Room No. 10 (30 page)

The boy pointed at the building they had been in earlier. The forensics team was still in the apartment on the fourth floor. Winter could see the light through the windows, and a sudden shadow as one of the technicians moved around inside. We won’t be long, they had said. What kind of crap is this?

“Do you live over there?” Winter asked. “In that building?”

The boy nodded.

“Can’t you talk?”

The boy shook his head. His hair was dark, yet still light in the glow from the streetlight. Winter suddenly felt it. The boy knows something. He’s standing here because he knows. He’s seen something.

Winter could see his eyes even from this distance. It was as though they were illuminated from within.

Winter felt a faint shiver. It passed over his hair like metal. The boy is watching me. Those eyes. The dog is tugging at its leash. The boy is pointing again. What is he pointing at now? He’s nodding and pointing. Toward the grove of trees. His hand is trembling like the leaves in the wind. It’s just as thin as they are. Now the dog is barking. It’s like it’s crazy. What did they see, the boy and the dog? The grove of trees. He wants me to go there. He can’t say it. It looks like he’s trying.

“Is there something you want to show me?” Winter asked, and he pointed. “Over there? In the grove of trees?”

The boy nodded.

“What is it?”

The boy didn’t answer.

Winter looked around. There were no other people outside. The wind tore at whatever it could grab. The branches made shadows on the facades of the buildings. It looked like a film being shown at double speed. It was fifty, maybe sixty meters over to the trees. It was only a small grove, like an oasis in a brick desert. The birches swayed like sparse palm trees.

The boy’s eyes were large and frightened. Winter didn’t want to expose his pistol to him. He held his hand over its butt in his pocket. He looked over at the car. It was closer than the grove.

“I’m just going to grab something,” he said, and he walked to the car, opened the passenger-side door, and took out a flashlight. Halders had the other one. The flashlight was heavier than his weapon. Winter held it up so the boy could see. It was like a calming object. An unlit flashlight conveyed calmness. A lit one did, too, but mostly for the person holding the flashlight. A pistol could be calming in the same way. But not right now.

As they walked across the playground, the dog began to bark and tug on its leash again. It looked like a mix of God knows what breeds. It was on the hunt; it was a natural instinct. It could smell scents in the wind that no person could smell.

He shone the light in among the trees and looked at the boy. The dog had stopped barking, but the leash was taut. The boy was having trouble keeping the dog at the edge of the grove.

Winter walked closer with the beam of light pointed down. Everything on the ground turned white: leaves, dirt, grass, sand, stone. That was what he saw. The boy was still standing outside. Winter walked back.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

The boy pointed again.

“Where?” Winter asked. “Where is it?”

The boy stood a few steps in among the bushes and it looked as
though the dog flew ahead through the air as it got a few meters of freedom. When the leash tightened, the dog was jerked backward, like it had been hit by a gust of wind.

The boy nodded down toward the ground. Winter shone the beam around down there: leaves, dirt, grass, sand, stone. Several stones lay in an undefined half circle. It was probably the remains of an open fire. Winter bent down. There were darker stains on the stones, but it could be the humidity, or moss. He looked at the boy again.

“Did you see something here?” Winter asked.

The boy didn’t answer; he kept staring downward.

“There’s nothing here,” Winter said.

“A . . . a . . . hand,” said the boy.

“What?” Winter was still crouching down. “What did you say?”

“There was a hand there.”

•   •   •

They sat at a kitchen table with a vase of cut flowers that Winter didn’t know the names of. Flowers, birds, plants, he wasn’t good at that stuff. Leaves, dirt, grass, sand, stone; that was more his area.

The boy was eleven years old. His name was Jonas. He looked just as frozen in here as he had outside. There was a mug of hot chocolate in front of him. His mother was sitting beside him. She looked young, but she must have been older than Winter, at least over thirty. Winter could see her features in the boy’s face; not all of them, but there was no dad at the table he could compare with.

“We weren’t home,” said the mom. Her name was Anne. Anne Sandler. Both Jonas’s and her names were on the nameplate on the door. No dad there, either.

