Never End (27 page)

Winter listened.

“Can you make it any clearer?”

“I’m trying, I’m trying. Not yet. I need to do some more work on the high register, try to lower it. There’s a lot of background stuff that needs washing out as well.”

“Such as?”

“Various hums and buzzes. The wind, presumably. Traffic noise.”

“Traffic noise?”

“Yes, traffic noise. A car goes by. About thirty meters away, maybe fifty.”

“It’s several hundred meters to the main road.”

“Not on this tape. I think it’s a car, and it’s close by, as I said.”

“It’s possible to drive a car along the bike path there.”

“There you are, then.”

“So a car might have driven by while it was happening?”

“It seems so.”

“They should’ve seen the bike lying on the ground,” said Winter.

“People pay no attention to such things,” said Yngvesson.

“Somebody in the car should’ve seen something of what was happening,” Winter said.

“In that case you’d better start looking for another witness.”

“Can you tell what make of car it is?”

“Of course,” said Yngvesson dryly. “Hang on a minute and the computer will tell you its license plate number as well.”

Yngvesson played the sequence one more time.

“There.” He rewound, then played it again. “There. That’s a sentence of some kind. Or a sequence of words, at least. Not just a mad burbling.”

Winter could hear the burbling. It sounded worse every time he heard it. Like watching a snuff movie. People being killed for real. A snuff tape. A real murder.

“I’ll crack this, by God, I will,” said Yngvesson.

“Can you tell if he’s young or old?” Winter asked.

“One thing at a time.”

“But will it be possible?”

The technician shrugged, barely visibly, once again absorbed in his work.

 

 

Ringmar went to fetch some coffee. He muttered something as he headed for the half-open door.

“Come on, it’s your turn,” Winter shouted after him.

Ringmar came back, but had forgotten the milk. He had to go back again. Winter was at the window, smoking. Mercators weren’t as good as Corps. You could import Corps yourself from Belgium. Maybe ask one of the thousands at EU headquarters who commute between Sweden and Brussels.

A canoe passed by on the river. Winter watched the ripples from the paddle—the only movement out there this afternoon. No cars, no streetcars, no airplanes, no pedestrians; no sound, no wind, no smell, nothing except the man paddling eastward with the sun like a spear in his back as rays found their way through the buildings at Drottningtorget.

“OK?” said Ringmar from behind him, putting the cup of coffee on Winter’s desk.

“What do you say to putting a tail on Mr. Samic, the club and restaurant king?” asked Winter, without turning around. He took a last drag on his cigarillo before stubbing it in the ashtray on the window ledge.

“Why not?” said Ringmar. “If we’re smart about it.”

“I was thinking of Sara,” Winter said.

Sara Helander. One of the new detectives, already an inspector and on her way to higher things. Relatively unknown about town. Good-looking, without being stunning. Nobody should look too stunning in this job, Winter thought. Except me. But that’s in the past now.

He glanced down at his khaki shirt, shorts, and bare feet in deck shoes.

“Have you spoken to her?” Ringmar asked.

“Yes,” said Winter, turning to face him. “She knows as much as the rest of us, and is up for doing it.”

“When?”

“Starting now.” Winter checked his watch. “Exactly now.”

“Then why bother to ask me?”

Winter shrugged.

Ringmar drank his coffee.

“Is she on her own?”

“So far. Then we’ll have to see.”

“Put somebody else on it, Erik.”

“I don’t have anybody else right now.”

“Find somebody else.”

“OK, OK.”

“Which car are you giving her?”

“Yours,” said Winter.

Ringmar choked and spat out half a mouthful of coffee over Winter’s desk, thankfully missing all the paper.

 

 

The shadows were long and stretched when he drove to the Bielkes’. The old houses were in the dark behind neatly trimmed hedges that held at bay the light trying to force its way into the gardens.

The big verandah was deserted. Winter parked close by it. The gravel crunched under his feet as he walked from the car to the steps.

