Frozen Tracks (24 page)

'No,' said Kristina Bergort.

'You know that we are working on a case in which
a stranger abducted a little boy and later injured
him?'

'Yes. You explained that when you phoned yesterday,'
said Kristina Bergort.

'I hadn't read anything about that,' said Magnus
Bergort. 'Hadn't heard anything either.'

'It has been reported in the press, but without any
exact details. You understand? This is a conversation in
strictest confidence. We have spoken to some other parents
who have been through something similar.'

'What's going on?' asked the mother.

'We don't know yet. That's why we're asking.'

'Did Maja have any injuries?' asked Halders, just
beating Winter to it.

'No,' said Mrs Bergort.

'Weren't there a few bruises?'

'How do you know that? If you knew, why did you
need to ask, come to that?' she said.

'The inspector who called on you previously told us
about it. But we wanted to hear it from you.'

'Yes, of course. Bruises, yes. She fell off the swing.
On her arm, there.' She held up her own arm, as if
that were proof of what she was saying. 'They're better
now.'

'They couldn't have had anything to do with this . . .
meeting with the stranger?' Winter asked.

'No.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'As I said, it was the swing.' She was still sitting on
the chair, but only just. 'Like I said.' She looked at her
husband, who nodded and checked his watch again. He
was still standing in the doorway like a tin soldier in
uniform. 'She fell off the swing.' She held up her arm
again. 'Fell!'

There's definitely something wrong here, Winter
thought.

Memories like nails being hammered into his skull.
Bang, bang, bang, in deep, and did it hurt? DID IT
HURT?

There were no dreams out in the sticks, on that plain.
Everything was emptiness and wind. He didn't want to
look heavenwards, but where else was there to look?
The filthy dome covered everything up above and at the
sides.

It's different here. I can see without things splitting
inside my head.

He lay on the sofa. He looked up at the ceiling, on
which he had painted two scenes, side by side. If he
looked left he could see a starry sky, bright and radiant.

He had painted the constellations from memory. If he
looked right, the sun was shining from a blue sky that
was the most beautiful one he'd seen. He'd made it
himself, hadn't he?

Sometimes he would draw a curtain that ran along
a runner in the middle of the ceiling. He could go from
night to day, and vice versa, as it suited him.

He felt a jab inside his head, and another. Memories
again. 'That can't have hurt very much!' The shadow above
him, a peal of laughter. Several shadows, a circle
around him. He could see only soil. It was raining.
There were boots in front of his face. 'Do you want to
get up?' A boot. 'He wants to get up.'

Was there anybody else there? He couldn't remember.

He got up now, went into the other room and
sought out the new memories that didn't hurt when
he touched them: the car, the ball, the charm and the
watch. He held the watch up to the light coming from
the street lamps as if it were dark in the room. The
watch had stopped and he tried to wind it up again,
but nothing moved. It had stopped back then. It had
been pulled off the boy's arm and hit against something
hard.

How had it been pulled off?

No, no, they were not good memories and he didn't
want to see pictures like that inside his head where there
were already wounds from all the other stuff.

The boy hadn't behaved as he should have done. That
was what had happened, he hadn't acted like the others,
to whom he'd shown things and who understood and
who were nice and wanted him to be nice to them. The
boy wasn't like that, and it was a big disappointment
when it dawned on him. He could think about that and
remember. The disappointment.

He twirled the charm round in his hand. Rolled the
ball on the floor. Pushed the car between the chair and
the coffee table. A lap round the table leg.

It wasn't enough. He let go of the car and stood up.

It wasn't enough.

In front of the television screen he felt relief; for a
moment there were no memories. He closed his eyes,
or had closed his eyes.

He could see now. The children were moving back
and forth without knowing they were being filmed. Just
think if they had known! Everything would have been
different then. Not good.

He saw the girl's face, the zoom on the camera worked.
She seemed to be looking straight at the camera, but she
couldn't know.

