Read Room No. 10 Online

Authors: Åke Edwardson

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Room No. 10 (6 page)

BOOK: Room No. 10
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Halders had seen cupboards and shelves and a freestanding chest of drawers, all half-covered with transparent plastic; it looked like mist,
as though someone were breathing under the plastic cover. In one corner, Öberg’s technicians had lifted the plastic and begun to move her belongings. That, too, felt like some kind of affront.

Maybe they would find a ten-year-old postcard. Would that help them? Yes. No. No.

3

T
he group gathered in the conference room. It had been renovated twice during Winter’s time in the unit, but now that was over. There would be no more polishing in these corridors that were clad in a kind of brick that suggested another time. There would be no more renovation. The money for such things was gone. The bricks outside his office would fall to the floor in time.

He could see the remains of the sunrise over Ullevi, the soccer stadium. The sun rose reluctantly over his part of the world. A pointless job. Winter cold would come no matter what. The sun was on its way to the equator, where it belonged. This time of year was dominated by one big sunset, and then darkness. Arctic night, only a few months away. The long johns would itch at first, but you always got used to it.

“Damn, it’s warm,” said Ringmar, who had just come into the room and sat down, and he wiped the layer of sweat from his forehead.

“Stop that,” Halders said.

“Sorry?” Ringmar said, his hand still on his forehead.

“I hate it when northerners start whining about the sun as soon as it comes out.”

“I just said it was warm,” Ringmar said.

“You said
damn,
it’s warm,” Halders pointed out against the haze of heat. “Isn’t that a negative comment?”

“Says the great optimist in the police force,” Ringmar said, and wiped his forehead again.

“Carpe diem,” Halders said, smiling.

“Mea culpa,” said Ringmar, “mea maxima culpa.”

“Can someone translate?” said Lars Bergenhem, still the youngest detective in the group.

“Didn’t you do the classics option?” Ringmar asked.

“Classics what?”

“The classics option at the police academy,” Halders said. “Think first, act later. It’s gone now. Swept away.”

“Carpe diem I understand,” said Bergenhem, “but the other part?”

“My fault, I’m to blame,” said Ringmar.

Winter drank the last of the coffee in his mug. At least the coffee was cold in the warm room. He cleared his throat. The warm-up talk between Halders and Ringmar and Bergenhem grew quiet.

“The floor is open for debate,” he said, “but unfortunately the police can no longer afford translators.”

Aneta Djanali laughed very abruptly. It was the first sound from her in the conference room this morning. She had spoken with Halders earlier in the morning, and with Fredrik’s children, Hannes and Magda, but she was happy to stay out of the warm-up. She was already warm. This evening they would go out to the cliffs of Saltholmen and take the last dip of the summer. They had been saying this for a whole week already. But the sun went down behind Asperö like a blood orange every evening, and that meant it would come back the next morning.

“There is a big split between Paula and her parents,” Halders said. “Was.”

Winter nodded.

“No one’s saying anything, or has said anything, and that always makes me suspicious.”

Winter nodded again.

“I think she left home that night planning not to return,” Halders said.

“Without a suitcase?” Ringmar leaned over the table. “Her purse was of the minimalist type.”

“She had an apartment, didn’t she?” Halders looked around the room, around the table. Bergenhem nodded encouragingly. “She had
a key, didn’t she? It was evening; the painters had gone home for the day. She could have gone home to her apartment and packed a suitcase and met that friend whateverhernameis and gone on from there.”

“To Hotel Revy?” Ringmar said.

“I don’t know if she really planned to go there in particular.”

“The friend’s name is Nina Lorrinder,” Winter said. “She didn’t mention any suitcase.”

“Did we ask about one, then?” Halders said.

“No,” said Bergenhem. “I didn’t ask her about it.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t do the classics option,” Halders said.

“So that was the first thing you would have asked her about?” Bergenhem said. He began to look angry. That was the expression Halders was waiting for.

“Quit it,” Winter said. “She’s alive. We can ask her now.”

“I’ll call right away,” Bergenhem said, getting up.

“Good idea!” Halders said.

“Stop it, Fredrik,” Djanali said.

