Room No. 10 (16 page)

“There’s a first time for everything,” said Winter.

“Are you joking with me, Erik?”

“Never,” said Winter.

“Find that damn lunatic,” Birgersson said.

“Maybe he’s in there,” Winter said, nodding at the ancient Filofax on Birgersson’s desk. “You do have all the crazies from eighteen years ago in there.”

“Obviously you’re not letting it go,” said Birgersson.

“Can I borrow it?” Winter said.

•   •   •

Just as Winter left Birgersson’s office, he remembered that he had forgotten to bring up his leave of absence again. He turned around in the middle of the corridor and went back. The door to Birgersson’s office was still half-open, as he had left it. He could see Birgersson over by the window, with his back toward the room. Winter knocked on the door and stepped in. Birgersson turned around abruptly, as though Winter had knocked hard on his back. His face belonged to someone else. There was something there that Winter had never seen. There were tears on the older man’s face. Winter felt as though he had stepped uninvited into Birgersson’s most private space.

“What the hell do you want this time?”

“Excuse me, Sture,” said Winter, “I’ll come back later.”

“Come in, for God’s sake, and close the door behind you,” Birgersson said, taking a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and blowing his nose and gesturing with his other hand toward the guest chair by the desk. “Shit, I guess I have September allergies,” he said, sitting down heavily across from Winter. “My eyes are just running.”

Maybe he’s fooling himself, Winter thought.

“Has something happened?”

“Happened? What do you mean, happened?”

“Sture. You’ve smoked away every hint of an allergy. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Anyway, something’s going on. You don’t have to talk about it. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend not to notice anything. I’m too old for that. And you’re too old for it.”

“You’re not old, Erik. Not yet.”

Winter didn’t answer.

“I’m old,” Birgersson said. “This is my last autumn. Then God knows. I was thinking about it as I was standing by that damn window. When you came in. Suddenly I just teared up. I didn’t plan on it.” Birgersson tried to smile. “It has to do with age. When you’re old
you can’t control your bodily fluids. I can’t ever be too far away from a urinal anymore. Or a handkerchief, apparently.”

“Have you tried a catheter?” Winter said.

“Let me retire first,” Birgersson said.

“Have we ever talked about anything other than work?” Winter said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it’s important.”

“For whom?”

“For you and me both, I think.”

“I don’t believe in that stuff,” Birgersson said, and his gaze disappeared off somewhere. Someone who knew to look could still see traces of tears in his eyes, and Winter knew. He also knew that Birgersson was a lonely man. He refused to believe that the boss’s whole life was
here,
here in this confined workroom, but sometimes it seemed that way. Birgersson never talked about his other life. No one knew how he lived it. He never invited anyone into it. Maybe he was paying the price for that now, here, by the window, during his last autumn.

“I know a nice place with good lighting,” Winter said. “Let’s go there.”

“What will we do there? Cry together? We can’t do that, not in good lighting.”

“We’ll talk a little.”

“I told you, I don’t believe in that stuff.”

Their time is over, Winter thought. Those who didn’t believe in “that stuff.” Dead-silent men.

“Do what I’m doing,” he said.

“What?”

“Take a leave of absence. Delegate once in a while.”

“What are you saying? I should take a leave of absence six months before I retire?” Birgersson actually laughed. “And something like that coming from you? Inspector Winter preaches the virtues of taking time off. And for the second time in a short period.” Birgersson stood
up from his chair, abruptly, as though he was more vulnerable when he was sitting, vulnerable to words. “Besides you, no one here has applied for a leave of absence, as far as I know.”

“You have three months leave left,” said Winter.

“What will the others say? It goes against every unwritten rule.”

“I’ll settle for the written ones, Sture.”

Winter thought of the others: Ringmar, Halders, Bergenhem, Djanali, Möllerström, other colleagues above and below. There would be mixed feelings.

“Besides, you have a case to take care of. If we don’t solve this, there might be leaves of absence for everyone.”

“We’ll solve it,” Winter said.

“In less than three months?”

Winter didn’t answer.

