Never End

33

It was Aneta Djanali who picked up Hannes and Magda from school. Margareta's mother was in town to help Halders look after the children, but now they were parentless for the time being. Djanali thought about that word: parentless.

"How long do you think it will take?" Grandma had asked when they got in touch, with traces of hope in her voice.

How should she reply to that?

Djanali felt dizzy as the children came toward her, as if everything was happening somewhere else, as if she were seeing everything through a filter. As if a train were moving through the landscape, and she was sitting in it, looking out.

"Where's Daddy?" asked Hannes.

How should she reply to that?

"He's… on a mission," she said.

"When's he coming back, then?"

"We're not sure. That's why I'm here to get you and Magda."

The boy and his sister seemed satisfied with that. They all clambered into the patrol car. I don't want to drive them myself, Djanali had told Winter.

They got out when the car pulled up outside Halders's house. She went in with the children and checked the time. Their grandma would arrive in two hours.

"Are you hungry?" she asked them.

She took some hamburgers and rolls from the freezer, and Magda showed her where the ketchup was kept, pointing with a tiny index finger. On the next shelf down was an onion and a head of lettuce starting to turn brown at the edges.

She fried the gray meat until it turned brown, and prepared the hamburgers. No onion for Magda.

"Are you from Africat?" asked Hannes, speaking with his mouth full.

"Africa," said his sister, looking somewhat embarrassed. "It's called Africa."

"My mom and dad come from a country in Africa called Burkina Faso," Djanali said. "It used to be called Upper Volta."

"It's on top of Lower Volta!" said Magda, giggling.

Her brother gave her a nudge. Djanali felt the nudge herself. Fredrik, Fredrik, please come in through that door and say something idiotic about Ougadougou. Anything at all, at any time. We'll get married a second later. Buy a house in a mixed-race area. Live here. Move to Upper Volta. Commute to Ougadougou. Come in through that door. Call me on your mobile, you big darling idiot.

"What's it like?" Hannes asked.

"In Burkina Faso? There's a lot of sand." She looked at her untouched hamburger that was starting to go dry on her plate. "I've only been there once, ten years ago."

"Why not more often?"

"Well… I was born here. Here in Gothenburg. I'm Swedish."

"Are there any lions?" asked Magda.

"Not that many. There are more camels than lions."

"Is it a desert?"

"A lot of it is desert."

"Have you heard about the airplane that crashed in the desert?" Hannes asked.

"It's a joke," said Magda.

"No," said Djanali, turning to Hannes.

"Well, the captain sent all the passengers out looking for food," said the boy with a grin the width of his face. "They all survived the crash, of course.

He sent them all out, and they came back saying that they had good news and bad news." He looked at her. "Are you with me?"

"I'm with you."

"'OK,' said the captain, let's hear the bad news first.' 'There's nothing to eat but camel shit,' the passengers told him. 'What about the good news, then?' the captain wondered. And the passengers told him: 'There's lots of it!'"

She laughed.

"Dad told us that one," said Magda.

The children went off to do their own thing. She washed up, and the sun was in her eyes, so she pulled down the blinds. In the living room she could hear the faint hum from Hannes's computer, the metallic ghostly voice from some game or other.

She turned to the collection of CDs. Hmm. Fredrik certainly had good taste, she thought, then adjusted that to: has good taste. Has. American singer-songwriters, with a few dashes of alternative country.

She sat down with lots of cases in her hand. Outside, the garden was dormant in the afternoon heat. The birds were asleep in the trees. Maybe the children were mercifully asleep as well? The computer in Hannes's room had gone quiet.

She played Buddy Miller-maybe Fredrik would hear it and come bounding in through the verandah door: Who the hell is playing my record, the bastard?

Winter had dozed on and off for an hour and a half, and dreamed violent dreams that he forgot when he woke up but which pounded away at his brain like a fever.

Fredrik Halders's face was the first thing he saw even before he'd opened his eyes. When he did, the wall in front of him was empty and piss yellow.

He sat up, rubbed his face hard, and checked the time. He reached out for the telephone on the narrow table in the overnight room and called home.

Angela sounded worried.

"What's happening to you, Erik?"

"Don't worry about me. Fredrik's the one in trouble."

"No news?"

"No. Is Elsa there?"

"She's taking her afternoon nap."

"Like me."

"When are you coming home?"

When this is all over, he thought. It could go quickly now.

"We have a witness we need to talk to."

"I have no idea," said Bielke. His face was still austere, carved up by white lines. He hadn't slept. Winter had prevented him from smoking. His lawyer was present, listening and making notes. There would be complaints. Let ' em come. Winter read a few lines on the documents in front of him. "I'm telling you yet again that I haven't seen that police officer," Bielke said.

"He was in the same building as you, at the same time."

"That's impossible, as I was at home in bed then. How could he be?"

"One of our police officers saw you go in through the door of the house in question."

"That's a lie because I've never been there. I don't even know where it is, and I still won't know no matter how long you keep asking me about it."

"Why are you telling lies?" Winter asked.

