Frozen Tracks (21 page)

'No,' said Djanali. 'That's the point.'

'It's a matter of interpretation,' said Halders with a
smile.

'I don't get it,' said Bergenhem.

'You're not the only one,' said Djanali.

'While you lot are bickering, our man could have
escaped to South Africa,' said Winter.

'OK, we'll nail him there, then,' said Halders.

'Come on now, Fredrik,' Winter said.

Halders sat up straight. Winter could see how the
pressure on the back of his neck was reflected in his
face.

'We nailed Smedsberg late last night before he set off
to visit his manure-specialist mates out in the sticks. He
confirmed that he'd fallen out with the Aryan, Mr Kaite.'

'About what?' Winter asked.

'A babe.'

'A babe?'

'That's what he said. Kaite thought he had something
going with a girl who thought she had something going
with Smedsberg.'

'What did Smedsberg think?' Winter wondered. For
Christ's sake . . .

'He remained neutral, as he put it.'

'Does this girl exist?'

'We have a name and a telephone number.' Halders
gestured with his arms. 'We phoned, but nobody
answered. We checked the address and went there, but
nobody was in. By hook or by crook, I don't quite
remember how . . . we managed to get into the flat. But
randy Kaite wasn't there, nor was the girl.'

'Were you involved in this, Aneta?' Winter asked.

She shook her head. 'I was in the car, looking after
the radio.'

Winter looked at Halders.

'Did you leave a note on the hall table asking her to
phone you when she got back home?' he asked, with
acid in his voice.

'That didn't occur to me!' said Halders, raising a
finger to the skies.

'Do you believe Smedsberg?'

'I don't believe anybody,' said Halders, 'but he did
give us her name. Josefin. Josefin Stenvång.'

'Smedsberg is the only one of those four lads who
wasn't injured,' said Ringmar.

'Do you see a connection there, Bertil?' Halders
wondered.

'Eh? What?'

'Four students and three injured. Four children and
three uninjured. Do you see a connection?'

'What did you have for breakfast today, Fredrik?'
Ringmar asked. 'You seem to be just a little bit on overdrive.'

'Doesn't the job we do depend on links, connections?'
Halders said. 'I apologise if not, but in that case I've
completely misunderstood everything.'

'Fredrik,' said Winter.

Halders turned round.

Is this the moment when the absolutely awful and
extreme crisis is going to kick in? Winter thought. Fredrik
has managed to keep going until now. Oddly enough.

Is there madness in his eyes? No. Has he started to
hyperventilate? Not yet. What can I say now, when I
have his full attention? What direction can I point him
in?

'Please let Bertil finish what he has to say,' said Winter.

'OK, OK,' said Halders.

'Anyway, we have Smedsberg,' said Ringmar. 'He
avoids the blow, or blows. He's not marked by a
branding iron or whatever the damned thing is. He has
seen a newspaper delivery boy. He's grown up on a
farm. He suggests that the wounds might reveal a number
that could lead us to a particular farm, or some kind
of code or symbol that would have the same effect. He
has lived in the same halls as two of the other victims,
Kaite and Stillman. Book as well, come to that. So far
he has denied knowing any of them, including Book.'

'He's also a Chalmers student,' said Halders.

'Oh, come on, Fredrik, can't you keep your comments
to yourself for once?' said Helander. Halders didn't seem
to hear.

'We mentioned Jens Book,' Ringmar continued.
'Studying journalism, but not at the moment. He's still
in Sahlgren Hospital. He's got a bit of mobility back in
his right side. The latest report is positive, very positive
in fact. It seems the lad will be able to walk again eventually.'

'If the blow stops him from working as a journalist
in future, the report certainly is very positive,' said
Halders. He turned to Helander. 'I don't like journalists,
you see.'

'Jens Book had been with his friend Krister Peters
about half an hour before he was attacked in
Linnéplatsen outside Marilyn's, the video store.'

'His homosexual friend,' said Halders.

'Do you have a problem with that, Fredrik?' Ringmar
had looked up from his file.

'Not at all. I only mentioned it for clarification.'

'Peters is gay,' said Bergenhem. 'I've met him, as you
know. He makes no attempt to hide the fact.'

'Why was he secretive about his meeting with Book,
then?' asked Djanali.

'It wasn't Peters who was secretive. It was Book
himself,' said Ringmar. 'We had to drag it out of him.
It took time.'

