Frozen Tracks (5 page)

It was only in exceptional circumstances that Janne
Alinder went out in a patrol car, but this was one of
those occasions and, typi cally, all hell broke loose as he
drove sedately along the boulevard. The tram ahead of
him suddenly ran amok and almost
bounced
over the
crossroads and became a sort of hard airbag for a series
of cars that crashed into it from all directions.

'
Saatana perkele
,' said Johan Minnonen, who had
been born in Finland, became a Swedish citizen and
then a police officer but seldom spoke a word of Finnish.

Alinder immediately called for reinforcements. It
looked bad. Cars had gone up the sides of the tram and
then fallen back down again. It didn't need much speed
for that to happen. He could hear somebody screaming.
He could hear an engine that wouldn't shut up despite
being in its death throes. He could hear sirens. He could
see the lights. Somebody screamed again, a woman. An
ambulance appeared. It must have been just round the
corner when he sent out the emergency call. A police
car raced up, and another, and a patrol car fitted with
the new roof lights that spattered light out in circles
over the whole of the county.

* * *

Nobody had died. It turned out that there was one
broken arm and a few sprains and bruises caused by
airbags inflating. A drunk who had been standing next
to the tram driver's cab had been thrown against the
windscreen without smashing it. On the other hand, the
drunk's forehead had been smashed, but none of his
brains had run out as far as they could see.

He'll soon be able to start enjoying life again, Alinder
had thought as the drunk was carried off to the ambulance.

Alinder had been the first to enter the tram once he'd
persuaded the shocked driver to open the doors. He had
looked round: the man bleeding at the front, a woman
sobbing in a loud howl, two small children crammed
into a seat beside a man with his arm still round them
to protect them from the crash that had already
happened. Two young men in the seats behind. One
was black and the other white and looking pale in the
various lights streaming into the tram. The black man
might also be pale.

The driver had been sitting motionless, staring straight
ahead, in the direction he would have been driving in
peace and quiet if only he'd done his job properly and
obeyed the traffic lights. There was a smell of alcohol,
but that might have come from the man lying on the
floor and blocking the way into the driver's cab. Yes,
that was no doubt the source, he looked a real tosspot.
But then again, the driver might have had a drop or
two, it had been known to happen.

The driver had slowly turned to look at him. He
seemed calm and uninjured. He had picked up his briefcase
and left it lying on his knee. Alinder hadn't been
able to see anything unusual about the cab. But what
did they normally look like? That wasn't his strong suit.

There had been something hanging from a peg behind
the driver. Alinder thought it was some sort of toy animal,
or a little bird, perhaps, green in colour, almost the same
as the wall. It had a beak. Looked like a mascot.

The driver had swung round on his chair, raised his
left hand, taken down whatever it was and stuffed it
into his briefcase. Hmm. A mascot. We all need some
kind of company, Alinder thought; or protection,
perhaps. To ward off bad luck. But that bunch of feathers
hadn't been much use on this occasion.

The tram had been half full. When he looked round
he saw that people had started to get off. His fellow
officers whose job it would be to stop them hadn't
arrived yet.

'I'd appreciate it if you could stay inside the tram
until we've got the situation under control,' he'd said.

Two young men with their heads half-covered in
piercings had looked round but continued on their way
out through the door. Not that I blame them, Alinder
had thought. Or intend to stop them. I can't stop them,
there's no time for that.

There was no sign of the black man or the white
man any longer.

The driver was sitting in front of him. He was in some
kind of shock, but it wasn't bad enough to prevent him
from saying something, now that he was about to start
the interview.

At least he was sober.

He was fair-haired and aged about forty, and his eyes
had a piercing sharpness that almost made Alinder want
to turn round and see what he was looking at straight
through his head.

His uniform was badly cut and ill-fitting, more or
less like the one Alinder was wearing. He held his cap
in his hand, twirling it round like the earth round the
sun, round and round and round. He had a tic in his
left eye. He'd hardly spoken, just mumbled and nodded
when they'd finally managed to worm their way out of
the circle of curious bystanders at the scene of the accident.