“There was something awfully strange about her parents,” Halders said, unmoved, without turning his head toward Djanali.

“They just lost their only child,” Ringmar said.

“It was the silence at their place,” said Halders, as though he hadn’t heard Ringmar. “In ten cases out of nine, everyone wants to talk after such a hellish trauma. People can’t talk enough. Cry enough. But there were no tears at the Neys’.”

“They’re still in shock,” said Ringmar.

“No,” Halders said, and his face was transformed. “Believe me, Bertil, I have . . . experience. There is no shock in the first few days. Only hate.”

The room became quiet. Everyone could hear the coffee machine take one of its last sighs. Ringmar wiped his forehead again. Winter could hear the traffic outside. Djanali could hear the air conditioner, like sad whispers all along the low ceiling.

Bergenhem came back.

“No suitcase,” he said.

“She could have put it in the coat check. Movie theaters have those sometimes,” said Halders.

“They met outside. She only had her purse.”

“She could have been inside and left her suitcase.”

“They left there together, went to the pub. The bar. No suitcase.”

“And you asked about all of that?” Halders said.

Bergenhem nodded.

“She could have gone ahead to the pub and checked the suitcase there,” Halders said.

“No.”

“You asked about that, too?”

“She, Nina, said that she was the one who suggested they go there. Paula had suggested another place.”

“Then we’ll have to look there,” said Halders.

“They open at four o’clock,” said Bergenhem.

“You checked already?”

Bergenhem nodded again.

“Well done, kid. You do have an imagination.”

“But all we have is an imaginary suitcase,” said Winter.

“Can someone translate?” Halders said, and looked around the room.

“She also could have gone to Central Station,” said Djanali. “If she had a suitcase and if she had planned to leave for good and if she didn’t want to carry the suitcase around.”

“There was no key in her purse,” Bergenhem said. “I mean, to one of those storage boxes. Storage lockers.”

“The murderer might have taken the key,” said Ringmar. “It might have been a temptation too great to resist.”

“Or else it’s lying someplace else,” said Djanali.

“Maybe the locker is still locked,” said Bergenhem, “with the suitcase still inside.”

“That’s what I wanted to get at,” said Djanali.

“So we have two things to do,” Halders said, “check again in
Paula’s apartment and determine whether she packed a bag. And find out where it is.”

“And if we manage to find it?” said Djanali. “Then that means that she was planning to leave. That maybe her parents didn’t know. But that might be all it means.”

“It could also mean that she was planning to go away with someone else,” said Halders. “There might have been tickets in her purse.”

“Soon there will be lots of imaginary things we’re missing in that purse,” said Ringmar. “Why not steal the whole purse? That’s nothing for a murderer. Probably a precautionary measure.”

“It might mean that there was nothing in her purse that he wanted to have,” said Winter.

“So my talk about an imaginary suitcase is just . . .” Halders began.

“Imaginary,” Bergenhem filled in.

“It’s worth a follow-up,” Winter said. “Do a check in her apartment, Fredrik.”

Meanwhile, Djanali was reading Paula Ney’s last letter. They assumed it was her last letter. She read aloud: “ ‘If I’ve made you angry at me I want to ask for your forgiveness.’ ” She looked up. “Is that something a person wants to write as a final message?”

“Maybe she didn’t think it was a final message,” Ringmar said.

“But if she did think so. If she thought she was going to die. Is that the moment when someone who is condemned to death asks for forgiveness?”

No one around the worn table commented on Djanali’s words. A thin ray of sunlight suddenly shot through the window and split the table in two: Bergenhem and Halders on one side, Winter and Ringmar and Djanali on the other. It was like a boundary, but there were no boundaries between them. We have been together for a long time, Winter thought, keeping his eyes on the sun boundary. Even Bergenhem is starting to get wrinkles.

“She was Catholic, wasn’t she?” Halders said. “Maybe she was asking for forgiveness for her sins.”

“No,” Winter said, “Paula wasn’t Catholic.”

“What sins?” Bergenhem asked, leaning forward, toward Halders.

“I mean figuratively. Like a routine thing, or whatever. A confession.”

“Paula was confessing, you mean?” Djanali asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the wrong word.”

