Never End

3

Winter could feel the tiny hand gripping his finger tightly. Elsa gurgled a greeting. He kissed her behind her ear, she laughed, he blew gently on her neck, and she laughed again.

He still hadn't gotten used to that laugh and that gurgle; they could be floating around in the apartment for ages. His daughter would soon be fifteen months old. Her sounds tore the silence from the walls like old wallpaper. Amazing that such a tiny body could make such a loud noise.

Angela came in from the kitchen and sat down in one of the armchairs, unbuttoned her checked blouse, and looked at Winter and Elsa on the blanket on the floor.

"Breakfast," she said.

Winter blew behind Elsa's ear.

"Time for breakfast," Angela said.

Elsa laughed.

"She doesn't seem hungry," Winter said, looking at Angela.

"Bring her here and you'll see. This is going to be the last time, though. I can't go on breast-feeding her, for God's sake."

He carried the little girl over to Angela in the armchair. She seemed to weigh barely anything at all.

Winter saw the files lying on his desk when he entered his office. The sun had already warmed the room, and there was a smell of summer. Two more months, and then it would be some time before he saw this office again. A year. He was going to take a year's leave, and who would he be the next time he stepped into this gloomy office where nearly all thoughts were painful to think?

Would he ever come back at all?

Who would he be then?

He went to the sink and drank a glass of water. He felt thoroughly rested. At an early stage Elsa had decided to sleep from 8:00 at night till 8:00 in the morning. He and Angela were very lucky.

Sometimes Angela would cry, at night. Her memories would come flooding back, but more and more rarely now. He hadn't asked her what happened in that room in that apartment the day before he got there. Not at first, not directly. She used to talk about it, night after night, in mangled sentences. Now it had more or less stopped. She slept soundly for hours on end.

It wasn't even eighteen months ago.

He sat down at his desk, opened the first of the files, and took out the documents and photographs. He held up one of the pictures. The rock. The trees. The lawn and the path. It was all very familiar in a… depressing sort of way, like an illness that recurs after several years. A cancerous tumor that has been cut away but continues to grow.

Still, Jeanette Bielke was still alive, and they were waiting for her test results.

He stood up, with the photograph in his hand, and opened the window. The sun was on the other side of the city. He could smell the light, almost weightless scents of summer. He thought of Elsa. There was a knock at the door, and he shouted, "Come in." Halders was in the doorway. Winter gestured toward the visitor's chair, but stayed by the window.

"It was completed intercourse," Halders said. "I've just had the report. Purely technical, that is. But it is rape."

"What else does it say?"

"That the girl is probably telling the truth."

"Probably?"

Halders shrugged. "You know how it is."

Winter didn't reply. Halders looked at the files on the desk.

"You sent down for them, I see."

"Yes."

"Have you had time to read through them?"

"No. Only this photograph," said Winter, holding it up.

Halders could also see a picture of Beatrice Wägner on one of the newspaper clippings by Winter's elbow.

"Is it a coincidence?" Halders said.

"The place? Well… it's not the first time somebody's been attacked in Slottsskogan Park."

"But not at that particular spot."

"Not far away."

"Never at that particular spot," Halders said. "You know it. I know it."

It's true, Winter thought. He knew that part of the park. Since Beatrice Wägner's murder he'd been back there regularly. Would stand there watching people milling around. Halders had done the same. They'd occasionally bumped into one another. You're not among the suspects, Halders had muttered on one occasion.

They were looking for a face, a movement. An action. A voice. An object. A belt. A noose. A dog leash.

They always return to the scene of the crime. Every policeman knew that. Every one. Somehow or other, at some time or other, they always go back. They go back after ten years, or five. To carry on. Or just to be there, to breathe, to remember.

Just being there was the thing. If he was there and the man who'd done the deeds came down the path at that moment, he, Winter, would know, really know, and so it wouldn't be a coincidence. It had nothing to do with luck. Nothing to do with chance. And at that very moment-when he was still holding the photograph in his hand and looking at Halders and the damp patch on his shirt under his left armpit-at that very moment he had the feeling that it really would happen. He would see the man and it would be as if a nightmare had turned into reality. It would happen. That bastard's back," Halders said.

Winter didn't reply. Same modus operandi." Halders ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. "Same spot."

'We'd better talk to the girl again." 'She's going home this afternoon." Then go and see her there. How were her parents?"

"Desperate."

"Nothing funny?"

"Aneta had a look around, of course, while I was talking to the girl." Halders's left eye twitched slightly, as if he had a tic. "No. The old man had the shakes-clearly hung over-something like this isn't exactly going to help him recover."

Halders looked at Winter. "He's back, Erik. How many did he manage last time? Three victims, one of which died?"

"Mmm."

"Maybe we'd better talk to the other two girls again."

"I've already done that. They don't remember any more now than they did back then." Halders stood up.

"Fredrik?"

"Yes?"

"I feel just the same as you do about this. I can't forget Beatrice Wägner either."

"No."

"It's not just because it's on the unsolved list."

"I understand," Halders sat down again. "It's the same with me." He scratched his head. Winter could see a damp patch under Halders's other armpit as well. "You can feel it all over the station. Everybody's talking about it."

"I'll have a look at the old pattern," said Winter, gesturing toward the documents on his desk.

"There'll be another one," Halders said. "The same again."

"Take it easy now."

"Yes, yes, OK. One rape at a time."

The sound of sirens drifted in from the east. Somebody was shouting underneath Winter's window. A car started. Halders ran his hand over his hair.

Winter suddenly made up his mind.

"Let's go there. Now."

