Frozen Tracks (41 page)

'Didn't anybody react to the fact that he had a little
boy in his flat?' Ringmar wondered.

'Did anybody see?' asked Winter. 'He might have
waited until it got dark and then carried the boy up.'

'But later?'

'They never went out.'

Ringmar turned away. Winter stood in the middle of
the room. He contemplated the video cassettes in their
black cases. He went to the table and lifted them up,
one after another. There were no markings, no text.

He looked round. There was a shelf of cassettes on
the right, most of them marked. Bought videos. He knew
that paedophiles copied their films on to innocent
thrillers or comedies. Winter had sat watching films
containing everything possible between heaven and earth
– at any moment an entirely different sequence could
appear, a child who . . . who . . .

But he didn't need to do that now.

Paedophile. If Jerner wasn't a paedophile, what was
he? Winter wasn't sure.

'I don't suppose you've seen a camera in here, Bertil?'
he said, waving a cassette at Ringmar.

'No.'

There was no cassette in the video player. Winter
picked an unmarked cassette at random, put it into the
player, found the video channel and started the tape.
Ringmar came to stand beside him. They waited while
the initial blurred images and buzzing finished.

The pictures suddenly
jumped
on to the screen, unexpectedly
sharp.

Trees, bushes, grass, a football pitch. Children in a
long line. Adults at both ends and in the middle. A
woman's face that Winter recognised. Another woman
was pointing a camera in various directions. The
sound was vague, streaky.

The woman suddenly started to grow as the zoom
came into play. Her camera was directed at Winter as
he stood beside Ringmar in this disgusting room.

We had him, Winter thought.
I had him
, I talked to
him. Micke was here while he was with me. It was only
half a day ago. One night. But I didn't see.

Jerner had stood exactly where Winter was standing
now and seen the camera pointing at him. What had
he thought? Did he care? Did he think the video camera
and the cap would protect him?

There was a checked cap hanging out there in the
hall. They didn't need it any more. Jerner didn't need
it any more.

The buildings on the other side of the road now
appeared on the television screen. It was like seeing
images of a story you'd been told, Winter thought. Or
watching the film of a book you'd read.

A blackout, then Micke Johansson was in the picture,
in a pushchair with Bengt Johansson. Winter recognised
the location, and so did Bertil.

'Can you phone and ask them to send a car there
right now?' he said, without taking his eyes off the screen.

Ringmar rang, and they continued watching the video.
Micke Johansson with his dad, with his mum, on his
own on a swing, leaving there in his pushchair, half
asleep, his legs sticking out. On the way through
Brunnsparken heading for the entrance to Nordstan's
shopping mall.

'My God,' said Ringmar, 'it's just before it happened.'

'He must have taken the camera in there with him,'
said Winter.

Another cut, a brief sequence of disturbance, then a
steady picture taken on a day that was greyer, wetter,
perhaps starker.

'November,' said Ringmar.

'The chronology on the cassette is mixed up,' said
Winter.

The picture showed a different playground with children
playing. Winter suddenly felt sick: he recognised
the building. It was Elsa's day nursery.

It was Elsa on the swing.

It was her face that the camera zoomed in on, as
close as the DAMN lens could get, her mouth smiling
out into the wonderful world she'd only recently been
born into.

The camera followed her as she jumped down from
the swing and scampered towards the playhouse.

Winter could feel Bertil's supportive hand round his
arm.

'She's in Spain, Erik. Spain.'

Winter tried to breathe, to break the spell. He was
here, Elsa was there, Angela, his mother. He felt an
overwhelming urge to reach for his mobile and phone
Nueva Andalucía.

He saw himself appear on the screen. The camera
followed him from the gate to the door. He vanished.
The camera waited, still aimed steadily at the door.
Winter turned round in the room where he was standing
now. He was in that film! Both here and there at this
very moment!

There is a mound on the other side of the road, in
front of the cemetery. That's where he's standing, Jerner.

The camera waited. Winter and Elsa emerged. He
said something and she laughed. They walked back to
the gate, hand in hand. He lifted her up and she tried
to open it. They went out, and he closed the gate behind
them. He lifted Elsa into the front seat of the Mercedes
and strapped her into her child seat. I'm a detective
chief inspector, but I'm a father as well.

The camera followed the car as it drove off, signalled
right, disappeared round the corner.

Black screen. Winter looked at the next cassette on
the table. We didn't take them in order, he thought.
That one will feature Kalle Skarin, Ellen Sköld, Maja
Bergort and Simon Waggoner. Before and during. Maybe
after. These were future victims. Ringmar had phoned
again. Another car to another place.