Irma Bielke emerged from a door on the right before Winter got as far as the verandah. Just for a second he thought she looked very much like the girl in the photograph from Angelika’s party. The same age. He looked again, but the similarity had gone.

She was fifty, but looked younger. He would’ve thought she was about his age.

He hadn’t called in advance, just showed up.

“Jeanette’s not at home,” she said. “Neither is Kurt.”

“I’ve come to chat with you, actually,” Winter said.

“With me? What about?”

“Can we sit down for a few minutes?”

“I’m on my way out.”

On her way to the verandah, Winter thought. What she was wearing was equally suitable for lounging around at home, or for going out—the same as everybody else: shirt or blouse, shorts, and bare feet in comfortable shoes.

A candle was burning in the room behind her. Winter could see it through the door. It was on a little table near the window.

“Are you allowed to just drop in on people like this?” she asked.

“Can we sit down for a few minutes?” Winter asked again.

“There’s nothing else to be said,” she replied. “Not to Jeanette, not to Kurt, and most of all not to me.”

“I’m not going to lay down the law,” said Winter. “I just want to ask a few questions.”

“Are you suggesting that there are any questions left to ask?” she said.

“It won’t take long.”

She gestured toward the cane furniture farther back on the verandah. “Please spare me all the crap about this being for Jeanette’s sake,” she said. There was a sudden trace of steel in her voice. “Going on about how the rapists, or whatever euphemism you might use, will be arrested more quickly the sooner we help you, by answering all the questions that come raining in from all sides.”

Winter said nothing. He sat down. She remained standing, leaning against the wall. Her eyes were dead. Winter stood up, remained standing. There was a smell of trees and dry grass. The candle seemed brighter now.

“How is she?”

“How do you think?”

OK, Winter thought. Let’s stop beating about the bush.

“She won’t be going to university,” said Irma Bielke.

“Really?”

“The application had been sent, and she’d been accepted, but she’s decided to turn it down.”

“What’s she going to do instead?”

“Nothing, as far as I know.”

“Go in for something else?”

“I said, nothing.”

She sat down and looked at him.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I feel?”

“How do you feel?”

She looked at the room where the candle was burning.

“It wasn’t the end of the world. There are worse things to worry about.” She looked up at Winter as he sat down. “Aren’t you going to ask me about what worse things?”

“What worse things?”

“HIV, for instance,” she said. “We got the test results this morning.” Winter waited.

“Negative,” she said. “Thank God. I’ve never known it to be so positive to have a negative response.” Winter thought she gave a curt laugh. “You’ve chosen a good time to visit. We’re happy again.”

She moved into half shadow. Winter wondered what to say next. “Where is Jeanette this evening?”

“She’s gone swimming with a friend,” she said. “It’s the first time . . . since it happened.”

“What about your husband?”

“Kurt? Why do you ask?”

Winter said nothing.

“Why do you ask?” she said again.

Here we go, Winter thought. The candle had gone out. There was a smell of sea, all the stronger now.

She was looking past him, at something in the garden. Winter could hear the wind, sounding like something moving through the treetops. Her face was expressionless. “I don’t know where he is.” She seemed to give a laugh, or it might have been something else: “I seldom do.”

“Is he with Jeanette?”

“I don’t think so.”

She stood up.

“Is that all, then?”

“Not really.”

“I have no desire to talk to you anymore.”

“When did you last hear from Mattias?”

She stopped in her tracks. Like freezing a video frame, Winter thought, but more sharply focused.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mattias. He’s apparently found it difficult to stay away from here.”

“Are you referring to Jeanette’s former boyfriend?”

“Are there several Mattiases?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’m referring to the boyfriend,” Winter said.

“I’ve forgotten what you asked.”

“When did you last hear from him?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“What happened between them?”

“Why is that important?” She seemed surprised; her face had surprise written all over it. “Why does that matter? Now?”

“Don’t you realize?” he asked.

