Never End

22

Winter could see the faint glow on the other side of the park as he drove down the hill. The light was like a pale mist under a clearer, purer sky. The forerunner of a new day. It would be hot again. It was already seventy-two degrees, even though it was, strictly speaking, still nighttime.

The girl would never experience the new day. Winter had seen strangled corpses before. She was naked from the waist down. His colleagues were rooting around the scene. The pathologist was bent over the girl like an angel of death. It wasn't Pia Froberg. Winter remembered that she was on vacation. This was a man, and he looked big and clumsy in his shorts and baseball cap. Or was he made to look that way because the girl lying in front of him was so small and slim?

Like a dead sparrow by the side of the road.

Winter walked back. Her bicycle was lying in the middle of the bike path. The handlebars were pointing inward. It looked almost as if one of the wheels was still spinning. A uniformed policeman was standing beside the bicycle, and a patrol car was parked behind him. The lights were spinning around on the car roof. The girl's face was lit up, plunged into darkness, lit up. Winter preferred the darkness.

He approached the police officer, whom he didn't recognize. A young kid. Only a couple of years older than the girl, at most. Hardly a policeman. A police boy.

"I hear you were first on the scene."

"Yes, it was us who… found her."

Winter nodded.

"What's your name?"

"Peter. Peter Larsson."

"How did you find her?"

"The bike," said the young constable. "We were driving by, and noticed it."

"Do you drive by here every night, Peter?"

"More or less."

Winter sized up the road as far as the bend. After the bend the road continued round a pond. On the other side of the pond was a little clump of trees, and beyond that another pond, and on the other side of that pond some bushes, a few trees, a big rock. A murder scene twice over.

Not a third time on this occasion. But not far off: four hundred meters, as the crow flies. He thought about the girl. A dead sparrow.

"You didn't see anybody else?"

"Not a soul."

"How did you find the girl?"

"We saw the bike, as I said, and stopped. I got out to investigate. It was obvious somebody had been walking on the side of the road. I didn't have to look very hard to find her. I mean, you've seen for yourself."

"Yes."

"We've all had our eyes peeled, after what's happened recently."

"Well done, Peter."

The constable looked at Winter, then into the bushes and trees.

"Is it the same old story?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was he at it again?"

"No idea," said Winter, going back to take another look at the girl.

"Do you think it's rape?" asked Ringmar, who'd arrived only minutes after Winter.

The pathologist shrugged.

"He asked you a question," Winter said.

"Probably," said the man, rising to his feet. The peak of his cap was pointing to the sky. That doesn't fit in here, Winter thought. Doesn't fit in anywhere. The doctor looked at Winter. "OK, I know what you're getting at. Could be. I'll be as quick as I can."

"We'll have to bring in the coroner's office in Linkoping as well," Ringmar said. "Where's Beier, by the way?"

"In New York."

" New York?!"

"A conference. Didn't you know?"

" New York," said Ringmar again. "It must be even hotter there than here."

"I'll get her out of here now," the pathologist said.

"She's called Anne Nöjd," Winter said. "She has a name."

Her handbag had been lying there. She had a name and an address. She lived on the west side. Winter had an uncomfortable feeling as he drove through the tunnel and out onto the motorway. All the victims lived on the west side.

It seemed lighter there, even if the sun was rising behind them. There was a smell of the sea through the wide open window. They were driving along narrow streets through old coastal communities.

He felt like he was in Lilliput. There was a number over the verandah.

"That must be it," Ringmar said.

There was a hedge all the way around. Boats were anchored only fifty meters away. The smell of the sea was even stronger now. Winter listened to the sound of the waves. He knew there were rocks just behind the promontory that lots of kids used as a base for swimming. If he went out onto it he'd be able to see the rocks. Jeanette had gone swimming there. And Beatrice, in another age, the previous century. Angelika, too. Had Anne Nöjd sunbathed and swam there as well? Was that significant?

The house was in darkness.

She was twenty. This was where she had lived. That was all he knew. The house looked smaller as they drew closer to it. It ought to be the other way around. Winter bent down and peered through the window. He could make out dark silhouettes of objects. Ringmar knocked on the door. And again, harder this time. No response.

Ringmar produced a bunch of keys that they had taken from the girl's handbag. There were four keys. Two seemed similar and looked like they might fit the lock. The second one opened it. Ringmar shouted into the house. He shouted again, and looked at Winter. Winter nodded. He could hear the first seagull of the morning as they entered the house.

It was lighter inside than they'd expected from what they'd seen through the window. They were in a hall, then turned left into a kitchen that couldn't be any bigger than six square meters. There was a newspaper on the table, and a cup beside it. There was a half-full glass of wine, glistening in the morning sunlight that was growing stronger by the minute now. Winter bent over the table and watched the sea shifting in the sunlight, changing in swell and color.

It must be great sitting here, watching the morning reflected in the water.

Ringmar shouted from another room. Winter went back into the hall and then into a room off to the left that wasn't much more than a closet with a little table and a chair. The next room was a bedroom with a bed, a bedside table, and a chair. The floor was wood, pine, polished. There was a smell of flowers. Ringmar spoke again. Winter continued into the living room. That was the whole house. The living room was a maximum of eight square meters and the windows looked out onto the road, where he could see the tires of his own car. There was a wood-framed sofa and an attractive-looking carpet in colors he couldn't yet make out. In another hour, perhaps, but not yet. There were pictures of various sizes hanging from the walls. In the dawn light the pictures looked like holes. Ringmar was standing by a table, and on the table was a telephone with an answering machine. The red light was blinking. Ringmar looked at Winter, eyebrows raised. The light blinked.