'There's more to come,' said Ringmar.

Another place, swings in the background, a slide, a
wooden train, showing its age, that the children could
play around in.

'The playground at Plikta,' said Ringmar.

Winter nodded, still thinking about Elsa.

'The conductor,' said Ringmar.

A little boy of about four was busy checking the
tickets. The children sat down. The camera concentrated
on the conductor, and followed him when he grew tired
and wandered off. Followed him back to the swings,
watched him swinging back and forth, back and forth.
The cameraman moved the camera in accordance with
the swing, and Winter had the feeling that this was the
worst he'd been through, one of the worst things he'd
ever experienced during yet another day at work. There
were more pictures of the same boy, in different places.
The sun shone, it was raining, the wind thrashed its
way through the trees.

'Who the hell is that?' said Ringmar, and Winter
could hear the desperation in his voice. 'Who's the boy?'

They watched the little lad slip and fall, and burst out
crying after the usual intake of breath before the pain
and the surprise. They watched a woman come to bend
down over him and console him. Winter recognised her.
He even remembered her name. Yes. Ingemarsson.
Margareta Ingemarsson.

'That's the day nursery in Marconigatan,' he said.
'She works there.'

'Huh,' said Ringmar. 'Well done. We must get hold
of her as soon as possible and show her this. She'll
know who the boy is.'

'Ring Peder at the Police Operations Centre. He'll
still be there, and he's good.'

Winter raised his head and saw morning on the other
side of the window, a heavy mist. He suddenly heard a
million noises in the hall. Everybody had arrived.

The day nursery manager from Marconigatan was at
home; she was switched through from Operations Centre
to Winter, who was still in Jerner's living room. He
couldn't describe the boy over the telephone. She wasn't
going anywhere; to tell the truth she was barely awake.

Winter drove to her house in Grimmered, following
her directions.

'Can I have my car back one of these days?' Ringmar
had asked as Winter was on his way out.

'I hope so,' Winter had replied. 'Will you phone the
Skövde station?'

'Already done,' Ringmar had said. 'They're on their
way to the old man's house.'

It was a possibility, Winter thought as he drove
through the morning. Jerner going back to his old home
in the sticks. He could be there already. Natanael
Carlström would let him in.

But Carlström couldn't know.

Winter remembered Carlström's telephone number.
He rang from the car. After six rings he hung up, then
rang again, but there was no reply this time either.

He met three taxis on the motorway, but no other
traffic at all. A solitary bus stood in Kungsten in a cloud
of steam and exhaust fumes, waiting for nonexistent
passengers. Nobody crossed the streets. Snow was still
lying as a thin layer of powder that would be blown
away by the slightest breeze, but at the moment there
was no sign of any wind in the city.

He saw three police cars emerging from the tunnel.
He heard a snatch of siren and saw another one
approaching from Högsbo höjd.

The police radio was rapping out instructions
regarding the hunt for Jerner and the boy.

He turned off Grimmeredsvägen and found the house.
The Christmas tree in the garden was tastefully lit up.
Winter thought of Ringmar's neighbour. Had Ringmar
murdered him yesterday?

The sky behind the timber-built house was alternating
between bright yellow and wintry blue. Christmas Day
was going to be fine. It was cold. The time was just
turned nine.

She was dressed when she opened the door. The
man beside her had tousled hair, bloodshot eyes and
a hangover.

'Come in,' she said. 'The video player is in here.'

He found the sequence with her and the boy. The
man smelled of alcohol and looked as if he were going
to throw up when he saw the scene.

'It's Mårten Wallner,' she said without hesitation.

'Where does he live?'

'They live at – just a moment, I have the address list
on the fridge. It's not far from here.'

Winter phoned from the kitchen.

'Mårten's at the playground,' said his mother. 'He's
an early bird.'

'On his own?'

'Yes.' He heard her intake of breath. 'What's going
on?' she asked, a new sharpness audible in her voice.

'Go and fetch him immediately,' said Winter, replacing
the receiver and hurrying into the hall.

'I heard,' said Margareta Ingemarsson. 'The playground
– assuming it's the one near here – is on the
other side of the hill. That's the quickest way.'

She pointed, and he ran through the undergrowth.
You could never be certain. NEVER. He could see Elsa's
face in Jerner's recording.

There were some fir trees on the top of the hill, and
there was a playground a bit further on and a little boy
in a woolly hat walking away from it hand in hand with
a man in a thick jacket and a cap. Winter could only
see the man's back, and he started sliding down the slope
and scraped his shin on the frozen ground under the thin
layer of snow and he shouted and the boy turned round
and the man turned round and they stopped.