He knew where she lived. He had waited and watched
when they fetched her. He didn't like them. Who were
they? Did the girl belong to them? He didn't think so.
He would ask her. He would . . . and he started to sing
a song in order to keep the thought of what he would
do next time out of his mind. There was once a little
girlie, tra la la la la, and a little laddie, da da da da da.

There would be a next time, and it would be . . .
bigger then. Bigger.

Next time he would do what he'd have liked to do
right from the start, but hadn't been . . . courageous
enough. Cowardy cowardy custard!

You could hold hands. That would do.

He closed his eyes, looked, closed his eyes. Now all
the children were there, as if they'd been given an order
by the ladies who were standing there like soldiers. He
smiled. Like soldiers!

They were looking in his direction, straight into the
camera that they couldn't see. Nobody could see it or
him. He'd left his car and stood hidden, just as everything
else had disappeared into itself among the bushes
and woods and trees. Grass. Stones, rocks, everything
else there. Soil.

The children set off walking, in a long line. He
followed them. Here at home on the sofa he could see
how his hand was shaking as he emerged from the
bushes; a branch came swooping towards the lens.

They were in the street. He was in the street. He was
a long way away from them, but this was a good camera.
One of the supervisors turned round and looked at it.

He leaned forward. She was still looking at the
camera. He had zoomed in a bit closer. She turned away.
She turned back again.

Buildings in the picture now. Uninteresting buildings
that simply grew and grew, upwards and sideways. Cars
in front of the picture, making it blurry.

He had turned the camera away to avoid that stare.
It wasn't
her
staring he wanted. Why was she there?

The buildings had gone now. He was somewhere else.
He knew where. There were rocks behind the house.
The girl was on a swing. Somebody was standing behind
her. The girl swung higher and higher. He followed her
up and down, up and down.

He sat there, following her with his head. The swing,
the girl, the hands pushing from behind the girl. It looked
so funny.

Somewhere else. A family, and he'd followed them
until they grew smaller and smaller and no zoom in the
world could have helped any longer.

Hours later, who could say how many. He drove past
all the familiar places. Everything was the same as usual,
but the light was brighter and dazzled him, must have
dazzled others as well. Fir trees, as if the forest had
come walking to the roadside and left a deserted plain
behind them. Then, when it was all finished, there would
be no forest left anywhere at all. Only fields where you
couldn't hide away. Nowhere to hide.

There's that park, and here's this one. He knew them
all so well. Everything was familiar.

'I'd like a monthly season ticket, please.'

A woman sticking her face into his cab as if she
wanted to squeeze her fat body through the opening
and force him out through the window on the other
side. That wouldn't surprise him. They're all the same.
Pressing, forcing their big fat bodies against me,
PRESSING up against me, their big fat bodies.

'Don't you have monthly season tickets on board?'
she asked.

'Er, yes, that'll be a hundred and twenty kronor,
please.'

'A hundred and twenty? They only cost a hundred
in the newsagent's.'

Buy one there, then, clear off out of here and buy a
ticket there. At the newsagent's. He didn't want her
here, in his tram. She was pressing. A man behind her
was pressing. They wanted to get into here, into his
cabin. They wan—

'Why should I pay a hundred and twenty?'

'Because it costs a hundred and twenty.'

'But why?'

'I must set off now. Do you want a ticket or don't
you? I have to set off now, you stupid bitch.'

'Wh-what did you say?'

'I have to set off now.'

'Wha-what did you call me?'

'I didn't call you anything. I said I have to set off
now because I have to meet a deadline at Söbergsgatan.'

'Söbergsgatan?'

'Söbergsgatan.'

'Söderbergsgatan?'

'Söbergsgatan.'

'Give me that ticket, then. I can't stand here all day.'

'A hundred and twenty kronor.'

'Here.'

At last he was able to set off again. The stupid bitch
had disappeared towards the back of the tram. He could
still smell her perfume. It was enough to make you sick.
Did she have any children? No, no, no.

He was just about to get into his car.