'Not unusual behaviour,' said Bergenhem. 'If he
doesn't want to tell anybody, that's up to him. Don't
you think? There are lots of people who don't want to.
We've talked about it before.' Bergenhem could see that
Halders wanted to say something but was holding back.
'Do you have a comment to make about that, Fredrik?'

Halders shook his head.

'So Book's possible relationship with Peters doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with this business,' said
Bergenhem.

'But Peters doesn't have an alibi,' said Ringmar.

'There again, the plain fact is that Book is the one
we know most about when it comes to what they were
doing immediately before they were attacked,' said
Bergenhem. 'If we believe Peters, we know more or less
what Book was up to all evening, apart from a short
time before he was bashed.'

'Yes,' said Winter, who hadn't spoken for some time,
just listened and made a few notes.

'But it's quite different when it comes to Kaite, for
instance. What was he doing in the hours before he was
attacked in Kapellplatsen?'

Nobody answered.

'Kaite is very vague about that, and now he's run off
to God only knows where,' said Bergenhem. 'He's also
had a row with Smedsberg, who lived in the block next
door. There's a link for you, Fredrik.' Halders gave a
start. As if he'd woken up out of a short coma, Winter
thought.

'And our friend the law student Jakob Stillman is no
longer as silent as he was forced to be at first, but he
doesn't have a very good memory either,' said Bergenhem.
'Unless it's the blows that have knocked the memories
out of his head. Which I don't believe. I think he was
somewhere that he doesn't want to tell us about, and
then he walked across Doktor Fries Torg and was
attacked in the same way.'

'What took him to Doktor Fries Torg?' said Djanali.

'What took Kaite to Kapellplatsen?' said Bergenhem.

'Is there a link?' wondered Halders.

'Perhaps nothing more than the fact that they were
on their way home,' said Winter.

'On their way to the same place but from different
directions,' said Ringmar.

'At different times,' said Bergenhem.

'Stillman seems to be a full-blooded heterosexual,'
said Halders. 'If you can believe Bertil's daughter's friend,
that is.' He looked at Bergenhem. 'Talking of non-links.'

'The link here is that three of them were attacked by
the same person,' said Ringmar. 'Or all four, in fact,
since the intention was that Smedsberg should get the
same treatment.'

'If we can believe him,' said Halders.

'He reported it to the police,' said Djanali.

'So did that family out at Önnered,' said Halders.
'Possibly for the same reason as Gustav Smedsberg.'
Halders looked at Winter. 'By the way, shouldn't we be
on our way there now?'

'Soon.'

'Speaking of getting underway, perhaps we should
pay a visit to the Smedsberg family farm,' said
Bergenhem. 'Out in the sticks, as Fredrik put it.'

'Why?' asked Winter.

'The weapon. The branding iron. If we follow through
with the hypothesis that all of the victims actually did
the opposite of what they said they did, it's Gustav
Smedsberg who clubbed down the other three, and he
did it with a branding iron like the one he said was
back at home on the farm.'

'Hang on,' said Djanali. 'If we shortly get hold of
the identity number or whatever it's called, and on that
basis can find the farm the weapon comes from, well,
if Smedsberg half-kills people with a weapon that can
be traced back to him, and he puts us on the right track
. . . Do you see what I'm getting at?'

'You're suggesting that people's actions are rational
and based on sound logic,' said Halders. 'That we should
use that as our starting point. The day we start doing
that we might just as well pack up here and start selling
roasted almonds in Slottskogen.' He looked at
Bergenhem. 'Roasted almonds! Where did I get that
from?'

'We'll see,' said Winter. 'Perhaps we ought to drive
out into the country.'

'It occurred to me that Kaite might be there,' said
Bergenhem. 'And the girl, perhaps.' He looked at
Halders. 'Bearing in mind what you just said about
logic. Smedsberg and Kaite might have fallen out, so
what could be more natural than Kaite relaxing at
Smedsberg's home?'

'Precisely,' said Halders. 'But he won't be able to hide
away from us out there in the Wild West.'

'Who said he's trying to hide away from us?' asked
Ringmar.

'He did a runner when we tried to have a chat with
him, didn't he? We were in his room, and he vanished.'

'Hmm.'

'What are you getting at, Bertil?'

'He might be more afraid of something else than you,
Fredrik.'

Halders said nothing.

'You as a police officer, I mean.'

'Yes, I'm with you. You could have a point there.'

'How long was he away?' asked Ringmar. 'When you
were sitting in his room, waiting?'