They hadn't found a mobile phone in the girl's handbag. Winter was sure that Anne Nöjd must have had a mobile. All young people had a mobile phone. Everybody did. They would have to search around the place where the body had been found. They'd also have to check if she'd had a contract.

The light was blinking. A gull called outside the window. Winter nodded, and Ringmar pressed gingerly on the button with his gloved finger. A shrill peep. Static. A voice.

"Andy here. I got held up. You know how it is. Call me when you get home. Ciao, baby."

The static again. Peep.

Nothing.

Something.

Ringmar leaned forward to hear better. Winter took a step closer.

They could hear her voice now. A scream. Another one. A… grunting, or… a weird noise, a scratching, like something brushing against branches, bushes…

"What the hell…?" Ringmar said.

"Shush," Winter said. "It's her."

Ringmar's face was stony. His eyes flitted from Winter to the answering machine, from the answering machine to Winter.

"How on earth…?"

Winter held up his hand. He could feel it shaking.

We're listening to a murder.

"NNNAAAAIEIERRYYYYW."

Words they couldn't quite make out. Sounds. Was this what Jeanette had meant when she talked about the noise her attacker had made?

He stared at the answering machine as if it were alive, a black beast, potentially lethal.

They listened to the screams, the yells, the grunts, the roars, the repeated words "naaieieier…" quietly the first two times, then louder, "NNAAAIEIERRYYY!"

Sudden silence. Winter checked his watch. Not many minutes had passed but… the message should have been cut off earlier. They waited but there was nothing else. There was a series of clicks from the answering machine and the tape rewound to the beginning. Ringmar pressed play again.

"Andy here…"

They listened once more. Ringmar made notes.

Silence.

"We need to find this Andy," Winter said.

A gull screamed again. The sun had climbed over the hill to the west now, tumbled down the other side, and scrambled as far as the house. The answering machine was suddenly lit up by the sunlight.

Halders put on another record. Twenty more minutes and it would be light. Aneta Djanali could smell the whiskey on his breath when he came back and sat on the sofa beside her.

The music started. Some tentative piano chords. Then Bob Dylan's voice singing "Blind Willie McTell."

Halders sang along for a few lines, then mumbled something.

"What did you say, Fredrik?"

"No one can sing the blues like Bob Dylan."

She didn't answer.

Halders started singing again.

"Maybe you should go to bed now, Fredrik."

He leaned forward, picked up his glass, and drank.

"Am 1 behaving myself, do you think?"

"You look tired."

"Tired? Huh!"

"Don't drink any more now."

"That's up to me. Maybe I need it."

"Tell me that tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? You mean you're staying?"

She stood up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a glass of water. There were streaks of the new day in the sky through the patio door.

Dylan and Halders continued their rendition.

"You have to take the children to school tomorrow."

"You don't need to remind me of that."

"We're on duty at eight."

"I said you didn't need to remind me about… about…"

The music stopped, Halders stood up and put the track on again. Then he turned to Aneta.

He sang: "There's no one that sings the blues like Blind Fredrik McTell."

Then he fell over the end of the sofa and ended up with his head almost on the floor.

"Fredrik?!"

Djanali rushed over to him and bent down. Halders's eyes were still open.

"Fredrik?"

He mumbled something and shook his head. He scrambled to his feet.

"I'm… I'm not all that drunk."

He started crying. Aneta Djanali hugged him. She felt his shoulders shaking. His neck was as tense as a steel cable. He wrenched himself free, stood up, then sat down again.

"This is all going to shit, Aneta."

She sat down.

"Have you really allowed yourself to grieve, Fredrik?"

He stared at her like a man who didn't know what she was talking about. Or didn't want to know, it seemed to her.

"This is all about you, Fredrik. Only you. And your children. You can't imagine. It's dangerous. You've just got to be yourself, and let yourself feel what you feel. Really feel. Do you follow me? Feel… and let it show."

Forensics had the answering machine. Winter had a copy on tape. He listened to the beginning. Who was Andy? They could find out what number he'd called from, but a mobile was… mobile. It moved together with whoever was using it. He could have made the call from anywhere.

Anne Nöjd had evidently lived alone. The SOC team was over there now. The forensics boys were always crawling over wherever you looked. They'd found some names: parents, or other relatives. Winter had made a few unpleasant telephone calls. Her mother. That was just a couple of minutes ago.

Now his own mobile rang. It was nearly 5:00 a.m.

"I was wondering," Angela said.

"I haven't had time to call."

"Come home when you can and I'll make caffe latte. Give me an hour and I'll go to the baker's and get some poppy seed rolls to have with it."

"I'll try to get back for that. And stay for a while at least."

His desk phone rang. He said good-bye to Angela, then took the other call. It was one of the forensics officers from the house at Längedrag.

"We have a young man here named Andy who was looking for the girl."

"Where is he?"

"He's here, standing next to me now."

"Let me speak to him."

Winter heard a different voice. It sounded young, scared. "What's going on?"

Winter said who he was.

"Can you come and see me now, right away?"

"What's happened to… to Anne?"

"If you get yourself into the car that's waiting where you are and come over here to me now, I'll fill you in on everything."

"What's happened to Anne?!"

Winter hesitated.

"She was murdered last night. That's why it's so incredibly important that you get yourself here as quickly as possible, Andy. We need your help."

He heard a yell, or a scream. Static. It sounded as if the mobile had been thrown high into the air.

"Hello? Hello?"

Winter heard the forensics officer's voice again. "We'll bring him in."