Winter had asked about times. When the witness named Metzer had reported the possible fight in the Martinssons’ apartment, Anne and Jonas hadn’t been home.

“We were at the pool.”

Winter nodded.

Jonas drank a sip of hot chocolate. Winter had said no thanks to hot chocolate, but yes to a cup of coffee. It was strong and hot.

“He doesn’t usually make things up,” Anne Sandler said, nodding to Jonas.

The boy hadn’t said much since they came in. The dog was quiet, too. It had done its duty.

“It was a hand,” he said.

“Oh my God,” Anne Sandler said, looking at her son.

Winter nodded down at the boy. He didn’t look as frozen anymore.

“There were fingers and everything.”

“I believe you,” said Winter.

“It stopped here,” Jonas said, aiming at his wrist.

“Oh my God,” Anne Sandler repeated.

“Was it big?” Winter asked. “Like a grown-up’s hand?”

“I don’t know . . . pretty small.” The boy looked at his own hand, as though he was comparing. “But it was pretty dark out.”

“Can’t we stop now?” Anne Sandler said, and she looked at Winter. Her eyes were pleading.

“Soon,” he said, looking at the boy.

“Did it look like a child’s hand?”

The boy shook his head.

“Like a . . . lady’s hand? A woman’s hand?”

“Maybe,” Jonas said.

His mother looked at her hands, removed them from the tabletop, placed them in her lap.

“It was dark out,” Jonas continued.

“But you could see anyway?”

“Yes. There’s a streetlamp there. And Zack was barking more than he usually does.”

“That dog,” Anne Sandler said. “He doesn’t do anything but bark.”

“I’m working on training him,” Jonas said, looking at his mother.

“It’s too late,” she said. “He’s too old.” She looked at Winter. He realized that talking about the dog was calming her down. “It’s like they say: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Zack knows good tricks,” said Jonas.

“You saw the hand clearly?” Winter asked.

The boy nodded and looked at the dog, who was performing the trick of sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, and drank hot chocolate again. He looked up.

“But it didn’t look real.”

“What do you mean, Jonas?”

“It was so white. Like plastic. Or a cast.”

“That’s enough,” his mother said, and she got up and took Winter’s half-drunk coffee cup with her into the kitchen. Winter heard the coffee land in the sink.

•   •   •

They drove back over the Älvsborg bridge. The downtown glittered to the east like there was a festival. To the west, the river widened to the sea. The blackness became wider, and larger. The temperature had sunk in the last few hours. Maybe it will snow, Winter thought. Snow in October. White on the ground.

“Is the boy credible?” Halders said.

Winter shrugged.

“I think so.” He held on to the ceiling handle as Halders spun through the roundabout down toward Karl Johansgatan. “But it could have been anything. The light wasn’t the best.”

“But you did see stains?”

“Yes. but it could have been anything.”

“I guess our friends from forensics will have to tell us what it is.”

Winter didn’t answer. Soon he wouldn’t have any friends in forensics, if he ever had. They were out on the thoroughfare along the river. The dead shipyard cranes on the other side stretched far into the sky. They should be reminiscent of something, but soon no one would remember what it was. It had been part of this city. Now all of that was gone, everything that should form the face of a city. Gothenburg had a lot of faces now. Many of them were turned away. It was impossible to see them.

“They sure were happy, our friends,” said Halders. “Another discovery site, and only fifty meters away.”

“Yes, they were really glowing.”

The neon lights became brighter the closer they got to downtown. Eastern Nordstan wasn’t lacking for anything. Halders stopped at a red light. A group of people dressed for a party passed on their way to Lilla Bommen. No one even glanced at the two young detectives in the anonymous car.

“Now we just need to find the Martinsson couple to see if either of them is missing a hand,” said Halders.

“The woman, in that case,” said Winter.

“The mom and the boy didn’t know them, you said?”

“No, no. That’s no cozy little row-house neighborhood, Fredrik. People don’t even know each other if they live in the same stairwells.”

“But they must at least see each other, right?”