'He still hasn't come back,' said Djanali with a smile.

'I'll rephrase my silly question,' said Ringmar.

'We understand what you're getting at,' said Halders.
'We waited for ten minutes, and then it dawned on us
that he couldn't be in the bog all that time and we found
he was gone with the wind. Gone with the monsoon.'
Halders pointed at the window, where the pale light of
morning had turned into the darkness of aggressive
winter rain. 'Listen to that. I'll be buggered if we don't
have a northern monsoon up here at the edge of the
universe.'

'Have you questioned all the others living in the
corridor?' asked Bergenhem.

'Of course. And we didn't leave until we'd checked
all the rooms to make sure he wasn't there.'

'There is one thing,' said Djanali.

Everybody waited.

'We've been waiting for the wounds on the victims'
heads to heal sufficiently for us to see if there is a brand
of some kind. But it didn't work with Stillman and
Book. The scab has fallen off, but we haven't seen
anything. We were waiting for Kaite, or however one
should put it.' She looked up but not at anybody in
particular. 'Was there somebody else waiting as well?
Or somebody who couldn't wait?'

He fried two eggs, slid them on to a plate, looked at
them and decided that he wasn't hungry any more. He
stood up, scraped them into the rubbish bin and realised
that he would have to throw them down the rubbish
chute later.

He had collected eggs, turned his jumper into a carrier
bag and taken them to the kitchen. But that was then.
They'd had a special smell, which seemed to force its way
through the shell. Put them in the dish, the old man used
to say. You could break them, carrying them like that.

The smell was no longer there when he put them in
the dish. One of the eggs had broken even though he'd
been as careful as he could possibly be.

What the hell are you doing, you little bastard? Come
here. Come here, I said!

We'd better send you back to where you came from.

He opened the cupboard door again and sniffed at
the rubbish bag. Fried eggs didn't smell like raw eggs
in the country, certainly not. It seemed they were still
warm, and that made the smell even stronger.

He sealed the rubbish bag and sent it sliding down
the chute on the landing. The resulting thud below was
muted, which meant that they would soon be coming
to empty the big bin down in the cellar.

It was sunny outside.

He went back in, put on his jacket and emerged into
the sunshine, which seemed to be less bright than it had
appeared through the window. The sun was hidden
behind the high-rise blocks – it didn't have the strength
to rise above them at this time of year.

It was different out in the fields. There were no
high-rise blocks there for the sun to hide behind. The
neighbouring farms were so far away that they seemed
to be just a minor blot on the landscape. He could well
have been standing in the middle of an ocean. There
was no end to it. The plain was as boundless as the
ocean, and he was standing in the middle of it next to
the island he lived on. It was a desert island that he longed
to escape from, but no ships passed by to take him away.
He could swim, but not as far as that. He wasn't big
enough. When he grew up.

He walked round the high-rise building and saw the
sun. He could look straight at it without going blind;
it was like a low-voltage bulb up there in the heavens.

A tram clattered past down below. He raised a hand
in greeting. Perhaps the driver was somebody he knew
who would recognise him.

The tram stopped a bit further on and people got off
carrying bags and parcels containing Christmas presents.
Parcels wrapped in fun, colourful paper. They had
to be Christmas presents.

He shook his head.

The old man had shaken the iron in his face. Shaken,
shaken. He could detect the smell of singed hair, and
something more. Singed flesh.

Great stuff, these irons, the old man had said. Look
out! he'd said, and the iron had only just missed him.

The cow started sizzling. Another sizzling cow.

Once the burn heals, nobody will be able to claim
that she's not ours. The old man had held up the iron
again. Shall we brand you as well while we're at it,
milad? To make sure you don't wander off and can't
remember where you live. That's the way they used to
do things. Right? Shall we change things now? He'd
backed off and felt a scratch under his right foot. Come
here, I said! Out there the sea was breaking on the
shore. He rushed out into the water.

Winter drove. Ringmar kept an eye on the road signs.
The plain was black and enveloped by a damp breeze.
A tractor in a rectangular field was doing God only
knows what.

'Maybe they're sowing,' said Ringmar, pointing.
'Spring seems to have arrived before winter this highly
peculiar season.'

It was a different world. That was why Winter had
wanted to pay a brief visit. He could see the horizon
the way you could normally only see it from a ship.

I should get out of town more often. You walk up
and down the city streets and the years go by. It's not
far, and it's something completely out of the ordinary.