'It's only us,' said the man. The boy looked at Winter,
then up at his father.

Ringmar was making a Basque omelette in the kitchen,
Winter had explained how to do it before sitting down
in the living room and phoning Angela.

He wouldn't say anything about the video. Not now.

'My God,' she said. 'But you've got to find him,
surely?'

She meant the boy.

It was a big ask. They knew who the abductor
was, but not
where
he was. Winter was very familiar
with the opposite situation: the body of a victim but
no identity for the killer. Sometimes they didn't know
the identity of either.

Children disappeared and never came home again.
Nobody knew; they would never know.

'We're trying to think of every possibility,' said Winter.

'When did you last get some sleep?'

'I don't know.'

'Forty-eight hours ago?'

'Something of the sort.'

'Then you're not functioning now, Erik.'

'Thank you, Doctor.'

'I'm being serious. You can't keep going for another
day on nothing but cigars and coffee.'

'Cigarillos.'

'You must eat. For God's sake. I sound like a mother.'

'Bertil's making a Basque omelette at this very
moment. I can smell paprika burnt black.'

'It's supposed to be burnt black,' she said. 'But Erik.
You have to get some rest. An hour at least. You have
colleagues.'

'Yes. But just now I have all the details in my head,
everything, that's how it feels. So has Bertil.'

'How is he?'

'He's spoken to his wife. He doesn't want to tell me
what they said. But he's, shall we say, calmer now.'

'Where's Martin?'

'I don't know. I don't know if Bertil knows. I haven't
asked yet. He'll say when he wants to say.'

'Pass on greetings from me.'

'I will.'

Winter heard Ringmar shout from the kitchen, which
was a long way away.

'Lie down for a few hours,' she said.

'Yes.'

'What are you going to do then?'

'I haven't a clue, Angela. I have to think about it
over the food. We're looking everywhere.'

'Have you cancelled the ticket?'

'What ticket? Tomorrow's flight?'

His ticket for the late-afternoon flight to Málaga,
return two weeks later. It was lying on the hall table,
as a sort of reminder.

'Of course that's what I mean,' she said.

'No,' he said. 'I'm not going to cancel it.'

'Where the hell are they?' asked Ringmar over the
kitchen table, but mostly as a muttering to himself.

They were trying to contact any of Jerner's friends,
colleagues, nonexistent relatives. He didn't seem to have
any friends.

Jerner had been off sick for the last few days.
When he came to see Winter it wasn't after work. He
drove straight back
there
, Winter thought when he
heard.

And then possibly left immediately for somewhere
else. Where?

Winter looked up from his plate. He'd felt slightly
dizzy when he sat down, but that was gone now.

'Let's drive out to the old man,' he said.

'Carlström? Why? The Skövde boys have already
been there.'

'It's not that. There's something . . . there's something
to do with Carlström that's linked with this business.'

Ringmar said nothing.

'Something else,' said Winter. 'Something different.'
He pushed his plate to one side. 'Are you with me?
Something that can help us.'

'I'm not sure I understand,' said Ringmar.

'It's something he said. Or didn't say. But there's also
something in that house of his. It was something I saw. I
think.'

'OK,' said Ringmar. 'There's nothing more we can
do in town at the moment. Why not?'

'I'll drive,' said Winter.

'Are you up to it?'

'After this restorative meal? Are you kidding?'

'We can always fix a driver,' said Ringmar.

'No. We need every single officer for the door-to-door.'

The telephone rang.

'Press conference in an hour,' said Birgersson.

'You'll have to take it yourself, Sture,' said Winter.

Winter smoked before they set off. The nicotine bucked
him up. He didn't look at the headlines outside the
newsagent's.

The city streets seemed to be deserted. Normal for
Christmas Day, perhaps. Now that was drawing to a
close as well. Where was it going? Dusk was lying in
wait over Pellerin's Margarine factory.

'I checked with Skövde again,' said Ringmar. 'No
sign of anything at Carlström's place, no tyre tracks,
and they'd have seen those in the newly fallen snow.'
Ringmar adjusted the two-way radio. 'And old man
Smedsberg is saying nothing in his cell.'

'Hmm.'

'And now it's starting to snow,' said Ringmar, looking
skywards through the windscreen.

'It's been looking dull for ages,' said Winter.

'The tracks will disappear again,' said Ringmar.

They'd discovered a new, faster way of getting to
Carlström's farm. It meant that they didn't need to pass
Smedsberg's house.

It seemed to have been snowing quite heavily on the
plain.

Winter hadn't announced their visit in advance, but
Carlström seemed to take it for granted.