"Why are you telling lies?" Bielke was calm, but wasn't displaying the prickly arrogance often seen in the likes of him. A polished sociopath, Winter thought.

He suddenly felt very weary, much more weary than when he'd lain down on that far too soft bed. Helander had never seen Bielke before. It could be a mistake. It happens, and it's not good, but we're all human. What's Bielke?

He thought about Molina, the prosecutor. They had to have more evidence if they wanted to keep Bielke in custody. Five hours to go. Custody or freedom, temporary freedom for the man from Längedrag. He wanted Bielke kept inside. That would give them room to maneuver until the court made a decision about detaining him. He wanted Molina to agree that they had adequate grounds for pointing the finger at Bielke. And he wanted the adequate to grow into probable. But precisely what was Bielke suspected of doing? Involvement in the abduction of Fredrik Halders? The murder of three young women? The rape of his own daughter? What Winter had seen of Bielke didn't exclude any of those possibilities. Bielke is a key to something vital. I can't make any mistakes now.

He needed a witness. A piece of evidence. A link. Bielke would deny everything. He had the strength.

Winter thought about Halders again. Halders's head that was as well trimmed and sharply outlined and hard as the rocks at Saltholmen where people were sunbathing at this very moment.

The first thing they'd done was look for Samic, and Samic wasn't there. Not at his dance restaurant, not at home, not with people they knew he was acquainted with. I'm not really surprised, Ringmar had said. He's wherever Halders is, Bergenhem had suggested. Did he mean in the realm of the dead? Winter hadn't responded, merely continued searching in the morning light, gazing out over the glittering streets of Gothenburg.

Bergenhem went to Bielke's house with his colleagues Johan Setter and Sara Helander. I'm everywhere, she thought. Maybe it will be better here. She didn't want to sleep, not before they'd found Fredrik.

Bielke's wife said nothing, but stayed in her room.

"We won't go in there right now," Bergenhem said.

"Where do we go, then?" asked Setter.

"Where's the girl?" Helander said.

"Out for a morning swim," said Bergenhem.

"We can start with her room then," said Setter.

"We've already been through there," said Bergenhem. "Pretty thoroughly."

"That was then," said Setter.

"Does she know?" Helander asked.

"Know what?" Bergenhem turned to look at her.

"Exactly why her father was taken in at dawn?"

"Do we?"

The house is smaller than it looked from the outside, she thought. Several windows were partly open, letting in the smell of sea salt and stone, dust that had dried, grass that had burned in the sun. There was dust in the air inside the house, like a mist.

"I'll go out to the garage," said Bergenhem.

Everything in there was hanging in neat rows or packed in boxes. Bielke owned everything the owner of an oldish house needed.

There were two cars in the double garage.

Bielke had gone to the house on foot. Helander hadn't seen a car. It could have been in the garage all the time. They would soon know.

Bergenhem went from box to box. It had to be done. Routine work produced results. The most unlikely things, such as a suspect hiding something compromising in an… ordinary place at home, were often not only likely but true. A revolver replaced in its rack next to the elk's head. A knife hung alongside all the others on their magnetic strip. A dog leash over a chair in the hall, as usual. A lamb chop put back in the freezer. A blunt instrument.

Dog leash. The Bielkes didn't have a dog. It would be excellent if we could find a dog leash or something else that could be used for throttling a victim.

He stood next to the smaller car, a compact station wagon, and tried the front door on the driver's side. It wasn't locked. The keys were in the ignition. Locking the garage door was good enough.

He'd soon have to decide when they should call in the professional vacuum cleaners from Beier's unit.

Bergenhem opened the car door, wearing his white gloves, and quickly searched the glove compartment, the floor, and the seats. Paper, crumbs, dust, a road atlas of Europe. A piece of dried chewing gum in the ashtray. No smell of tobacco.

He took the keys and opened the trunk. A collapsible chair, a blanket that seemed to be scrunched together rather than folded, a wicker basket, a pair of working gloves stained with oil, a few old newspapers that were starting to turn yellow, a beer crate with no bottles, a single slipper split at the toe. Chewed by a dog, Bergenhem thought.

He pushed the objects carefully to one side and opened the compartment in the floor of the luggage space. He could see an unused spare tire, a case with a jack, a case containing several screwdrivers. Nothing else. He shut the lid.

He was about to close the tailgate when he noticed the faint outline of another compartment to the left, not much more than a shadow on the side of the luggage space. It had a little symbol on it. He pulled at it, but it didn't open. He pulled harder, and it came loose with a sighing noise. Inside was a place for the folded warning triangle and for a flat first-aid box. He took both objects out. Nothing else there. He put his hand inside and felt something in the back, to the right, something hard. He took it out and knew what it was even before he saw it.

The camera was dusty but quite new, small and compact and easy to use. What the experts call an idiot camera, he thought.

There was film in it, partially exposed.

A secret place for keeping a camera. Next to the warning triangle. Look out, Lars. There's a warning here.

He heard something behind him.

"What's going on?"