“No.”

“Haven’t you ever thought about it?”

She thought, thought.

“Mattias? No. That’s not possible.”

Winter said nothing. She looked at him, straight at him.

“Surely you can’t think that? That Mattias . . . that he might have done something to Jeanette?”

No, Winter thought. Not him. But he didn’t answer her question. Instead he commented on the sound of a car in the street.

“Is that your husband coming home?”

“It’s his car,” she said, going past him again.

A car door opened and closed. Footsteps on the gravel, on the steps, a voice.

“What’s he doing here again?”

Winter turned around. Kurt Bielke was standing at the top of the steps. He was wearing a white shirt, gray pants, and black loafers. There was sweat on his face. He came closer. Winter could smell the alcohol on his breath. Bielke must realize he could smell it. He didn’t care.

“I can’t even turn my back without you or some other pig—police officer—showing up,” he said. He took a step forward, swayed for a tenth of a second, took another step, looked at his wife.

“What did he say?”

She didn’t answer.

Bielke looked at Winter.

“What did she say?”

“Where’s Jeanette?” Winter said.

Bielke turned to his wife. “Can you get me a beer?” She looked at Winter. “I mean
one
beer,” said Bielke, nodding at Winter. “The inspector can’t have one. He’s just leaving, and you shouldn’t drink and drive.”

Calm down, Winter thought. This is an important moment. It’s telling me something. It’s saying something about Bielke and his wife. Perhaps about Jeanette as well.

Irma Bielke hadn’t moved.

“Am I going to have to go myself?” said Bielke. He smiled and turned toward Winter. Bielke switched on an outside light on the verandah. His face was white in the glare. He nodded at Winter, raised his eyebrows, and laughed, as if at a joke somebody had told him in his head.

SARA HELANDER WAS OUT WALKING THROUGH THE WARM
evening
.
Two couples were sitting on the steps leading down to the canal, snuggled up close. The moon was reflected in the water, a band of gold. The outlines of surrounding buildings stood out sharply against the sky, like charcoal drawings. Scents wafted past her as she crossed over one of the harbor streets. A taxi glided slowly southward, its sign leaving a streak of light behind it. A lot of people were sitting at outdoor cafés. She could hear the sound of glasses and dishes and voices combining to form that special mixed language common to all outdoor cafés in all countries all around the world.

Cars came and went outside the entrance to the dance restaurant. It also had an outdoor area, but nobody danced there. There wasn’t an empty table. She sat down at the bar and ordered mineral water with lime.

“May I treat you to that?” asked the man in the next chair. Her water was on the bar.

She declined with a smile and took a sip. Then another: she realized she was thirsty after driving into town and walking from the multistory parking lot.

The man looked at her. He was about her own age, thirty or so. Pretty good-looking. But she wasn’t here for pleasure.

“Don’t drink too quickly,” he said. “It’ll hit you afterward.”

“It’s mineral water,” she said.

“It’s the ice you have to watch out for—the cold upsetting your stomach.”

“That’s why I haven’t got any.”

“It shouldn’t be too warm either,” he said, with a smile. “It makes no difference what I say, does it?”

“No. If you’ll excu—”

“OK, OK, I’ll keep quiet.” He smiled a third time, got the bartender’s attention, and ordered another beer. He looked at her glass and she shook her head. “Sure?”

“I thought you were going to keep quiet.” She took a drink. “Alright, another mineral water with lime. Cold but no ice.”

“Shaken or stirred?” the man asked. The bartender was waiting with an amused smile.

Sara Helander looked toward the entrance. Johan Samic was there, talking to a couple who had just come in. She was exchanging pleasantries with the man at the bar, but wasn’t neglecting her work. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to look as if she had company.

Samic contemplated his customers. People were lining up on the sidewalk outside. It was ten-fifty-five. A quartet started playing inside the restaurant. A proper old-fashioned smoochy number. The last thing I’m going to do is dance to that! she thought.