Frozen Tracks (43 page)

He was woken by a noise. He sat up with a force that
startled even himself. He checked the clock on the
bedside table: nine thirty. He'd slept for five hours.

Nobody had woken him up, nobody had phoned. He
knew they were aware at headquarters that he was
working all round the clock, and perhaps they were
simply trying to prevent him from burning himself out.
He almost smiled. But his mobile? Where was it? He
looked for it in the bedroom. It felt as if he were still
asleep. He looked for it in the other rooms, in the kitchen.
He rang the number from his landline telephone in the
kitchen. No ringing. He eventually found it on the
washbasin in the bathroom, switched off. He had no
recollection of taking it there, or of switching it off.
Why had he switched it off? But if there had been any
developments, he would have been phoned by Halders,
who was back on duty now. So nothing had happened.
He checked the answering machine. Then took a cold
shower.

As he was drinking coffee he thought again about
Nordstan. Jerner had kept visiting Nordstan. There were
usually so many people there that they merged into one
another. He looked at the clock. The shopping mall
would be open now.

On the way there Aneta Djanali phoned.

'Ellen Sköld said a name.'

'Have you spoken to her again?'

'Yes, just now, this morning. She keeps saying the
name Gerd. It must be Gerd she keeps saying.'

'Jerner's mother,' said Winter.

'He's told Ellen about her,' said Djanali.

There were plain-clothes police officers in all the arcades,
Postgatan, Götgatan, in the department stores. All the
entrances and exits were under observation.

People were thronging in there now. The Boxing Day
sales had exploded in everybody's face. Winter could
barely move as he tried to make his way over the square.
Yesterday he'd been the only person on earth; today
there were thousands there.

The headlines outside the newsagent's were screeching
at top volume.

Ringmar was waiting outside H & M, as agreed.

'Did you get any sleep, Erik?'

'Yes, but it was not intentional.'

'I've spoken to Martin,' said Ringmar.

'About time.'

'He wants to meet me.'

'What does he have to say?'

'That he's never got over the fact that I hit him once.
Once. That was it. That was all it was. But it just grew
and grew on him.'

'Did you?'

'Hit him? Not in that sense.'

'What other sense is there?'

'I
haven't
hit him,' said Ringmar, and Winter could see
that the relief in Bertil's face was that of an innocent man.
I haven't even done
that
, was what he wanted to say.

'Where is he?' asked Winter as he observed people
moving slowly around in clumps.

'In New York.'

'NEW YORK?'

'Yes. He's left that damned sect he was a member
of.'

'Deprogrammed?'

'He sorted it out himself.' Ringmar looked at Winter.
'Perhaps this is only the beginning, of course. Such things
take time.'

'What's he doing?'

'Working in a restaurant.'

'Is he coming home?'

'Next week.'

'When's Birgitta coming home?' Winter asked,
watching a man sitting on the ground with people stepping
round him.

'She's already home. So's Moa.'

'Who's checked out that guitar player?' said Winter,
pointing in the direction of the plinth in the middle of
the square.

'Eh? What guitar player?'

'Who's the GUITARIST?' said Winter. He stepped
quickly forward, collided with a woman, apologised,
and continued barging his way forward like a rugby
player forcing his way through tackling backs. He
reached the guitar player, who was sitting underneath
the hanging and whirling bodies of
Two Dimensions
,
strumming away at some tune or other, and came up
behind him, saw the checked cap and knew that it was
possible and that anybody could hide himself away like
this for as long as they liked. It was a devilishly clever
disguise, a disguise that would hold good in any public
place, and Winter's hand was shaking as he reached out
for the man, who strummed a chord, and Winter pulled
off his cap and found himself staring at a mop of black
hair and an unknown, terrified face staring up at him.

'Oh, I'm sorry,' said Winter.

Nobody seemed to have noticed. Nobody had been
listening to the busker. He stood up, grabbed his empty
guitar case and his guitar, and hurried away.

The sculptures were hovering over Winter's head. He
took a step backwards and looked up at the roof that
extended from the north arcade to the square. Four enormous
ventilation shafts were fixed under it, like pedestrian
tunnels. He followed them with his gaze. They came to
an end just in front of the work of art. You could see
the sky through a circular window. The highest of the
figures were surrounded by mirrors that formed a circular
prism reflecting the display windows of the shops round
about. He could see the reflections of people moving.
The white sculptures were of naked bodies, on the way
down from heaven to earth. He'd looked closely at them
for the first time the previous day. He was the only
person looking up. Before long, several more people
would wonder what was happening, and look up as well.

The bodies were attached to transparent lines that
seemed to freeze their movements.

Some were jumping.

Some were diving.

Then he saw him.

There was a new body hanging up there.

He hadn't seen that one yesterday.

White like the others, as white as snow.

Jerner's features had stiffened just like the rest of
them. He was on his way down from heaven in a frozen
movement.

His arms and legs were attached to wires that he
must have carried with him through the ventilation
shafts.

He'd tied the last of the wires around his neck.

Then he'd jumped.

Winter was able to work all that out in a flash.

He closed his eyes and looked again. Jerner was
hanging there, frozen in his death leap. He was flying,
just like he'd told his brother he would do, flying in his
own way. Winter looked round, and he could see that
he was the only one who had
seen
. Bertil had disappeared
in the sea of humanity.

Winter looked up again; he couldn't help it. Next to
Jerner's left shoulder he could see the reflection of H &
M's display window. The mirror was curved in a strange
way that made it possible for him to see the bottom
part of some clothes rails inside the shop. He saw a
small, shiny wheel and something that could be a stay,
or a stand of some sort. He turned round and forced
his way through the crowd and ripped the clothes off
the rails and there was the pushchair, and Micke's head
was leaning to one side, and a little arm hung down
and he could feel a faint pulse.

On the plane he kept his leather jacket on, and his
sunglasses. Somebody started singing as they rose up
through the friendly black skies. Somebody laughed. He
put on the earphones and switched on his portable CD
player and closed his eyes. A trolley arrived eventually
and he asked for four of the ridiculously small bottles of
whisky. He put the earphones back on and drank and
tried to think of nothing, but failed. The woman next to
him looked away. He turned up the sound and the trumpet
of Miles Davis blew everything else out of his mind.