'It's not easy to hide out here,' said Ringmar.

'There are houses,' said Winter.

'Everybody knows everything about everybody else,'
said Ringmar.

'If only we did.'

'You should turn off here,' said Ringmar.

The side road wasn't visible until they came to it.
There was a signpost, but it was as insubstantial as the
breeze that was blowing from all directions. They
couldn't see an avenue that might lead to a dwelling.

'Where is this farm, then?' said Ringmar.

They kept going. The landscape took an unexpected
turn, and they saw the house.

A dog barked as they drove into the farmyard.

A man was clambering out of some kind of vehicle.

They got out of their car.

'Good afternoon,' said Ringmar, and introduced
himself and Winter. The man was over sixty and dressed
in waterproofs and solid-looking boots. Winter could feel
the rain now, like soft gravel. The man said, 'Smedsberg'
and dried his hands on a rag that had been draped over
the bonnet of what could have been a petrol-driven
lawnmower, but was presumably something different.
Winter looked up at the farmhouse, which had two
storeys plus attic rooms. He couldn't see any sign of a
Swedish Kenyan peering out of a window.

'We're looking for somebody,' said Ringmar.

Among other things, Winter thought.

'Is it summat to do with Gustav?' said the man, with
a strong local accent.

'Hasn't he told you?' asked Ringmar.

'Told me what?'

Two cats were sitting beside the iron stove. The farmer
opened a hatch and inserted two logs. A modern electric
cooker stood next to it. There was an unmistakable
smell of old-fashioned heating that Winter had no
personal experience of, but recognised immediately. He
could see from Bertil's expression that he remembered
this kind of thing.

There were rag carpets on the floor. Winter and
Ringmar had not been asked to take off their shoes.
The farmer, Georg Smedsberg, had exchanged his boots
for some kind of slippers that appeared to be homemade.

There were samplers on two of the walls: East, west,
home's best. God is the truth and the light. This earth
is the creation of our Lord God. Honour thy father and
thy mother.

Is there a Mrs Smedsberg? Winter wondered.

They told the old man about what had happened to
his son.

'You'd've thought he'd've said summat,' said
Smedsberg, putting a coffee pot that seemed to be a
war-time model on to the stove. 'But nowt happened to
'im, eh? He's all right, is 'e?'

'He wasn't injured,' said Winter, taking a mouthful
of the asphalt-black coffee that also seemed to be from
another world. It would banish every bacterium in his
body, good and bad.

'Good coffee,' said Ringmar.

'It's how I like it,' said Smedsberg.

To ask for milk would have been a mistake. Winter
sipped at the hot liquid, but no more. Anybody wanting
to create a surrealist scene could have introduced an
espresso machine into this kitchen.

'I don't suppose you've had a visit recently from a
friend of Gustav's?' he asked.

'When might that've bin?'

'In the last couple of days.'

'No.'

'Before that, then?'

'Nobody's bin here since Gustav was home last.'

Smedsberg scratched at his chin, which was shaven
and shiny and didn't fit in with his clothes and general
appearance. They hadn't announced their visit in advance.
Perhaps he knew about it even so. Out here everybody
knows about everything, as Bertil had said. An unfamiliar
car from Gothenburg. A Mercedes. A conversation with
his son. Or smoke signals. Maybe the lad had phoned
and told him what was going on. Even tillers of God's
good earth could tell lies.

'When was that?' Ringmar asked.

'Let's see, it's nearly Christmas . . . It would've been
potato time.'

'Potato time?' Ringmar wondered.

'When we took in the taters. Late. Beginning of
October.'

More than two months ago, Winter thought. Ah well.
How often did Winter meet his mother? There were
direct flights from Gothenburg to Malaga almost every
hour for all the pensioners and golfers and those who
were a combination of the two, which was most of them.

There was a framed photograph on an escritoire on
the other side of the kitchen table. A middle-aged lady
with permed hair smiled timidly in black and white.
Smedsberg saw that Winter was looking at it.

'That's my wife,' he said. 'Gustav's mum. She left us.'

'Left you?'

'I'm a widower,' said the man, standing up. He walked
to the iron stove and put in some more birchwood.
There was a sizzling sound as the dry wood reached the
flames. Winter noticed that smell again.

'Has Gustav brought a friend home with him from
Gothenburg?' asked Ringmar.

'When would that be?'

'Whenever. Since he started studying at Chalmers.'

