Never End

37

The APB on Samic had gone out several days ago. The headlines on the news placards filled all the available space, black on yellow, like dark clouds obscuring the sun. There were reporters everywhere. Winter tried to ignore the media attention as something that didn't affect him, had nothing to do with him, with his world. He wanted to think his way into a world that was bright and full of summer, evenings spent in cafes where the buzz of activity increased then declined as darkness set in. Playful dips in the sea with salt left in your eyebrows afterward on the rocks when the waves had dried on your body. All that kind of thing.

A group of reporters was waiting in the newly renovated foyer. Notebooks and pens and large and small cameras. Winter walked straight past them staring fixedly ahead. It was like a movie, only worse.

Yngvesson's tape was spinning around like the course of time. Winter remained standing. There was a scraping noise in the loudspeakers. Yngvesson had added an extra pair to amplify the roaring. He looked tired, or worse.

"Here it comes," he said.

Winter was now able to make out words from what had previously been an atonal cacophony:

"I xkxkbl before! Before! Xblbsffhave toglcxbl before! Before! Aaiii!"

Yngvesson stopped the tape.

"Is that all?" asked Winter. He could feel something in the back of his head. Something inside.

"All? It's quite a lot, I would think."

"I didn't mean it like that," said Winter. "I was just asking if there's any more." "No."

"Play it again."

Winter listened. "Before! Before! Aaiii!"

"Before," said Yngvesson. "He's said something to her before." "Or to somebody else." "Or done something before." "Sounds like an old codger," Yngvesson said. "What did you say?" Winter asked. "It sounds like an elderly man."

Winter had heard it before. Before. Jesus, he'd heard it before. No, read it before. It was in the cold case files.

He went to his office and phoned Mollerstrom, the invaluable officer in charge of computer files. Everything was on the hard disk. Run a word search. Mollerstrom had gone home early for once. Children's party.

"Get him on the phone."

Sorry about that, Mölli.

Bergenhem was still around. Winter filled him in. Bergenhem didn't recognize the words.

"What are you doing right now?" Winter asked.

"Setter and I started that check on Sarnie's business interests. Names. Old business contacts."

"Addresses?"

"Tons. But we can't go checking to see if he's with every one of his old contacts, Erik. We've made a start nevertheless."

"Bielke?"

"Well… his name's there as well. Some property deals. Co-ownership of some third-rate diner. But we knew that already. And at least we know where he is at the moment. And also where he lives."

Not for much longer, thought Winter, and he could picture Irma Bielke. crushed and yet unbroken at the same time, on her way to the real estate agent's.

She wasn't crazy.

He'd offered to go with her. He could help her to move into a hotel. Or to a relative's, or a friend's. She'd declined. She was already on her way to somewhere else, somewhere better.

Bergenhem stood up.

"If that's all…"

Winter thought about Halders. About Angela and Elsa, and how he ought to stand in the window and have a smoke and turn up the sound of Michael Brecker's Time Is of the Essence that was spinning around in the Panasonic, in its usual place on the floor.

He thought about the paternity claim. As far as he was concerned it was just a claim; there could be hidden intentions behind it. Bielke hadn't made any such confession to him.

He stood by the window. Long shadows again, black spears floating along the river on the other side of the park lying silently below his office. The park, park, park, park, park, park…

He put his cigarillo in the ashtray, returned to his desk, and dialed Mattias's number. No reply. The boy might have hanged himself from a tree or be at the bottom of a river after all. Or he might be wandering around the baking-hot houses.

Winter stood up, went to Mollerstrom's computer, and started the search. The telephone rang, but he let it ring. As he was searching he remembered, suddenly remembered. It wasn't just the word. It was the voice as well.

Bergenhem drove. They had to weave their way cautiously through the mass of pedestrians and the sidewalk cafes. Everybody was in the streets, which were glowing in the heat: children, teenagers, the middle-aged, senior citizens, gigolos, tourists, newlyweds, divorcees, families with children, whores, pimps, drunks, police, junkies, the Salvation Army, lunatics, all on their way from nothing to nowhere.