“Maybe someone was prepared to forgive her for her sins,” Ringmar said.

“Like who?” Halders said.

“The murderer.”

“The murderer became her confessor?” Bergenhem said.

“He let her write the letter.”

“Or forced her to,” said Halders.

“Dictated,” Bergenhem said.

“No,” Winter said, “I don’t think so.”

“But it might indicate that there’s some big, and old, clash between Paula and her parents,” Halders said.

“When isn’t there?” Djanali said. “Between children and parents?”

“I said
big
clash,” Halders said.

“We’ll have to check it out,” said Ringmar.

“It won’t be easy,” Halders said. “It’s not like we can hear both sides.”

“There are more than two sides,” said Bergenhem.

“Look at that,” Halders said, turning to Bergenhem, “first Latin and then philosophy. Have you been taking night classes this summer, Lars?”

“I don’t need to do that to understand that we can talk to people other than her parents about her relationship with her parents,” Bergenhem said.

“Did you make a note of that, Erik?” Halders said, turning to Winter.

“Let’s get to work,” Winter said, and got up.

•   •   •

Winter was working at the telephone. He called the desk clerk at Revy; it was the same man. No, he hadn’t seen any suitcase. He hadn’t found any suitcase. Why would he have? Winter thought as he hung up. He didn’t see anything else, didn’t hear anything or say anything.

The phone rang.

“Looks like someone rummaged around a little through her clothes and shoes,” Halders said.

He sounded far away.

“Oh?”

“Might be her, might be someone else, might have been a hundred years ago. But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Winter asked.

“There’s no suitcase here. No backpack either, or anything you could carry your clothes in.”

“Have you checked in the attic? In the basement?”

“Of course,” Halders answered. “I’ve taken my night classes.”

“At her parents’ house, then?”

“I just called.”

“She must have had something to carry things in when she moved home,” Winter said, “during the renovation.”

“I thought that far, too,” said Halders. “And guess what: the parents can’t find it either. They say that she had a Samsonite that was pretty new, black, but it’s not at the Neys’ house now.”

“Good, Fredrik.”

“God knows. I’ve been thinking here in this haunted apartment. It looks like one big fucking shrouded corpse in here. White, plastic, some kind of antiseptic smell from the paint and the thinner. It’s not fun to be here, Erik. It’s too white here.”

“I understand what you mean, Fredrik.”

Halders didn’t say anything. Winter could hear a rushing sound through the telephone. Perhaps Halders had opened the window in Paula’s white apartment; maybe it was the wind out there in the gray heights of Guldheden.

“You said that you’d been thinking?” Winter said after a moment.

“What? Well, I don’t know about thinking . . . but maybe all this is just a dead end. The suitcase, I mean. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder. That someone took it. The murderer. She just
had a bad fucking stroke of luck on her way to Central Station. Met someone. And then it went to hell.”

“You think she was on her way to Central Station? In the evening, after having a glass of wine with her friend?”

They had tried to establish Paula’s final hours. Final hours of freedom, as Winter had thought of it. But so far they hadn’t spoken to anyone who had seen her, noticed her, recognized her. As usual, the big city was the place for the anonymous; it always gave shelter, for the worse, sometimes for the better, offered insecurity, security. There was a great and strangely obvious paradox built into the big city: the more people, the greater the loneliness. Out in the boonies, no one could keep to himself; everyone within a hundred kilometers of primeval forest heard everything, saw everything, noticed everything, recognized everything.

“Enough thinking,” Halders answered. “Now it’s time to find out.”

•   •   •

Halders hung up. He looked around, at the protective plastic, at the half-finished painting of the walls, as though everything was final and at the same time a continuation that had been stopped only temporarily. The apartment was a condo, nothing exclusive, not junk, even if none of that mattered anymore because all apartments were wildly expensive; this two-roomer up on the top of Guldheden would go for about half a million kronor, maybe more, not to mention the monthly fee. When had she bought it? Had anyone asked yet? In any case, Halders hadn’t found out yet. How many years had she lived here? Did the parents buy it? Someone else? I’ll have to keep reading, Halders thought. Keep asking.

BOOK: Room No. 10
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