Room No. 10 (40 page)

P
erhaps it was Börge’s face he saw in the back window of the bus, a white fleck in the dirty glass.

Winter kept walking east, past Central Station, the
GP
building, Gamla Ullevi.

He checked a car out from the police garage and drove to Börge’s address. There was an empty parking space a block away.

The name was still at the front door.

Winter looked around. Things mostly looked the same. No one dared to touch the patrician villas in the central parts of Gothenburg. The streets here were left unmolested by idiotic Social Democrats. The suburbs and the central hubs of the small cities had to take the brunt of the changes.

He walked in through the doors and up the stairs. Börge lived on the third floor. The stairs were well kept and the stairwell let in light through painted windows. It was like a church.

Three years ago. Three years ago, he had walked up these stairs a few times. After that: four or five phone calls to see how things were, maybe fewer. Börge had called him once or twice. He had sounded subdued, as though he had placed a handkerchief over the receiver.

As Winter extended his finger toward the doorbell, it hit him that Börge might not live alone any longer. That maybe he should have called before showing up, after all.

But he didn’t want to.

He rang the bell, and Börge opened the door after the first ring, as though he had been standing and waiting just inside the door. Maybe he had seen Winter enter the front door, maybe he’d seen him even from the bus, or inside Nordstan.

Börge didn’t look surprised.

“Oh, so it’s you.”

It was mostly a statement. A tiredness in his voice, like after an illness. Börge had aged in three years, maybe in a normal way. A few crow’s-feet around his eyes. But I probably have some, too, Winter thought. I see my own face every morning and don’t notice the changes.

“May I come in?”

Börge gestured in toward his apartment, turned around, and walked back through the hall.

“You’ll have to take off your shoes,” he said over his shoulders. “It’s just been cleaned.”

Winter didn’t know whether this was some sort of joke, but he pulled off his handmade English shoes and placed them beside a few pairs that stood on a shoe rack under the coat rack in the hall. Winter hadn’t thought of them before; maybe they hadn’t been there. The pairs appeared to be identical. It was a good idea, maybe not to always wear identical shoes, but to switch shoes regularly. Winter had had this carefully impressed upon him by his shoe dealer in Mayfair. He went over once a year and always got the same advice. He didn’t need to buy shoes every time. The shoes he wore were made to last. Börge’s shoes were simpler, of course, but not junk.

Börge was already sitting down when Winter stepped into the living room.

There was a bottle of red wine on the table, and a half-full glass. Winter had smelled the wine on the man’s breath out in the hall.

Börge nodded toward the bottle of wine.

“Would you like a glass? It’s not crap.”

“I can see that.”

“Do you want a glass, then?”

“No thanks. I’m driving.”

Börge smiled, possibly a sour smile:

“Good excuse.”

He was dragging out his syllables a bit, a sign of mild intoxication. Maybe a few glasses on an empty stomach. Winter could see from the
level in the bottle that Börge was onto his second glass. Maybe this was a regular afternoon treat.

“Sit down,” said Börge.

Winter sat in the easy chair across from Börge. A few blackbirds drifted around outside the window, as if searching for a home. Winter could hear their cries through the glass.

Börge lifted his glass.

“Well, it looks like we’re sitting here and celebrating something.”

“Are you, then?”

“What do I have to celebrate?” He put down the glass. “This is more like a nice way to get through the day.”

Winter nodded.

“You don’t have any opinions on it?”

“No, why would I?”

“Well, you know . . . you’re a policeman.”

“It hasn’t yet gone so far that we step into people’s homes and take their bottles.”

“But you did step in here,” said Börge.

“Do you want me to leave?” said Winter.

“No, no. It’s nice to have company.”

This was the second time he’d said the word “nice.” But it felt anything but nice in there. It suddenly felt cold, as though all the warmth had left the radiator and drifted out through the window, to the birds who were still flying back and forth. Must be trees on each side of the window, Winter thought. I didn’t think of that when I came in here.

“How’s it going, Christer?”