The park was the city's lung, and masses of people were wandering down the bike paths or over the fields.

"Pull over outside," said Winter.

Bergenhem found a space in one of the little side streets. They entered the park from the north.

"I've been here every day, almost," said Bergenhem. "Discreetly."

"Hmm."

"I expect the same applies to y-"

"Shh."

They were standing by the pond. A group was picnicking quietly to their right. Some one-legged flamingos were viewing the scene. Winter could smell grilled meat from the café behind them, heard a single peal of laughter gliding over the water. The shadows had lain down now, as if the trees in the park had been taken down for the night but would be put up again the next day.

"Let's go a bit closer."

"I'll stay here," said Bergenhem.

Winter took three strides to the next tree. It was ten meters to the hollow near the big rock, opening up like a black cave. The vegetation around about was swaying gently, a final rustle before settling down for the night.

Winter heard a loud engine noise from somewhere and a souped-up moped with a madly grinning teenager onboard came racing over the grass. Winter turned and saw Bergenhem shaking his head. The moped made a U-turn on the other side of the pond, came back making the same racket, and disappeared into the road a hundred meters away. All was quiet again, quieter than ever before now that the commotion had subsided. Winter stood still, as if he knew, really knew, that so much had led up to these seconds and that everything might come to an end here, not absolutely everything, but a lot would come to an end if he stayed here now, or if he came back tomorrow, or the day after and the day after that, and did all the other things one always did when looking for the answer to a riddle.

There was a rustling in the branches over there. Nobody emerged or walked by. No movement in the corner of his eye.

He stood still. Bergenhem would soon start moving, and they'd return to the police station.

Something moved inside the hollow, in the darkness. A shadow deeper than the other shadows. Winter stayed put. It was now. Now. A figure moved, still a shadow. Moved again, made its way toward the exit. Winter could see the outline of a head, a body. Suddenly a face, only a blurred oval in the deceptive twilight. A pale impression of a face he'd seen through Jeanette's window.

Mattias emerged from the bushes and onto the grass. He was moving his head backward and forward, like a dog sniffing the wind for traces of people or other animals. He wore shorts and a shirt that was still black from the black light behind him. He took two more paces forward. His shirt suddenly turned white and flapped slightly in the breeze, unbuttoned at the bottom. The same shirt. A button was missing, and it's in Beier's office, Winter thought. The shirt napped again, as if the breeze had suddenly grown stronger, but there was no breeze where Winter was standing.

He walked away from the tree trunk. Mattias gave a start and turned to face Winter. Winter took two paces. Mattias didn't move; his head was up, as if he were still sniffing the air. Winter could see his eyes now, Mattias's eyes; there was no sign of recognition in those eyes, no longer, and Winter approached as if invisible and Mattias's head started moving again, backward and forward. His right hand was moving, as if following a rhythm, Winter was so close now that he could smell the acrid aroma coming from the boy, who was swinging his arm higher and higher, and the dog leash he was holding glittered in the light like silver and gold.

When Winter had found the report he was looking for he'd read it and looked for the words. It was Halders's last conversation with Mattias. He could hear the voice behind the words as he read:

"Jeanette hasn't said anything, has she?"

"Why don't you let her go, Mattias?"

"What do you mean, let her go?"

"You know what I mean."

"I did that ages ago. Let… everything go."

Then Mattias had fallen silent when Halders showed him the picture of Angelika's boyfriend.

"Do you recognize him?" Halders had asked.

The conversation continued. Then Mattias said it:

"It'll… never be like it used to be." Mattias had repeated it, something different. A normal thing to say, but not now, not anymore. And not what came next, after a short pause. "It was different before. I've told you. I've told you before." He repeated it again soon afterward. Halders asked a few follow-up questions, and that was all Mattias had said, but it was enough. It was enough now.

Winter had finished reading, called Bergenhem, and they had driven to the park. There had been no other place to go to.