'Have you a second, Jerner?'

It's already gone, he thought. I had it, but now it's
gone.

He got into the car without answering.

'Jerner?'

What did he want – another second? Here you are,
out through the window – now that one's gone as well.

'Switch the engine off for a minute, Jerner. What the
hell's the matter with you? Didn't you hear that I'd like
to have a word with you?'

Have a word. What word would you like? How about
arsehole?

'If you don't listen to what I have to say, you could
find yourself in deep trouble,' said the man, who was
still there beside the car. Jerner had switched off the
engine. But that person who kept calling himself the
boss was still there. What did he want? He was babbling
on. 'The woman phoned HQ right away on her mobile
and they passed the message on to me. She says you
called her disgusting names and acted in a strange way.'

Disgusting names? Whose behaviour had really been
disgusting?

He drove off, didn't even bother to glance in the rearview
mirror.

Winter kicked off his shoes and dropped his overcoat
on the floor where he stood. Angela was watching.

'Pick it up!' he said, pointing at the coat.

'Not so loud. Elsa's asleep. She had a touch of stomach
ache and was a bit of a handful.' Angela looked at the
overcoat, then at him. 'You don't have the right voice
for a bully.'

He headed for the kitchen.

'Are there any leftovers?'

'You'll have to go sleuthing in the pantry.'

'We don't have a pantry.'

They were sitting at the kitchen table, as ever. Winter
was thinking about Smedsberg's kitchen, not to
mention Carlström's combi-variation: cowshed and
kitchenette.

'What was it like out in the country?'

'Flat.'

'Did that surprise you?'

'Yes, it did in fact. Sometimes it was like being at
sea.'

'There's an illness you can get out on the prairies,'
said Angela. 'Simply by living there.'

Winter thought about the men they had met that day.

'That doesn't surprise me.'

'In the USA they call it "The Sickness".'

'Not bad. Why can't all illnesses have nice simple
names like that?'

'People go mad in states like Wyoming and Montana.
In those enormous prairies there are no reference points.
All you can see is a vast flat plain and the horizon.'

'Like being at sea, as I said.'

Angela poured more tea.

'There's nothing to look at, no trees, no houses, no
roads with cars or buses. People lose their sense of direction.
Lose their senses in the end.'

'So all you'd need to stay sane would be an outside
loo in sight?' said Winter.

'That would be enough, certainly.'

'The people living where we were today seem odd,
but there are a few outside loos scattered around,' said
Winter.

'Did you find the boy? The medical student?'

'No. And nobody expected we would.'

'Why did you go there, then?'

He didn't answer, poured out some more tea, buttered
another slice of rye bread, placed a piece of Stilton on
it, cut a wedge from his apple.

'Did you just need to get away for a while?' Angela
asked.

'Something has happened out there,' said Winter.

'What do you mean?'

He took a sip of tea and a bite of his open sandwich.
The radio on the work surface was churning out
the latest weather forecast: colder, clearer, a probability
of snow for Christmas.

'Something has happened out there,' he said again,
sounding serious. 'I had a strange feeling in one of the
houses we visited.'

'What are you basing that feeling on?'

'The Sickness,' he said, grinning over his tea cup.

'Are you pulling my leg?'

'Of course.'

But he wasn't pulling anybody's leg. Angela had seen
that, and later, much later, he had said so, after they
had made love and he had got up to fetch two glasses
of mineral water. He'd longed for a Corps, but hadn't
had the strength to go out on to the balcony.

'You know that I have a sort of intuitive ability,' he'd
said. 'You know that.'

'What was it, then?'

'When Bertil and I drove home, we agreed that one
of those elderly men, the older one, was lying through
his teeth. You can tell. I mean, it's our job to decide if
people are telling the truth or lying.'

'Does it always matter?'

'What do you mean?'

'People lie for different reasons. I can see that myself.
Some just come out with a lie, without knowing in
advance that they're going to lie. But it doesn't change
anything. It doesn't turn them into criminals. It doesn't
necessarily mean that they are concealing something
horrific.'

