Never End

35

Jeanette Bielke had been drugged into unconsciousness again when Winter arrived at intensive care.

"The risk was too great," said the doctor.

"When will she come around?"

"When will we bring her around, do you mean?"

Winter shot the doctor a look to concentrate his mind.

"In a few hours."

"I'll be back exactly two hours from now." Winter looked at the watch on the wrist that wasn't swathed in bandages and in a sling. "I only want a couple of pieces of information."

"I can't promise anything."

Winter directed the patrol car to the square in Frolunda. The driver was young, and Winter didn't recognize him. The heat haze over the huge parking lot was reminiscent of a firestorm. The wind was picking up from the south. The thermometer display on the roof of the shopping center was nailed down on 102. People crouched beneath the canvas sheets over the vegetable stalls, or they retreated into the shopping malls, where sweat made their bodies stiff and the chill set many of them coughing.

Nobody answered when they rang the bell at Mattias's apartment.

He hadn't seen Mattias at the hospital. Had anybody called him? Did he know? Was it his face he'd seen in the garden? Mattias had been hanging around the Bielkes' house like an abandoned dog. Refused to accept the fact. Had Mattias spoken to Jeanette before she'd made her suicide attempt? Attempt? She might yet have succeeded.

He rang again, heard the sound echoing in the room behind the veneered door. Windows were open on all floors, regardless of whether people were at home or not. There was a smell of fire in the stairwell, caused by the dry air inside.

It was better outdoors, but just barely. The police constable was standing under a tree, contemplating his gaudy patrol car.

"I'm going across the square," he said. "Wait here."

He passed the Arts Center and continued to the building beyond.

The missing boy's gloomy flat was just as empty and unfurnished as before. They'd soon have to hand it over to the owner. The riddle it contained would be hidden by new furniture, curtains, pictures, colors, voices, signs of life.

The swings outside were moving, but only in the wind. Children would melt if they tried to sit on them, he thought. There was no sound to be heard. The birds had fallen silent. The southerly wind was stronger now, but still soundless; it set the swings swaying back and forth, and soon their ropes would become entangled. Clouds were building up to the south, thanks to the wind. Black clouds that as yet only covered about a fifth of the sky. He stood in the entrance. The wind was audible now, as if somebody had just turned up the volume of the drama being played out. Clouds raced over the sky at the speed of rockets. He retraced his steps. The drunks outside the Arts Center staggered to and fro in the thundery wind.

Suddenly, it started raining, and it stopped just as quickly. The sky turned blue in the south, and it spread rapidly. All around children were jumping into puddles of water that would dry up in less than an hour.

He walked back to the square. Bergenhem waved from the unmarked car he'd driven up to where Winter was standing. They took the elevator up to the apartment where Mattias lived, but still nobody was at home.

"Something nasty could have happened to the kid," Bergenhem said.

"Anything's possible," said Winter. "We'd better seal off this place." He phoned the Frolunda police station. When their colleagues arrived they went down to the street. Bergenhem drove back to the city center.

"Take the route past the park," said Winter.

They parked the car and stood in silence by the pond, under the trees. The hollow was gleaming after the rain.

There was nobody walking up and down with a dog leash in their hand. Only he and Bergenhem who had returned to the scene of the crime. I could stand here for a while every day for the rest of this summer and half the autumn, he thought. But I don't need to. We'll soon nail Bielke.

Nevertheless, something inside him raised doubts.

"I think of Fredrik all the time," said Bergenhem, as they resumed their drive to the city center. Winter could feel the pain growing in his arm. He tried raising it, but that only made it worse. Perhaps it needed a cast. But not now.

Jeanette's face had more color than the pillow, but not much more. He could see that she had difficulty in turning her gaze toward him when he entered.

"I won't stay long," he said.

She closed her eyes.

"How do you feel?"

"It hurts."

Winter sat in his office. He was forced to make time to read up again now. The pile of documentation was as high as a house. Night was setting in outside.

They had left Bielke for the time being.

His daughter's face had sunk deeper into the pillow as they talked. No, as Winter talked. He had asked her questions, but she hadn't answered. There was a band of silence surrounding everybody he'd been in contact with. A dog leash, a belt.

He needed to go back to the paperwork. It was all there. It always was. It was there all right.

He read until his eyes gave up.

He was back a few hours later. He hadn't had enough sleep, but he was thinking more clearly I won't sleep anymore until this case is solved.

Their priorities had changed, he could sense that in everyone. The most important thing was to get Halders back. The most important. No, just as important. One led naturally to the other.

Winter had phoned Vennerhag, and Vennerhag had promised to put all his fellow gangsters on the case. Your most important task so far, Winter had told him.

The phone rang.

"I've got something interesting for you," said Mollerstrom.

Winter waited for the call to be put through.

"Hello?…"

"Detective Chief Inspector Winter here."

"Er… we've seen those articles in the newspaper…"

The man and his son arrived an hour later. They were five years older now, and Winter guessed that that could be seen most in the son, who would have been no more than ten at the time.

Winter had read about them again three days before, in the cold case notes, and then again only a few hours ago. They'd been standing there forever, always packing their car next to the park, never again to be seen or heard from. Until now.

"It's been a long time," said the man. "But here we are. Whatever it is you want us for."

"How's your memory?"

The man smiled, or tried to. The son looked as if he wondered what the hell he was doing there.

"Why didn't you ever contact us before?" Winter asked.

"Well… we were going away when it happened… and it was a very long trip that lasted well into the school term," said the man. He looked at his son. "I was given permission to educate him myself while we were away." Perhaps that was a mistake, his eyes suggested. "Anyway… we eventually came back home, and there was nothing about that… murder that I would have linked with… us, as it were. Do you follow me?"

"But now there is," said Winter.

"Well… the articles about that murder five years ago seemed to be appealing directly to us."

"But I don't remember a thing," said the boy, speaking for the first time. "Except that it was hot that night. And I was tired."

"It was late," said the man. He looked around. "Anyway… what can we try to help you with?"

We'll see, Winter thought. Several studies of the psychology of memory suggested that people are especially good at remembering faces. Even after a long time. There is a separate system inside the brain for storing faces, for working on faces. Winter had often thought about that. It fitted in naturally with the way humans had developed: it was important to recognize other people and their faces if you were going to survive. You had to be able to read emotions in other people's faces.

It had been of help to him, a part of his work.

Children learn to recognize faces at an early age. It has nothing to do with language. I can talk to the man and his son until the cows come home, but it won't do any good, he thought. What he wanted from them was a specific memory, an identification memory.

Five years had passed. He'd like them to confront Kurt Bielke in a lineup, but it would be difficult to identify him conclusively, perhaps impossible. The passage of years was a big obstacle; now they'd be confronted with a face in a different light, at a different angle, with a different haircut. A different setting. Besides, had they even seen anybody that night?

"Did you see anybody?" Winter asked.

"Well…," said the man, "I've been thinking about that, obviously. It's not easy. But that was a memorable night… I remember it because I had a devil of a toothache and we were going to have to start our trip, later that same morning in fact, by looking for a dentist in Skane."

Winter waited.

"Anyway… it makes it easier to remember, if you know what I mean. I do actually remember somebody coming out of the park, because I'd put down a suitcase and thought maybe I ought to go into the trees and look for a lump of resin to chew, because my grandma always used to say that was good for toothache, and I was sort of looking right at the trees, and somebody came walking out." He looked at Winter. "I don't know what time it was.'

"We do," said Winter.