Börge had reached for his glass of wine again, but he stopped in the middle of his movement.

“Are you really interested, Winter?”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“What are you interested in?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The hell you don’t. I remember that you suspected I had something
to do with Ellen disappearing. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why you’re here now, too.”

“That’s not why,” said Winter.

“She’s still not lying in any of the closets here,” said Börge. “You can check once more if you want to.”

“I saw you today,” said Winter.

Börge didn’t answer. He took a quick gulp of wine and put down his glass. The foot of the glass had left behind a red ring on the blond wood of the coffee table. Börge didn’t seem to notice it. His movements had become a bit broader. The bottle was barely half-full.

“I saw you in town. At Nordstan. I happened to see you.” Winter leaned forward. He could smell the faint barn aroma of the wine from the bottle. It was a relatively expensive Pessac. Apparently, if Börge was going to drink, he was going to do it in style. “It was a coincidence.”

“You don’t think I saw you?”

“I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t hiding.”

“I wasn’t, either.” Börge contemplated the wine bottle and then looked up. “Don’t you think I expected you would show up?”

“It did actually seem that way,” said Winter. “When you opened the door.”

“Nothing for three years, and then the detective pops up.”

“It was a sudden inclination,” said Winter, “that I showed up.”

“What does that word mean? Inclination?”

“Well . . . I don’t know exactly,” said Winter. “It’s when you—”

“We have to find out right away,” said Börge, and he hastily stood up and swayed and had to grab the back of the sofa behind him with one hand so he wouldn’t lose his balance. Winter looked at the bottle again. It struck him that it wasn’t necessarily the first bottle of the day. Börge seemed relatively sober, but maybe he had the tolerance of an alcoholic.

Börge walked across the room to a wide bookcase on the wall next to the window. He studied the spines of the books and reached for one.

“Swedish Academy’s list of words,” he said, holding the thick volume out to Winter. “Indispensable.”

He began to page through the book.

“In . . . incli . . . in-cli-na-tion.” He looked up. “There’s no explanation.” He looked at the book, held it up to the window as though to a source of light. “Not so indispensable.” He tossed it straight across the room in a high arc. It landed behind Winter.

Winter got up and walked to the bookcase. Börge was still standing there, steadying himself against the spines of the books with his other hand. He stared after the book, as though to see where it had landed.

One of the shelves was half-empty. There were three framed photographs, very close to one another. They hadn’t been there three years ago, not that Winter could remember. Or maybe they had been. He recognized two of the photos; he had seen them when he had been here. On one, Ellen was smiling at him from a chair that could be standing anywhere. She had an expressionless smile on her face; it revealed nothing. In the other photograph, one could see Christer and Ellen standing together under a tree. It could be the trees outside. It was in a city. The buildings looked familiar. Maybe one of them was the building he found himself in now.

In the third photograph, Ellen was smiling along with another girl. The girls might be about fifteen, maybe a bit older.

“Who is that?” Winter asked, nodding at the photograph.

“Huh?” Börge said, turning his face toward the bookcase. Winter realized that the man was drunker than he thought. The bottle standing on the table wasn’t the first one. He must have been drinking before he went to the liquor store, unless he had downed a whole bottle in twenty minutes, before Winter arrived. It was possible.

“Who’s the girl standing next to Ellen in that photo?”

The girls appeared to be standing in an arbor. The bushes were close around them. They had their arms around each other, four arms, four hands. It was summer; their clothes were thin. At the edge of the picture, Winter could see something shimmery. It might be a piece of sky or water, a lake, the sea.

Börge fixed his eyes on the photo. He swayed again but wasn’t about to lose his balance.

“That’s Ellen’s sister.”

“Oh?”

Börge fixed his eyes on Winter now. He squinted slightly. His speech was even more drawn out, thicker but not slurring.

“Didn’t you talk to her when Ellen . . . disappeared?”

“It wasn’t me.”

“I see.”

“It was another of my colleagues. But I knew about her, of course.” Winter looked at the girl again.