Alinder had noted his name and address.

'Let's start from the beginning,' said Alinder, switching
on the tape recorder and testing his pen by drawing a
little peaked cap on the sheet of paper in front of him.
'You appear to have got a bit out of step with the traffic
lights, is that right?'

The driver nodded, almost imperceptibly.

'Why?' asked Alinder.

The driver shrugged, still twirling his cap round and
round.

'Come on now,' said Alinder. 'Was the drunk putting
you off?' A leading question, but what the hell, he
thought.

The driver looked up at him, those remarkable eyes.

'The man lying at the side of the driver's cab had
quite a few under his belt,' said Alinder. 'What was he
doing there? When the crash happened?'

The driver's mouth moved, but no words came out.

Is he a mute? Alinder wondered. No, Gothenburg
Tramways wouldn't employ a dumb driver. A driver has
to be able to communicate. Is he still in shock? Can
that make people dumb? Huh! What an ignorant bastard
I am.

'You must give me an answer,' he said.

The man twirled his cap.

'Can't you speak?'

The cap, round and round.

OK, thought Alinder. Let's try this. He slid a glass
of water across, but the man didn't touch it.

His briefcase was standing by his chair, the kind all
the tram drivers had. Alinder had always wondered what
was inside them whenever he saw a tram driver walking
towards his tram, like a pilot on his way to his aircraft.
Alternative routes? A bit more difficult in a tram than
up in the air. Harder to drive round and round
Brunnsparken while waiting to approach your stop than
to circle over the airport at Landvetter.

He knew one thing that was in the briefcase, but that
had nothing to do with the accident.

'Was there something wrong with the lights?' he
asked.

The driver didn't reply.

'But you drove through a red light,' said Alinder.

The driver nodded.

'It's a very busy crossroads,' said Alinder.

The driver nodded again, somewhat hesitantly.

'Things could have turned out a lot worse than they
did,' said Alinder.

The driver was looking elsewhere now. Ex-driver,
Alinder thought. He's not going to be driving any trams
until this incident has been thoroughly investigated by
the tramway people as well.

'We can help you,' said Alinder.

'H-h-h-h-h-h,' said the man.

'I beg your pardon?'

'H-h-h-h-how?'

So you're a stutterer, poor sod, thought Alinder. Or
is it the shock after the crash?

'We can help you by going through exactly what
happened,' he said.

'Th-th-th-th . . .'

'Yes?'

'Th-th-th-the o-o-o-oth-oth-other,' said the driver.

'The other? You mean the other man?'

The driver nodded.

'The other man. Which other man?'

The driver moved his head as if he were looking
down at something on the floor.

'The man lying on the floor? Is that who you mean?'

The driver nodded. Alinder looked at the tape
recorder, and the tape spinning round and round. All
the nods and head-shakes are duly recorded, he thought.
All the st-st-st-st-stutters.

'Am I to interpret that as meaning that the man
distracted you while you were driving?'

They were preparing for a party. They had invited mainly
recent parents from the pre-natal group they used to
attend, looking trim and fit after all those relaxation
exercises. Angela had kept in touch with several of the
girls, and he was surprised to discover he got on well
with some of the men. Despite a considerable age difference.

'That's because you are still so immature,' Angela
said.

'And I'm so used to always being the youngest,' he
retorted, opening another bottle of wine.

'Is that something worth striving for?'

'No, but that's the way it's always been.'

'Not any more,' she said.

'Even so.'

'Phone your mum,' she said. 'You're still the youngest
in her family.'

'The youngest detective chief inspector in Sweden.'

'Is that still true?'

'Ask my mum!' he said, and the phone had rung and
they both guessed it was his mother calling direct from
Nueva Andalucía: it was typical of her timing. He picked
up the receiver, but it wasn't her.

He recognised the voice, though.

'Long time no see, Erik.'

'Likewise, Steve.'