Winter shrugged. That was the second time this evening. He didn’t like to shrug. He would have to quit.

“How is it for you?” he said. “And me? Quite honestly, I don’t give a shit about people in my building up in Guldheden. I wouldn’t be able to point out a third of them.”

“And yet you’re an expert,” said Halders.

He swung into the half circle around Central Station. The line for the taxis outside the main entrance was long. Winter could see people’s breath. That’s how cold it had gotten. Shit. Then it would be November, and December, January, February, March, half of April. That was the white winter. Then the green winter would start. His father had talked about leaving this part of the world once and for all, and then he had. That had been quite recently. He had taken his money with him and he’d forgotten to pay the taxes. Winter understood that his father wanted a life in the sun, but he didn’t understand the other part. They no longer spoke to each other. Maybe they would in the future, but Winter wasn’t sure. First he wanted an explanation. But that wouldn’t be enough.

“Metzer wasn’t much help,” Halders said. “He got nervous because it sounded so bad, he said. And that was all.”

“Did he know the Martinssons, then?”

“No.”

“No one knows anyone here, apparently.”

“That’s how it is,” said Halders.

“So what do we do now?” said Winter.

“Wait for the Martinssons to call,” Halders said. “Or be found. Maybe just one of them.”

Winter didn’t answer. They waited at a red light outside the
GP
building. Maybe he would be able to read about what had happened out on Hisingen in the paper the next day.

“After that we’ll just have to see what the guys in forensics come up with,” Halders continued.

“One of the guys was a girl,” said Winter.

“Well, it’s just like they say,” Halders said. “If a chick is good enough, she becomes one of the guys.”

He parked outside the police station. They were going to go in and write, and then this day would be over.

“Are you coming along for a brew after?” Halders said.

“Not tonight.”

“A lady waiting for you?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of getting stuck. It can go fucking fast.”

“No chance,” Winter said.

“Is she cute?”

“None of your damn business, Fredrik.”

“I’m just curious. What’s her name?”

“Hasse.”

“Hasse? Come on now, for fuck’s sake.”

“She’s one of the guys.”

“Ha-ha. Come on, Erik. What’s her name?”

“That’s none of your damn business either.”

•   •   •

Angela took a step back from the crosswalk. It might have been at the last second.

“Did you see that?!”

Winter didn’t answer. He tried to read the license plate, but it was too dirty. It was an S40, a later model. He hadn’t had time to see the driver as the car passed at sixty-five or seventy kilometers per hour.

“He ran a red light!” said Angela.

The S40 turned right and drove the wrong way on Chalmersgatan, maybe on its way toward the local police station at Lorensberg. Winter took out his cell phone, called right away, explained quickly.

“Yes. Yes. He might be on his way to you right now.”

He waited, with the cell phone against his ear. They were still standing at the crosswalk. Angela had taken two steps back.

“Yes? Okay. Oh? Well, there we go. Thanks.” He put away the cell phone. “They got him.”

“Serves him right.”

“A thief.”

“Did they say that?”

“A real celebrity,” Winter said.

“Could they tell so quickly?”

“We live in speedy times.” The light turned green again. The traffic stopped, nice and proper. “Should we be brave and cross?”

They walked through the park and down toward Salutorget.

“Hasn’t it always gone quickly?” Angela said after a little bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you always felt like things go too quickly? Too quickly through life?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Can’t you answer?”

“Well . . . yes, I guess I can.” He slowed down. “Maybe I have . . . felt like that before.”

“With us, for example?”

“No, no, no.”

“You know, we were actually seeing each other for only five years before we moved in together,” she said without looking at him. “It went very fast.”

They were walking on the bridge across the small river. It was black in the night light. It was hard to see where you were walking. He felt for Angela’s arm.

“Did we live apart for such a short time?” he said.

“The time really did fly by.”

“I like it when you’re being sarcastic,” he said.

“Although you did stay with me up in Kungshöjd an awful lot,” she continued.

“There you go.”

“You said that you felt more at home there than in Guldheden.”