Frozen Tracks (3 page)

Winter shepherded the little lad back to the fold,
listening to some story he couldn't quite understand but
nodding approvingly even so. One of the ladies in charge
was standing halfway up the slope.

'I didn't know there was a fence there,' said Winter.

'It's a good job there is,' she said. 'We'd never be
able to keep them on the premises otherwise.'

He caught sight of Elsa on her way out into the
grounds: she'd clearly decided it was time to take a rest
from all that paperwork.

'Hard to keep an eye on all of them at the same time,
I suppose?' he said.

'Yes, it is now.' He detected a sort of sigh. 'I shouldn't
stand here complaining, but since you ask, well, it's a
case of more and more children and fewer and fewer
staff.' She made a gesture. 'But at least we've got them
fenced in here.'

Winter watched Elsa playing on the swings. She
shouted out when she saw him, and he waved back.

'How do you manage when you take them out for
excursions? Or take the whole lot of them to the park,
or to a bigger playground?'

'We try not to,' she said.

Ringmar was with the student, Jakob Stillman. The latter
had been living up to his name, but now he seemed able
to move his head slowly, and with some difficulty he
could focus on Ringmar from his sick-bed. Ringmar had
introduced himself.

'I'd just like to ask you a few questions,' he said. 'I
suggest you blink once if your answer is yes, and twice
in succession if it's no. OK?'

Stillman blinked once.

'Right.' Ringmar moved the chair a bit closer. 'Did
you see anybody behind you before you were hit?

One blink.

'Ah, so you did see something?' Ringmar asked.

One blink again. Yes.

'Was it far away?'

Two blinks. No.

'Were you alone when you started walking across the
square?'

Yes.

'But you were able to see somebody coming towards
you?'

No.

'So somebody was behind you?'

Yes.

'Could you make anything out?'

Yes.

'Did you see a face?'

No.

'A body?'

Yes.

'Big?'

No blinking at all. This lad is smarter than I am,
thought Ringmar.

'Medium-sized?'

Yes.

'A man?'

Yes.

'Would you recognise him again?'

No.

'Was he very close when you saw him?'

Yes.

'Did you hear anything?'

Yes.

'Did you hear the sound before you saw him?'

Yes.

'Was that why you turned round?'

Yes.

'Was it the sound of his footsteps?'

No.

'Was it the sound of some implement or other scraping
the ground?'

No.

'Was it a noise that had nothing to do with him?'

No.

'Was it something he said?'

Yes.

'Did it sound like Swedish?'

No.

'Did it sound like some other language?'

No.

'Was it more like a shriek?'

No.

'More like a grunt?'

Yes.

'Something deeper?'

Yes.

'A human sound?'

No.

'But it came from him?'

Yes.

He drove through the tunnels, which were filled with
a darkness denser than the night outside. The naked
lamps on the walls made the darkness all the more
noticeable. The cars coming towards him made no
noise.

He had the window down, letting in some air and a
cold glow. There was no light at the end of the tunnel,
only darkness.

It was like driving through hell, tunnel after tunnel.
He was familiar with them all. He would drive round
and round the city through the tunnels. Is there a name
for this? he wondered. A term?

Music on the radio. Or had he put a CD in? He
couldn't remember. A beautiful voice he liked to listen
to when he was driving under the ground. Soon the
whole of the city would be buried. The whole of the
road alongside the water was being dug down into hell.

He sat down in front of the television and watched his
film. The playground, the climbing frame, the slide the
children slid down, and one of the children laughed out
loud and he laughed as well because it looked such fun.
He pressed rewind, watched the fun bit once again and
made a note on the sheet of paper on the table beside
him, where there was also a vase with six tulips that
he'd bought that same afternoon. Both the vase and the
tulips.

Now the boy was there. His face, then the car window
behind him, the radio, the back seat. The boy told him
what to film, and he filmed it. Why not?

The parrot hanging from his rear-view mirror. He'd
picked out a red and yellow one, just like the climbing
frame at the playground that needed another coat of
paint, but his parrot didn't need repainting at all.

The boy, who'd said his name was Kalle, liked the
parrot. You could see that in the film. The boy was
pointing at the parrot, and he filmed it even though he
was driving. That needed a fair amount of skill, but he
was good at driving while thinking of something else
at the same time, doing something different. He'd been
good at that for a long time now.

Now he heard the voices, as if the volume had
suddenly been turned up.

'Rotty,' he said.

'Rotty,' echoed the boy, pointing at the parrot, and
it almost looked as if it were about to fly away.

Rotty. It was a trick. If anybody else were ever to see
this film, which wouldn't happen, but if, only if, it would
seem as if Rotty was the parrot's name. But that wasn't
the case. It was one of his tricks, like all the other tricks
you had when you were little and your voice suddenly
g-g-g-g-ot s-s-s-s-s-st-st-st-st-st-stu-stu-stu-stu-stu-stuck in
mid-stride, as it were, when he first st-st-started st-st-stst-
stu-stu-stu-stuttering.