“Ellen never showed up at her house. We had someone down there who talked with her, too. Malmö, I think. She lived in Malmö at that point.”

“I haven’t seen her since . . . then,” Börge said, nodding toward the photograph again.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think she likes me.” He looked at Winter again. “I know she doesn’t like me.” He nodded, as though to himself. “She thinks everything is my fault.”

“And yet you took out a photograph of her. And placed it on the shelf.”

“It’s not for her,” Börge said, waving a sweeping finger in the direction of the photo. “It’s for Ellen, of course!” He took a cautious step closer. “She looks happy there, don’t you think?”

Winter looked at the photo again.

“I found it just a month or so ago,” Börge said. “I was going through a few things and there it was.”

“Did you find anything more?”

“Like what?”

“Any more photos of Ellen? Or something else. Some kind of memento.”

“No, no, nothing.”

Winter kept his eyes on the girls’ faces. Perhaps there was a
resemblance, but he had trouble finding it. Maybe something about their eyes or their hair. Maybe in the very way they held their bodies. Both were tall, thin, with an angularity about their bodies that would change with time.

“They were only half sisters, as you might know,” Börge said.

Winter nodded.

“Never see her anymore,” Börge mumbled. “But I guess I said that before.”

“Where does she live?” Winter asked.

“No idea.”

“I seem to have forgotten her name at the moment,” Winter said.

“Eva,” said Börge. “At least, that’s what she was calling herself then.”

“What do you mean?”

“She used different names,” Börge said.

“Why?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know that?” He detached himself from the shelf and took a few steps to the left, toward the sofa. Maybe it wouldn’t work this time. “I guess you’ll have to ask her if you see her.”

•   •   •

The morning meeting began with a moment of silence. It didn’t have anything to do with showing respect to anything in particular, it was more like a moment of concentration. Then Halders’s cell phone rang. Winter had just started his run-through.

“Hmm?” This was Halders’s way of answering the phone. “Yes? Yes, it’s me.”

He got up and walked out into the corridor and closed the door behind him.

“It could be someone who used to work at one of the hotels,” said Winter.

“Have we had time to go through the whole list you received?” Djanali asked.

“Not yet,” Winter answered.

“How about the list from the Odin? Is there anyone we know?”

“Some small-time punks,” Ringmar said.

“Aren’t there always?”

“It’s not many, just a couple,” Ringmar said. “But a position at a hotel seems to function as some sort of through station sometimes.”

“Why?” Djanali asked.

“Well . . . people don’t seem to ask very many questions at a hotel. Among the staff, I mean. They don’t seem to be very curious.”

“No, we’ve definitely fucking noticed that,” said Bergenhem.

The door was wrenched open.

Halders stepped in with his cell phone still in hand.

“That was one of the painters,” he said.

“From Paula’s apartment?” Bergenhem asked.

“No, van Gogh.”

“What did he say?” Winter asked.

“When they got there, Papa Mario was there.” Halders sat down. “It happened a few times.”

“So?”

That was Djanali.

“Well . . . he may have had access to his daughter’s apartment. I don’t even know if we’ve asked him about it. But anyway.”

“But anyway, what?”

“He had a bag. He was carrying a bag when he left there.”

“A suitcase?”

That was Ringmar.

“No, we aren’t that lucky. It was some kind of duffel.”

“Why?”

That was Bergenhem.

“The painter didn’t ask if he could look in the bag, Lars. So the contents will remain a mystery.”

“He was probably getting something for his daughter,” said Djanali.

“When did this happen?” Winter asked.

“After she disappeared, the first night,” Halders answered. “We hadn’t stopped the renovation yet.”

“What was he doing there?” said Bergenhem.

“I suggest that we ask him,” said Halders.

•   •   •

“I just wanted to see if she was home,” said Mario Ney.

“You could have called,” said Winter.

“Maybe she couldn’t have answered. She could have been sick. That’s what I wanted to check.”

“But the painters were there.”

“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know whether they were still there.”

“You had been there a few times.”