'Sorry to disturb you again,' said Winter.

'Leave it,' growled Carlström. 'Would you like a cup
of coffee?'

'Yes please.'

Carlström went to the wood-burning stove, which
seemed to be on all day long. It was warmer in the little
kitchen than anywhere else Winter could imagine. Hell
perhaps, but Winter thought that was a cold place.

The heat in this kitchen could induce him to fall
asleep in mid- sentence.

'It's a terrible business,' said Carlström.

'Where could Mats be now?' Winter asked.

'I don't know. He's not here.'

'No, I've gathered that. But where could he have
gone?'

Carlström tipped coffee into the saucepan straight
out of the tin, which was covered in rust.

'He liked the sea,' he said eventually.

'The sea?'

'He didn't like the plain,' said Carlström. 'It looks
like a sea, but it isn't a sea.' Carlström turned round to
face them. Winter noticed a warmth in his eyes that
could have been there all the time, but he hadn't detected
it. 'He could go and fantasise about the sky up there,
the stars and all that, and the sea-like plain.'

'The sea,' said Winter, and looked at Ringmar. 'Do
you know of any place he used to go to sometimes? A
person?'

'No, no.'

Carlström came with the coffee. There were small
cups on the table that looked out of place, elegant.
Winter looked at them. They told him something.

It was linked to what had inspired him to come here.

Ringmar told Carlström about Georg Smedsberg.

Carlström muttered something they couldn't hear.

'What did you say?' asked Winter.

'It's him,' said Carlström.

'Yes,' said Ringmar.

'Just a minute,' said Winter. 'What do you mean by
that?'

'It's his fault,' said Carlström, staring down at the
little cup hidden inside his big hand. His hand was
twitching. 'It's him. It wouldn't have happened but for
him . . .'

Winter saw. It was coming to him now, he knew why
they'd had to come out here again. He remembered. He
stood up. Jesus CHRIST.

He'd seen it the second time, or was it the first? But
he hadn't
thought
, hadn't
realised
.

'Excuse me,' he said, and went back into the hall;
the ceiling light with no shade cast faint light on to the
upper part of the cupboard in the far corner where there
was a little collection of photographs in old-fashioned
frames gleaming vaguely gold or silver. That was what
Winter had seen, only a passing glimpse of something
you find in every home, and he'd seen the face, the
second from the left, and it was a young woman with
blonde hair and blue eyes, and the reason why he
remembered
, why he had recreated this photo in his
mind's eye, was her features that he had recognised
later, yesterday or whenever the hell it was, on Christmas
Eve, in his office. Her face had stuck in his memory,
her eyes, they were transfixing him now, that remarkable
piercing quality that almost made him want to
turn round to see what she was looking at straight
through his head.

He went closer. The woman's face had a cautious
smile that ought to have vanished by the time the photograph
was taken. The similarity to Mats Jerner was
astonishing, frightening.

He had seen that face previously as a framed portrait
on an escritoire on the other side of the table in Georg
Smedsberg's kitchen. He could see that in his mind's eye
as well. The woman in that portrait was middle-aged,
and smiling a cautious black-and-white smile. It's my
wife, Smedsberg had said. Gustav's mum. She left us.

He heard a shuffling sound, Carlström's slippers.

'Yes,' said Carlström.

Winter turned round. Bertil was standing behind
Carlström.

'It was many years ago,' said Carlström.

'What happened?' was all Winter could say. Open
questions.

'She was very young,' said Carlström. He sank down
on to the nearest chair, the only one in the hall. He
looked at Winter's face, which was a question mark.

'No, no, I'm not Mats' father. She was very young,
like I said. Nobody knows who he was. She never said.'

Carlström made a sort of gesture.

'Her parents were old, and they couldn't cope. I don't
know if it killed them, but it all happened quickly. First
one, then the other.'

'Did you look after her?' Winter asked.

'Yes. But that was after.'

'After what?'

'After the boy. After she'd had him.'

Winter nodded and waited.

'She came back without him. It was best, she said.'
Carlström squirmed on the chair, as if in pain. Winter
felt wide awake, as if he'd been resurrected. 'They
presumably had some kind of contact, but . . .'

'What happened next?'

'Then, well, you know what happened. Then she met
h . . . She met him.'

'Georg Smedsberg?'

Carlström didn't answer, as if he didn't want to utter
the man's name.

'He did it,' said Carlström, and now he looked up.
Winter could see tears in his eyes. 'It was him. It is him.
He ruined the boy.' He looked at Winter, then at
Ringmar. 'The boy was damaged before, but he ruined
him altogether.'