It began when his mum walked out. He couldn't
remember it being like that previously. But afterwards
he had to invent tricks that would help him out when
he wanted to say something. Not all that often, but
sometimes. The first trick he could remember was rotty.
He couldn't say parrot, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa – no,
he could stand there stuttering for the rest of his life
and still not get to the end of that word. Rotty was no
problem, though.

He heard a sound that he recognised. It was coming
from himself. He was crying again, and it was because
he'd been thinking about the parrot. He'd had a red
and green parrot when he was a little boy, and still had
it when he was older. It was a real one and could say
his name and three other funny things, and it had been
called Bill. He was sure that Bill had been real.

The film had finished. He watched it again from the
beginning. Bill was there in several of the scenes. Bill
was still there for him because he hung a little parrot
from his rear-view mirror every time he went out in the
car. They might be different, with different colours, but
that didn't matter because they were all Bill. He sometimes
thought of them as Billy Boy. His favourite rotty.
The boy was laughing again now, just before everything
went black. Kalle Boy, he thought, and the film ended
and he stood up and fetched all the things he needed
for copying or whatever he should call it. Cutting. He
liked doing that job.

'Sounds like the Incredible Hulk,' said Fredrik Halders.

'This is the first of the victims who's seen anything,'
said Ringmar. 'Stillman's the first.'

'Hmm. Of course, it's not certain that it was the same
hulk who did all the deeds,' said Halders.

Ringmar shook his head. 'The wounds are identical.'

Halders rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn't all
that long since he himself had received a savage blow
that had smashed a bone and para-lysed him temporarily,
but he'd managed to get the use of his limbs back. For
what that was worth, he'd thought a long time afterwards.
He'd always been clumsy. Now it was taking
him time to get back to his former level of clumsiness.

To get back to his old life. His former wife had been
killed by a hit-and-run driver. A nasty word. Former.
Lots of things had been different formerly.

He lived now in his former house, with his children
who were anything but former.

He rubbed the back of his neck.

'What kind of a pick did he use, then?' he asked.

Ringmar raised both his hands and shrugged.

'An ice pick?' suggested Halders.

'No,' said Ringmar. 'That's a bit passé nowadays.'

Halders examined the photos on Ringmar's desk.
Sharp colours, shaved scalps, wounds. Not the first time,
but the difference now was that the victims were still
alive. The most common head in the archives is generally
a dead one. Not these, though, he thought. These
are talking heads.

'Never mind the bloody pick,' he said, looking up.
'The important thing is to catch the lunatic, no matter
what sort of weapon he uses.'

'But it's significant,' said Ringmar. 'There's something,
something odd about these wounds.'

'Yes, no doubt, but we've got to put a stop to it all.'

Ringmar nodded his agreement and continued
perusing the photos.

'Do you think it was somebody he knew?' asked Halders.

'That thought had occurred to me,' said Ringmar.

'What about the other two blokes? The other two
victims?'

'Huh. Saw nothing, heard nothing. A relatively open
square. Late. No other witnesses. You know how it is.
Had a few, but not completely blotto.'

'And then wham.'

'The same attacker every time. Do you think so as
well?' asked Ringmar.

'Yes.'

'Mmm.'

'We'd better delve a little deeper into the victims'
circles of friends and acquaintances,' said Halders.

'They're all different,' said Ringmar. 'They aren't
acquainted and they don't have any friends in common,
as far as we know.'

'OK, so they don't move in the same circles,' said
Halders, 'we know that. But then again, they're all
students in departments located in the town centre,
and they might well have bumped into one another
without realising it. A nightclub, the student union, a
political party, handball, bird-watching, any bloody
thing. Clubs for men only with strippers jumping out
of cakes and giving a few blow jobs. Maybe that's
what it is, and so they think they've got good reason
to lie about it. Or a student disco. No doubt they still
have them at the union. It must be more likely than
not that they'd come across each other somewhere or
other.'

'OK,' said Ringmar. 'But so what? Was their attacker
there as well?'

'I don't know. But it's a possibility.'

'That would mean he was after those three specifically,
wouldn't it?'

'It's a hypothesis,' said Halders.

'But you could just as well say he was ready to attack
anybody at all he happened to come across,' said
Ringmar. 'Late, deserted, a drop of booze to undermine
their natural caution.'

Halders got to his feet and walked over to the wall
map of Gothenburg. He stretched both arms back over
his shoulders and Ringmar could hear his joints creak.
Halders glanced at him with what might have been a
little grin, then turned to the map again and put his
finger on it.

'Linnéplatsen the first time.' He moved his finger to
the right. 'Then Kapellplatsen.' He ran his finger downwards.
'And now Doktor Fries Torg.' He turned round
and looked at Ringmar. 'A pretty limited area.' He
looked back at the map. 'Like a triangle.'