Birgersson pointed at the Filofax.

“You just brought this up yourself. Sometimes even eighteen years isn’t enough.”

“We don’t know whether it was a crime,” Winter answered. “Ellen’s disappearance. You just said so yourself.”

“This isn’t like you, Erik. Is this Spain thing Angela’s idea?”

“No. It’s mine.”

“But why?”

“I thought we could talk about it at that nice place.”

•   •   •

Halders and Djanali were watching the video. They saw the blond woman come and go, come and go.

“Black sunglasses are a great disguise,” Halders said.

“And a wig,” said Djanali.

“Is it a wig?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t tell. Do you have to be a woman to tell?”

“Yes.”

“Would you figure it out if I were wearing a wig? If you didn’t know me?”

“Yes.”

“Would you still love me if I started wearing a wig?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No woman can love a man who wears a wig.”

“But women wear wigs.”

“That’s different.”

“Why is she wearing a wig?” Halders said, pointing at the screen. The woman was leaving. “Is it a disguise?”

“For whom?”

“For us, of course. She doesn’t want to be recognized. The wig and the sunglasses.”

Djanali ran the tape forward and back again.

“I don’t understand why she left the suitcase if she . . . knew what was going to happen to Paula. Or at least knew that Paula herself wouldn’t come to pick it up.”

“Keep going,” said Halders.

“Why drop it off at all? If she’s an accomplice? Why drop off a suitcase that your accomplice later picks up? And do it more or less publicly. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“The alternative is that she did it for Paula. A favor.”

“Then why hasn’t she contacted us?” said Djanali.

“The usual old reason,” Halders said. “She’s afraid.”

“Afraid of whom?”

“Of everything.”

“Is someone threatening her?”

“Maybe.”

“The murderer?”

“Maybe.”

“But then there’s some contact between her and the murderer.”

Halders didn’t answer. He studied the woman again. There was something about the way she walked. She wasn’t limping, but it was like she was making an effort not to limp. There was something strange about her manner of walking. It didn’t seem to be because of
the digital jerkiness of her movements. It was also apparently the case that limps and things like that were intensified by the computerized resolution.

“Is she the murderer?”

Halders turned toward Djanali.

“What did you say?”

“Is she the murderer herself?”

Halders turned his eyes back to the person in the blond wig and dark glasses. She moved as though she were walking on footsteps that had been painted on the floor, a path. He counted her steps.

“No,” he answered, “she hasn’t murdered anyone.”

Djanali followed his gaze.

“What are you looking at, Fredrik?”

“Do you see how she’s walking? Isn’t there something strange about how she walks?”

Djanali asked him to run the sequence again. The woman walked back and forth.

“Yes,” Djanali said at last, “she doesn’t really walk normally.”

“What is it?”

“It’s something about her feet.”

“Are you sure?”

Halders looked at the woman’s feet. She had dark boots, probably leather. They didn’t look entirely comfortable.

“Boots too tight?”

“Maybe,” said Djanali.

“What else could it be?”

“Some problem with her feet. Or toes.”

“Her toes?”

“I think she walks like someone who has problems with toes.” She turned to Halders. “Toe problems always cause problems with walking.”

Halders nodded.

“I’ve heard that a person without big toes can’t walk at all,” he said.

“She can walk,” said Djanali, nodding toward the monitor, “but it could be something about her toes.”

“How old do you think she is?” Halders asked.

“What do you think?”

Halders tried to read the woman’s face, what he could see of it. It wasn’t much. They didn’t have any close-ups yet. But there was something about her movements that pointed toward maturity. It wasn’t just the way she walked.

“Much older than thirty,” he said.

“Maybe over forty,” said Djanali.

T
hey found a nice place with worse lighting. Birgersson wanted it that way.

“So no one will see if my eyes water again.”

Birgersson looked around inside and pointed at one of the leather booths behind the bar. Above the booth hung a picture that depicted nothing; at least, not that could be seen from where they were standing. As Winter sat down, he saw that a sea was rolling inside the frame, or maybe it was a field, or a forest, or a large city seen from a great distance.