'No, but that was precisely the feeling I had out there.
That there was something – something major that was
being concealed. Something horrendous has happened.
Do you understand? The old man we spoke to had
something in his past that he didn't want us to know
about.' Winter took a drink of the mineral water. 'But
I also think the other one, young Smedsberg's father,
was lying. I don't know what to think about it. I don't
even know if it's relevant. Presumably not.'

'He probably got nervous when two upper-class chief
inspectors turned up from the big city.'

'We're not upper class.'

'Really? Were you wearing overalls?'

'Of course. Bought them in the village shop.'

He emptied his glass. He could see her profile.

'Do you think he had that boy Kaite shut up somewhere?'

'Hidden away? No.'

'What, then?'

'I don't know, like I said. But I do know we need to
talk to the other old man again, Carlström. Before that,
though, I need to speak to young Smedsberg.'

He noticed that she nodded slightly.

'At the same time we need to talk to these children,
and have another word with their parents.'

'It's awful,' she said.

'It could be even worse than we think,' he said.

She didn't answer.

'I've tried to think this one through, looking for a
possible pattern that might become clearer if we get
some more facts, memories. Pictures. Objects. Things.
If there is a pattern, it probably won't make matters
any easier. And if it gets more complicated it will also
become . . . more horrendous.' He stretched out his
hand, rubbed her shoulder, which was firm but soft.
'Can you see the way my thoughts are going?'

'That it will get worse,' she said.

'Yes.'

'That it could run and run.'

'Yes.'

'What can be done, though?' she asked. 'Lock up the
children? Have armed guards posted at day nurseries
and children's playgrounds, and schools?'

'It might be enough if there were more staff.'

'Ha!'

'But there's no hundred per cent certain way of stopping
anybody who's determined to hurt somebody.'

'So all you can do is wait?'

'Certainly not.'

'What would happen if the press announced that
there was somebody out there? Waiting. Or preparing
himself.'

'It wouldn't be good,' he said.

'But what if you
have
to inform the press? What if
you're forced to put the general public in the picture?'

'There are various ways of doing that.'

'I've seen that little boy, Waggoner.' He could hear
her breathing. 'How is it possible? Eh? What makes
somebody do something like that?'

How is it possible to be rational and clear in reply
to a question like that? he thought.

'I know there simply isn't a rational and clear answer
to a question like that, but it has to be asked, don't you
think?' He could see that she was looking at him now.
He could see a glint in her eye. 'Don't you think? Why?
You have to ask why?'

'The answer to that question is what we're always
looking for,' he said.

'Is it enough?'

'Discovering why? I don't know. Sometimes there is
nothing.'

'No reason, you mean?'

'Yes. What is the reason why somebody commits a
serious crime? Is there only
one
reason? Is it a series of
different reasons? Are they linked? Is it possible to
analyse them logically? Should one even try to think
logically if the crime, or crimes, is driven by chance and
a lack of logic? Or calculated chaos, if there is such a
thing.' He looked at her again. 'There could be so many
possibilities. It could be pure lunacy, acute mental illness.
Bad memories. Revenge.'

'Is that usual? Revenge?'

'Yes. Revenge on somebody who has treated you
badly. Directly or indirectly. Yes, it certainly is usual. It
can go a long way back.'

'A long way back in time?'

'A long way back,' said Winter again. 'The past casts
shadows. You know that. It happens so often. To find
the answers you have to pin down a
then
. What happens
now has its origins in that then.'

'So that could apply in this case as well? With the
assaults on those students? As well as the abuse of the
boy?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'They are two different things, but still.'

'Hmm.'

'You mean they're not two different things?'

'Well . . .'

'You're hesitating.'

'No, I'm thinking about this searching backwards
through time. Digging. Looking for answers.'

'You and your colleagues are acting like investigative
journalists, you mean?'

'No. More like archaeologists. Archaeologists of
crime.'