DCI Steve Macdonald had been his partner in a
difficult case some years previously. Winter had been
over in London, in the suburbs around Croydon
where Macdonald's murder squad operated, and the
pair had become friends. Long-distance friends, but
still.

Macdonald had been in Gothenburg for the dramatic
climax of the case.

They were the same age, and Steve had a set of teenage
twins.

'We're coming over,' Steve Macdonald announced.
'The kids want to see the land of the midnight sun.'

'More likely the midday moon at this time of year,'
Winter replied.

'Anyway.'

'When are you coming?'

'Let's see, where are we now? Er, late November.
They have a long holiday starting early in December,
and so we thought: why not? Otherwise it'll never
happen.'

'Good thinking. But that's very soon.'

'Gothenburg's almost commuting distance from
London.'

'Mmm.'

'Do you think you could arrange a good hotel in the
centre of town? By "good", I mean one that comes up
to my modest standards. Not yours.'

'You must stay with us, of course,' Winter said.

'No, no. Beth'll be coming as well, so there'll be four
of us.'

'You've been here before,' Winter reminded him, and
pictured Steve, glass in hand, on the balcony one warm
evening in May, very nearly falling over the railing to
the ground twenty metres below. They'd been trying to
relax after all the awful happenings of the previous
weeks. 'You know we have plenty of room.'

'What I saw was mainly the kitchen and the balcony,
and to tell you the truth I don't remember much detail.'

'It's so big that modesty prevents me from telling you
just how big. And I don't suppose you'll be planning
to stay for six months.'

'Of course we are.'

'That's OK.'

'Three days.'

'That's also OK.'

'Well . . .'

'You know our address,' Winter said. 'We can sort
out the practical details a couple of days before you
arrive.'

'I shall be on holiday,' Macdonald said. 'I don't intend
to be practical.'

'I was thinking of the beer and whisky.'

'I'll bring that with me. A thirty-year-old Dallas Dhu
plus a Springbank that's out of this world, I can promise
you. Older than we are, as well.'

Macdonald had grown up near Inverness, on a farm
not far from the village of Dallas in Speyside.

'I think I'd better be on holiday as well,' Winter said.

'How about that! The DCI's getting more co-operative.'

'Or lazy.'

'In that case I'll be happy to impose on you. How
are Angela and Elsa?'

'Just fine.'

'Well then—'

'See you later, alligator,' Winter said, then wondered
why on earth he'd come out with such a corny expression.
Maybe because he was feeling cheerful.

But there wouldn't be a reunion in fact, no Dallas
Dhu and no Springbank. Not this time. Before the end
of November, Steve Macdonald would phone to say that
one of his twin daughters had an attack of bronchitis
that was threatening to develop into pneumonia, and
they'd have to cancel their trip.

There were more people in the flat than he could
remember ever having seen there before. Men and
women and children. It was a good party. Nobody
talked shop, and as far as Winter was concerned that
was the main criterion for a successful occasion. He'd
prepared two saddles of lamb that he carved for the
buffet, and nobody complained about the taste of the
lamb nor the oven-baked potatoes with herbs, nor
the salsa with roast chilli served in order to warm
the guests up.

Nor the cherry pies for afters. The espresso. The
calvados and grappa and the bottle of marc that more
guests wanted to taste than he'd expected when he put
it out.

* * *

It took him three attempts before he finally managed
to open his briefcase, but Bill was lying on top and
hadn't been damaged at all. Now his rotty was hanging
from his peg and he could almost hear him doing those
funny voice imitations. He could hear him now! It was
such fun!

The policeman had talked for ages, and he'd also
started talking after a while, when the band round his
throat had loosened and everything calmed down.

The girl laughed straight at him and he could see her
holding her arms out and Bill swinging backwards and
forwards. The film ended, he rewound it and watched
it again. They'd had so much fun. He watched her
putting some sweets into her mouth. He saw his own
right hand touching her, then pulling back quickly,
quickly. Like stroking down.