'Yes,' said Smedsberg, remaining by the stove and
warming his misshapen and discoloured hands on the
hotplates. 'When he was here to give us a hand with
the potatoes he brought a mate with him.' Smedsberg
seemed to be smiling, or he might have been reacting
to the heat that he must be feeling in the palms of his
hands now. 'He was a black man.' He removed his
hands and blew into them. 'As black as the soil out
there.'

'So his friend was a black person, is that right?' asked
Ringmar.

'Aye, a real blackie,' said Smedsberg, and now he
was smiling. 'It were the first time for me.'

My first black man, Winter thought. There's a first
time for everything.

'We could've used him to scare our cows in,' said
Smedsberg.

'Was his name Aryan Kaite?' Winter asked.

'I don't recall a name,' said Smedsberg. 'I don't even
know if I ever heard his name.'

'Is this him?' Winter asked, showing him a copy of
a photograph of Kaite they had taken from his room.
Smedsberg looked at the photograph and then at Winter.

'Hell's bells! They're all alike, aren't they?'

'You don't recognise him?'

'No,' he said, handing the photograph back.

'Has he been here again since then?'

'No. I ain't seen him again since then, you can bet
yer life I'd remember if I had.' He looked from Winter
to Ringmar. 'Why are you asking all this? Has he disappeared
or summat?'

'Yes,' said Winter.

'Is he one of them others that've been attacked?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Well, why else would you come here?'

'Yes, he's one of them.'

'Why would anybody want to have a go at Gustav
and this blackie, then?' asked Smedsberg.

'That's what we're trying to find out,' said Winter.

'They mebbe deserved it,' said Smedsberg.

'I beg your pardon?'

'They mebbe got what they deserved,' said Smedsberg.

'What do you mean?' asked Ringmar, looking at
Winter.

'What'd they been up to?' said Smedsberg.

'What do you mean by
that
?' asked Ringmar.

'They must have been up to summat. It can't just be
a coincidence that somebody bashed both of them, can
it?'

'The attacks didn't happen at the same time,' said
Winter.

'Even so,' said Smedsberg.

'And Gustav hasn't said anything to you about this?'

'He's not been here since October, like I said.'

'There's such a thing as the telephone,' said Winter.
There was even one in this house. Winter had seen it
in the hall. An old-fashioned dial, of course.

'It's a month or so since we spoke,' Smedsberg said,
and Winter noticed how his face changed, clouded over.

Ringmar leaned forward.

'Do you have any other children, Mr Smedsberg?'

'No.'

'You live here all alone?'

'Since my Gerd left us, yes.'

'Was Gustav still living at home then?'

'Yes.' Smedsberg seemed to be looking into space.
'He were little, and then he grew big. Did his National
Service as well. Then . . . then he moved to Gothenburg
and started studying.'

'So he doesn't want to take over the farm?' said
Ringmar.

'There's nowt to take over,' said Smedsberg. 'I can
barely scrape together a living, and when I've gone, the
crows are welcome to it.'

They made no comment.

'Shall I meck some more coffee?' asked Smedsberg.

'Yes please,' said Ringmar, and Winter looked at him.
Bertil must be possessed by a desire to leave us, to shrug
off this mortal coil. It will be a painful farewell. 'If we
have time.'

'I'll just stir up the dregs,' said Smedsberg and went
over to the stove. Winter gave Ringmar the thumbs-up.

'Gustav told us something else,' said Winter. 'The
injuries those boys suffered might have been caused by
an iron of some kind. That's what Gustav thought. Some
sort of marking iron used on cattle.'

'A branding iron, you mean? Are we supposed to
keep a branding iron here?'

'I don't think he said that. But the boys might have
been beaten with one.'

'I've never heard of owt like that,' said Smedsberg.

'Like what?'

'Anybody clubbing folk down with a branding iron.
Never heard of it.'

'That's what Gustav suggested.'

'Where'd that idea come from? We've never had a
branding iron here.'

'But he could have been familiar with one even so,
could he?' asked Ringmar.

'I suppose so,' said Smedsberg. 'I wond . . .' but he
didn't finish. The coffee pot was starting to rattle on
the stove. He fetched the coffee and came back to the
table.

'No thank you,' said Winter. Smedsberg sat down.

'I've allus used ear tags on our cows,' he said. 'If I
ever needed to mark them. But in the old days we had
the number from the Co-operative that we used to mark
cattle with.'