Bergenhem turned around and saw the girl standing there with her bicycle. Shorts, T-shirt, sandals, tanned, pretty, sunglasses pushed up onto her forehead, basket with a bath towel and a bottle of mineral water.

"Are you from the press?" she asked.

Bergenhem glanced at the camera in his hand.

"The police," he said. He'd never met her before. He went up to her and introduced himself: "Lars Bergenhem, CID."

"Why don't you guys move in?" she said.

It's better that your dad moves in with us, he thought. She seems surprisingly calm.

"What are you doing with my father?"

"We have a few questions we want to ask him," he said.

"It's always just a few questions," she said.

"Is this yours?" he asked, holding up the camera.

"No."

"Your dad's?"

"Where was it?"

"In this car. The Opel."

"That's Mom's shopping cart, you might say."

Bergenhem nodded.

"I don't recognize that camera, though," she said. "I have a similar one, but it's in my room. Or was earlier this morning, at least."

It was impossible to get any sense out of Bielke. Questions and counterquestions. Winter had taken a break and tried to get something more out of Andy, Anne Nöjd's friend, who came to the station when they asked him to.

He knew nothing more. Winter was as convinced of that as he could be. Andy had been totally overcome by grief and seemed catatonic.

Then Bergenhem called.

"The family here doesn't recognize it," he said. "The girl still has her own, and there's another one in the kitchen that they say belongs to the family, as it were."

"Take them all and come straight back here," Winter said.

"The wife and daughter?" asked Bergenhem.

"I mean the cameras."

The only camera with film in it was the one Bergenhem had found in the car. Half the film had been exposed. They had the pictures within forty minutes. Winter, Bergenhem, Ringmar, Helander, and Djanali were in the conference room when the photographs were delivered.

Nobody spoke as Winter put the pile on the big table and picked them up one at a time. Bergenhem broke the silence when he saw picture number two.

"For Christ's sake, that's Angelika Hansson."

Her black face shone as brightly as the golden sun that colored everything around her as she stood on the sand close to the water. A lot of sand, Djanali thought. No camels and no camel shit, but a lot of sand.

There were four pictures of Angelika Hansson on that beach, all taken from about the same angle. The usual wasted snaps, Djanali thought. A solitary young man smiled, from the same place that Angelika had been standing.

"That's him," Winter said. "Angelika's boyfriend."

"He's in this one, too, taken at the edge of the trees," said Ringmar.

"It looks familiar," Helander said.

If Fredrik had been here, he'd have said "The west coast," thought Aneta Djanali.

"You can see the soccer field in the background of this picture," said Bergenhem.

"Hovas bathing beach," said Winter. "That was taken at the Hovas beach."

"What's this?" Helander asked.

"Angelika's home," said Winter. Nobody outside the house. The photo was taken in the afternoon, when the shadows were long.

"And this is where the Bielkes live." Bergenhem looked at the next photograph. "And this is another one of their house."

Winter turned over another picture, like a blackjack dealer in a casino. It was good for the concentration to do it like this, good for everybody's concentration. There were only a few photographs left.

He found himself looking at another picture of a house, but a different one, north of Angelika Hansson's home, south of Jeanette Bielke's.

"What the hell…" exclaimed Ringmar.

"This is where Beatrice Wägner's parents live," Winter said.

"What is all this?" Helander said.

"Where Beatrice Wägner lived," said Winter in a tone that tried to change the atmosphere, break the spell.

No people here either, another summer picture, late, long shadows. Winter looked at the remaining photographs in his right hand. What was in store? He'd secured Bielke's detention, his arrest, but he didn't feel satisfied.

"Good God," said Djanali.

"What's next?" Bergenhem leaned closer to see the next photograph.

Winter turned over the three remaining prints. They studied them in silence.

"Well, it looks like we've got our man," Bergenhem said.

"But why?" asked Helander, voicing what everybody was thinking. Madness, they all thought as well. Madness explains everything yet nothing.

He studied the last three photographs again, starting with the one on the left.

The house on the other side of the river, where Halders had disappeared.

The cave-like hollow where Angelika and Beatrice had been found, and Jeanette attacked.

The place where they'd found Anne Nöjd. Where her final… no, not words, where her final… screams, screams of terror, had been recorded by her own answering machine.

All the pictures had long shadows. They'd all been taken when the area hadn't been cordoned off.

Ringmar said what everybody was thinking.

"Did he know what he was going to do? Had all these photographs been taken… before? Did he take them before they happened?"

Good God, thought Aneta Djanali for the eighteenth time. The only thing missing is a picture of a place we don't recognize, and that will be where we find Fredrik. Good God. Just think, if we'd had these pictures… before. Before the crimes were committed. Murder will be committed there and there and there, and if you can find the locations quickly you might be able to strike a blow for peace.

The camera was upstairs with Beier.

Bielke was sitting in a cell, or maybe lying down.

"We have jobs to do," said Winter.

The shadows were lengthening outside. It would soon be evening. We'll be there soon enough, he thought.