“What time is it?” Birgersson asked, looking at the bar, where the bartender was polishing a wineglass. Aside from one man on one of the bar stools, they were the only guests.

“Quarter past four,” Winter answered.

“Then I’ll have a beer and a glass of akvavit.”

“Is four the magic time?” Winter asked.

“I don’t know if it’s magic, but it’s a respectable hour for a drink.”

“I usually stick to seven.”

“For whiskey, yes. I don’t want that headache at four.”

“The headache comes later,” Winter said. “But it depends on the quality.”

“When doesn’t it depend on the quality?”

“Shall we order?”

•   •   •

Birgersson looked like he already had a headache. He rubbed a spot above one eye and studied the akvavit in his long-stemmed glass.

Winter took a sip of his beer.

Birgersson lowered his hand and looked around.

“I’ve never been here,” he said. “One of your regular haunts?”

“No, no.”

“And we’ve never sat down like this,” Birgersson continued. “You and I, just the two of us, at a bar out on the town.”

“They say there’s a first time for everything.”

“Who says that?”

Winter smiled in answer.

“But you should try everything at least once,” Birgersson said, “except for incest and folk dancing.”

“Who says that?” Winter asked.

“It’s a wise old saying from where I’m from.”

“Where are you from, Sture? You’ve never said.”

“It doesn’t exist anymore. So there’s nothing to tell.” Birgersson raised his glass. “This booze looks good.”

Winter raised his beer glass. He had considered a whiskey, but it was a long way to seven o’clock. And one whiskey was often followed by another whiskey.

Birgersson took a sip and said “aahhh,” set down his glass, and looked around the place again.

“A person could keep sitting here.”

“So let’s do that,” Winter said.

“You have a family to go home to, if I remember correctly?”

Winter laughed.

“Didn’t you have another child recently?” Birgersson continued.

“Just a year ago,” Winter answered.

“Wasn’t it a girl?”

“Yes. Her name is Lilly.”

“Lilly? That sounds like an old aunt, even though she’s only a year old.”

“She could become an old aunt,” Winter said.

“But it’s a beautiful name.”

“I think she’s happy with it already.”

“Reminds me of Sture somehow,” Birgersson said.

Winter smiled.

“They’re all still down on the sunny coast for almost another week,” he said.

“Aha.”

“Have you been there?” Winter asked.

“The sunny coast? Costa del Sol?”

Winter nodded. Birgersson was a legend in many ways at the police station, and the mystery surrounding his absences was great. No one had any idea where he spent his lonely vacations. If they were lonely. Birgersson had never had a family, not that anyone knew of, anyway, but there were many kinds of loneliness.

“Maybe,” said Birgersson.

That was the correct, mysterious answer.

“You’re welcome to come down this winter. Or this spring.”

“Take it easy now, Erik. It’s a long way to spring.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“That sounded depressed. Are you depressed?”

“Don’t think so.”

“It’s enough that you think I am.”

“Spring will always come,” said Winter. “Does that sound better?”

Birgersson smiled.

“You’re a strange devil, Erik Winter.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“The job leaves its mark,” said Birgersson.

“Maybe. But we were strange from the start.”

“Or nuts. Look at Halders.”

“He’s calmed down,” Winter said.

“Since you landed one on him, you mean?”

“You remember that?”

“Like it was yesterday.”

“It was in the fall,” Winter said, “late summer, actually.”

“That was the time of youth,” said Birgersson. “Cheers!”

He knocked back the akvavit and put down his glass.

“I’ve recommended your leave of absence,” he said.

“Thanks, Sture.”

“But our friend the director of the county CID makes the decision. You know that.”

“I don’t have any problems with Leinert,” Winter said. “And he owes me this.”

“Why does he owe you a leave of absence?”

“All the overtime I never collected. Come on, Sture. You know how it is.”

Birgersson didn’t answer.

“Halders can take over,” Winter said. “If he still needs to.”

“Halders, lead the investigation? Is that such a good idea?”