'Not really within walking distance, though,' said
Ringmar.

'There's such a thing as public transport.'

'Not much of it late at night, though. No trams, for
instance.'

'Night buses,' said Halders. 'Or maybe the Hulk has
a car. Or he just walks. The attacks weren't all on the
same night, after all.'

'But why change location?' asked Ringmar.

'He probably thinks we have enough resources to
keep an eye on the previous place,' said Halders. 'So he
doesn't go back there.'

'Mmm.'

'But we don't.'

'There's something about these places,' said Ringmar.
'It's not just coincidence.' Then he added, as if talking
to himself, 'It rarely is.'

Halders made no comment, but he knew what
Ringmar meant. The location of a violent assault was
often significant. The attacker, or the victim, nearly
always had some kind of link with that particular spot,
even if it wasn't obvious to begin with. The location is
always central. Always start off with the location. Spread
your search out from there.

'I've had a word with Birgersson,' said Ringmar.
'After the Guldheden incident. We're probably going to
get a few more officers so that we can knock on a few
more doors.'

Halders could see the superintendent in his mind's
eye. As scraggy as the vegetation in the far north where
he grew up, chain-smoking after yet another failed
attempt to quit.

'What about the triangle?' asked Halders. 'The
triangle theory? Add the third line and you've got a
right-angled triangle.' He ran his finger over the map
from Doktor Fries Torg to Linnéplatsen.

'No. You're the first to come up with that fascinating
link.'

'Cut out the irony, Bertil. You're too nice a chap for
that kind of thing.' Halders grinned. 'But Birgersson has
a soft spot when it comes to maths, I know that, especially
geometrical shapes.'

Halders grinned again. Maybe it was Sture Birgersson
wot done it. Nobody could fathom the man. Once every
year he would disappear without trace. Winter might
know, but then again he might not. Maybe Sture was
wandering round the streets in a black cloak, wielding
the mechanical cloudberry-picker he'd had as a kid and
using it to draw crosses on students' heads. Halders
could picture his silhouette in the light from the street
lamp: Dr Sture. Afterwards, Mr Birgersson. One might
well ask which of them was worse.

'So you reckon we'd get officers because we can see
a geometrical shape here?' wondered Ringmar.

'Of course.'

'And the more it changes, the more men we'd get?'

'Obviously. If the triangle turns into a square, it means
that the Hulk has struck again.'

'I'll stick with the triangle,' said Ringmar.

Halders went back to the desk.

'If they give us a few more detectives we might be
able to do a proper check on what buses run during
the night,' he said. 'Talk to the drivers. There can't be
all that many of them.'

'Taxis,' said Ringmar.

'What? Our dark-skinned friends are all operating
without a licence. When did we last get a useful tip
from a cabbie?'

'I can't remember,' said Ringmar.

The sun made everything look even more naked. Yes,
that was how it was. You could see what it was really
like. Nothing existed any more, just the trunks and
branches of trees, and the ground.

The sun isn't serving any useful purpose here, he
thought. It belongs somewhere else now. Clear off.

The children had spilled off the tram at Linnéplatsen.
It was always the same, day after day. They always
walked in a long line over the dead grass of the football
pitch in the middle of the square.

Sometimes he followed them.

He'd parked his car on the other side, where the children
were headed.

It was the first time he'd driven there.

He'd talked to the boy in his car. It had actually
happened.

He wanted to do it again. No. No. No! he'd shouted
out loud during the night. No!

Yes. Here he was. Just because he wanted to, well,
see, get close. No big deal.

The long procession in front of him was loosening
up, and the children were spreading out in all directions.
One little girl disappeared into some bushes,
emerged on the other side, then turned back again and
disappeared behind the shrubbery. He looked at the two
women in charge and could see that they hadn't noticed
her.

Just think if some stranger had been standing behind
the bushes when the little girl emerged on the other
side?

There she was again, round the bushes once more,
and then back to the other children.

He carried her in his arms, she was as light as a feather.
Nobody noticed him; the trees were leafless, but they
were densely packed. The surprise when he lifted her
up and carried her off. Is this really me doing this? His
hand placed so gently over her mouth. It all went so
quickly. There's the car. You can drive in and park here,
but nobody ever thinks of doing that. Probably think
it is not possible, or not allowed.

This is just something I draped over here. Let's lift it
up and go into the tent. Yes, this is a tent. Let's pretend!

We've got a radio. Now there's some mister or other
saying something. Did you hear that? Now some music.

Now, let's see. You can touch whatever you like.
There's lots of interesting things here.

What lovely hair you have! What's your name? You
don't know? Yeees, of course you do!

This is Bill. That's his name. Bill. Billy Boy. He can
fly. Can you see that? Fly fly fly.