Everybody was wearing shorts or lightweight skirts. It was over ninety degrees. There seemed to be an unusually high number of people in town, he thought-they ought to be down by the water.

"It's sales time," said Halders, pointing to the shopping center. "Summer sales, where the prices are a dream and buying is one long party."

Winter nodded.

"I ought to go myself," Halders said.

"Oh, yes?"

"It's nothing for you, I suppose, but things can seem a bit on the costly side when you're separated and have two children." He turned to look at Winter. "Maintenance, heavy stuff. Not that I'm complaining."

"How old are your kids now?" Winter asked.

Halders looked surprised. "Seven and eleven," he said, after a moment's hesitation.

"A boy and a girl, is that right?" Winter was driving along the avenue. He was the only one in the middle lane. All other traffic seemed to have disappeared. He blinked, and all the cars came back again. He blinked once more, and stopped at an amber light after glancing in his rearview mirror.

"Er… yes. The boy's the younger."

"Are you sharing custody?" Winter asked.

Halders looked at him.

"They live with Margareta, but come to me every other weekend." He looked away toward the river, then back at Winter. "Sometimes they stay a little longer with me. Or maybe we go away somewhere. It depends." Haiders had gone into his shell. Winter cast him a sideways glance. "I always try to think of something interesting."

Winter stopped at an amber light again. A large family in Gothenburg for the day was crossing the road: map, wide eyes, comfortable shoes. A boy, maybe ten, and a girl, about seven, looked at them, then caught up with their parents, who were preoccupied with a stroller containing two small children.

"How's it going for you?" Halders asked. "With the baby. Does she keep you up all night?"

"Not at all."

Hannes had colic," Halders said. "It was horrible. Four months of terror."

"I've heard about it," said Winter.

That sounded almost apologetic, Halders thought. As if he'd gotten away with things too lightly.

That was the beginning of the end," said Halders, as they arrived.

The place was just as sorry a sight as ever. There, five years ago, the SOC team had carefully collected leaves, grass, pieces of bark. Then as now. Winter was still waiting for his promotion back then, and impatient. Halders had been an inspector too, but slightly less impatient, and still married. Home every day to a house full of life.

At least it isn't murder this time, Winter thought. Two women went past, pushing baby carriages. The sun was hidden behind the trees. Voices of children swimming in the pond. A man was lying flat out on the grass, fifty meters from the scene of the crime. Winter watched the man stagger to his feet, then stumble forward a few meters before sitting down again, producing a bag and drinking in classic wino style, without taking the bottle out of the bag.

"And no witnesses," Halders said.

Winter was observing the drunk.

"Have we thought about the homeless?" he said, mainly to himself.

"Then? There weren't any then," Halders said.

"Now."

"I have no idea," Halders said.

"No doubt there are some hanging around here." Winter watched the man make another effort to move, and this time he managed a few steps. "Especially now, in summer."

Halders followed his gaze and reached for his mobile phone.

Five minutes later a patrol car showed up, and Halders pointed out the drunk, who was still attempting to walk the tightrope down the wide gravel path. They watched as the man was escorted to the car.

"Shall we hear what he's got to say right now?" Halders asked.

"It can wait," said Winter. He walked over to the rock in the trees, and entered through the passage. Same place, same cave.

He knew what it was even before he was fully awake, and he reached for the telephone on the bedside table. It was all still part of his dream, a continuation of the night that one could touch, smell. It was as if he knew what the voice in the receiver was going to say.

He watched Angela as he listened. He could see the top of Elsa's little head snug in her crib.

"Yes, yes," he said into the mouthpiece. "Yes."

He phoned Halders. "I want you to come with me."

"I'm as good as there," said Halders.

Winter drove through the morning light. It had nuances of milk and spinach.

They met at the parking lot. Halders looked tense, a mirror image of himself. They could have made their way blindfolded to the scene of the incident. There was no other place.

It was lit up now, by a pale electric light that would soon be unnecessary. Forensics officers were crawling all over the place. More than ever. He could see more uniforms than ever. More onlookers than ever. People were still out and about, and were loitering now on the edge of the park. Winter walked to the trees and the rock and the passage between and saw the girl's legs like two sticks, and then he saw the rest of her body, all of it except her head, which was still in the shadows.

He could have stopped right there, gone back to his gloomy office at the police station, opened the old files, and read about what had happened five years ago. He knew that's how it was, and so it proved, later, when the postmortem was completed and he had all the facts currently available.

But now it was still early morning. He saw the doctor, a new one whose name he didn't know. He looked young. Came over to speak to Winter. Made a few comments that he took into consideration.

She had stopped breathing because somebody had tightened a noose around her neck. Other things had been done to her body, not yet clear what. Her wallet was still in the handbag that Winter could see lying on the ground, not far from her hand.

Go on, stretch out your hand and grab the handbag, he thought. You can do it. You can still do it.

She was eighteen or nineteen or so. He could look if he wanted to, but he wasn't supposed to touch anything yet. She had been eighteen. That's what it was destined to be. I'll stop there. Eighteen was as far as she was going, nineteen maximum. No adult life, no family, no breast-feeding, no baby carriage, no colic, no divorce.

Halders was standing beside him. He said something to one of the forensics officers in a low voice. A night bird uttered a cry that reminded Winter of something. It wasn't the situation. That was familiar without the aid of sound effects.

Flashlights were shined into the hollow. He could see a face on the ground. Oddly enough it still seemed to be in the shadows.

He could hear a tune inside his head from a sidewalk café he had visited that same night. Had she walked past? Had she walked past that very place with her friends?