back. He went in through the open gate and turned left, continued down a sloping flagstone path around the house and into the back garden, where the man he always referred to as "the gangster" was reclining on a lounger with a beer in his hand. The sun glittered on the surface of the swimming pool. The gangster watched him approach.

"You're wearing too many clothes," he said, raising his beer by way of greeting.

"I'm at work."

"I'm on vacation myself."

"On vacation from what?"

"Sit down, Erik."

Winter sat on the chair next to him.

"Would you like a beer?"

"Yes."

Benny Vennerhag got up and disappeared into the house through the patio door and returned with a bottle of beer that felt cold in Winter's hand as he accepted it.

Vennerhag sat down again. Swimming trunks didn't suit him. He was an old acquaintance, if you could call it that. He'd been married to Winter's sister, Lotta, at one time. For a very short time.

What the hell had she seen in him?

"I heard about your murders."

"They're not mine," said Winter, taking a swig of beer.

"Not mine either. But I told you that when you called."

"What about the other thing?"

"Illegal clubs? Not my field."

"Isn't it strange how nothing I ever ask you about is your field, Benny?"

"What's strange about that?"

"How do you make ends meet when nothing is your field?"

"That's a business secret."

"We know quite a bit about your secrets, Benny."

"And nevertheless, here I am in my trunks taking it easy," said Vennerhag, gesturing toward the pool and the mosaic tiles and the fresh green lawn.

Winter took off his shirt and pants.

"Here we go again," said Vennerhag, as Winter dove into the pool. It wasn't the first time he'd been swimming there.

Vennerhag stood up when Winter surfaced, walked to the side of the pool, and handed over the bottle of beer. Water ran down Winter's face from his hair, which was plastered flat against his scalp.

"Illegal clubs are sensitive things," Vennerhag said.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not the type to spill the beans about that kind of thing. I think it's a legitimate activity that satisfies the needs of nice ordinary people."

"Bullshit."

"It would do you good to go to one of those places every now and then, Erik."

"What would do me good right now is a Corps," said Winter, squinting up at the sun.

"Shall I get you one from your shirt pocket?"

"There aren't any there. I quit."

"That was rash of you."

"They don't import them anymore," Winter said.

"There are other brands."

"So I'm told."

"Think about what your job entails." Vennerhag made as if to protect himself. "You don't want to be turning violent again and trying to strangle somebody or anything like that."

It wouldn't have been the first time.

Winter heaved himself up onto the side of the pool.

"A place that was in business five years ago."

"Hmm."

"At least five years ago."

"Why an illegal club? Have you checked out the rest of the pleasure places in town? The legal ones?"

"We are."

"Did you bring the photos you were going on about?"

"Yes."

"Can I see them?"

"All in good time."

"Oh, yes?"

"What have you got to say, Benny?"

"About unlicensed clubs five years ago?"

"That are still in business."

"I don't think there are any."

"Think? Or know?"

"Think. I think," Vennerhag said, with a little laugh. He turned to look at Winter. "I know what this is all about. I want to help."

"Good for you, Benny."

"Murder isn't my field, you know."

"I know."

"Neither is rape."

"Glad to hear it."

"If we can put that bastard behind bars, I'll be the first to start clapping."

"We'll be the ones to put him behind bars. You're not involved in that."

"I did say 'we.' "

"I'll go and get the pictures," said Winter.

"Nice wall," said Vennerhag.

Winter nodded.

"The girls look nice. This is terrible." He looked at Winter. "Fucking terrible."

Winter nodded again.

"I've never seen this place before," said Vennerhag. "It's unusual to have exposed brickwork like that indoors."

"Find out what your business contacts have to say."

"I'll need these photos for that."

"You have them in your hand."

"Are these my copies, then?"

"Yes."

"Is that allowed?"

"Who cares?"

"OK," said Vennerhag, putting the photographs down on the grass.

"How long will you need?" Winter asked.

"No idea. But if this place is in town, somebody should recognize it."

"Good."

"That wall is pretty eye-catching."

Winter nodded.

Vennerhag stood up and went back to his lounger. Winter went back to his chair as well, draining the last of his beer on the way.

"Another?"

Winter shook his head.

"A cigarillo?" asked Vennerhag, lighting a Mercator and grinning through the smoke.

Winter shook his head. Then leaned forward, took hold of the pack in Vennerhag's hand, and picked up the lighter from the ground next to Vennerhag's big, pale left foot.

"You're shaking," said Vennerhag as Winter lit the cigarillo.

He inhaled and savored it.

"You're just as bad as us," said Vennerhag.

"You mean we. Not us."

"Oh, it's we now is it? It was different a minute ago."

Winter said nothing, simply inhaled and made the most of the effects of the poison. Just this one, to remind me of how awful it is to be addicted.

Vennerhag watched him.

"Have the activities of unlicensed clubs changed over the last few years?" Winter asked after a while.

"Dunno. Not my field, like I said."

Winter took another puff, and watched the smoke climb up toward the blue sky. Not a cloud in sight, not a single one. The sun was more white than yellow. Later it would turn orange, along with the sky. That meant that the sun would rise again tomorrow and the sky would be blue again and there wouldn't be a cloud in sight.

"What do you mean by that, anyway?" said Vennerhag, turning to look at Winter again.

"Just something that crossed my mind. If they've taken over from the sex clubs, for instance."

"Well, that's even further from my-"

"Not your field. Yes, I know."

"Could be, though."

"Hmm."

Vennerhag puffed at his Mercator.

"Now that you mention it, it occurs to me that there may have been a few places with… er… that sort of menu over the last few years."

"Menu? You mean sex?"

"I mean adult entertainment."

"I see."

"A few places, mebbe. I'll have to check."

"I'll call you this afternoon."

"Tonight. Make it tonight."

Vennerhag reached for the photographs again and took another look, one at a time.

"So, you think this is some little club, operating on the sly, is that it?"

"I think that's it, yes."

"In that case, what were these little girls doing there?"

"Working."

"Working? Your imagination is worse than mine, Erik."

"Imagination's not your field, Benny."

"You're a pessimistic bastard." He looked again at the photographs, then at Winter. "As for me, I think the best of everybody."

"Maybe those girls did as well," said Winter, nodding at the photographs in Vennerhag's right hand.

"And that's why they were working at an illegal club with extra-illegal activities in the form of… extra services."

"I don't know."

"You're on the wrong track."

"Then help me get on the right one," said Winter, standing up and putting his shirt back on.