Sun and Shadow (21 page)

“He has thousands of addresses all over the world,” Sverker said. “Radio stations, record companies, private customers.”

“Excellent. When can you do it?”

“As soon as we finish work. Whether we get a response is another matter, of course.”

 

Winter went back to the apartment one final time. Everything was the same as before. The stains were no bigger, no smaller. The music still seemed to hang in the room. Black metal. Fresh in his memory from the airy loft that was Desdemona Productions.

The forensic team had finished. What needed to be analyzed was already in the laboratories, in marked containers. The apartment would be cleaned up and restored to pristine condition. New tenants would move in. I’ll have some new neighbors, he thought.

He waited for the elevator that never came. Probably somebody hadn’t closed the door properly. He walked down the stairs, at which point the elevator started moving down. It passed by, but whoever was in it had already left the building by the time Winter reached the ground floor. The stiff front door was slowly closing.

It was windy, but a clear evening. Winter noted the back of a man walking down the street. Perhaps the person who had taken the elevator. Winter turned left. The sky was a dull blue in the direction of Nordstan. He poked his scarf inside his overcoat and fastened a few more buttons.

There were four crisp rolls left at the baker’s. He hoped Angela was home by now. He wanted to say something to ... them. He could lie down next to her stomach and tell them a happy story.

A woman with a stroller passed by as he left the baker’s. He stepped to one side. He had a sudden desire to take a look at the baby. He caught up with the woman.

He apologized to her and she stopped.

“Do you mind if I take a look at the baby?” he asked.

“Eh?”

She seemed more surprised than scared.

“I’d just like to take a look at your baby.” He felt like an absolute fool, but he didn’t care. “I’m going to have a child myself soon. For the first time.” The stroller was colorless in the neon light. “I’m going to be a father,” he said.

They traced back the lives of Christian and Louise Valker. They had requested all available data from colleagues in Västerås and Kungsbacka, but the couple had committed no recorded crimes. The church, the state, and the local authorities supplied what information they had, but so far nothing useful had emerged.

“Was it somebody they knew?” wondered Ringmar. They were sitting in his office after the morning meeting. Djanali and Halders were there as well.

“Well, he didn’t break in,” Winter said. “He might have stolen a key or had a copy made, but it clearly wasn’t a surprise visit.”

“No,” said Ringmar. “Not in that sense. They’d eaten, after all. And drunk.”

“Two bottles of wine,” Winter said.

“And harder stuff. Beier says there were traces of gin and tonic in their glasses.”

“Does Beier know what brand it was?” said Halders.

Winter thought of Tanqueray. Might as well buy the Christmas bottle now, before Mom gets here.

Ringmar looked at Halders.

“Hmm. Are you suggesting that knowing the brand might help us?”

“If the murderer had brought the gin to the party, yes. If he always drinks Gordon‘s, for instance, and somebody at the System shop in the Avenue remembers somebody who always buys Gordon’s ... well ...”

“He’d have to have bought it by the crate for anybody to remember. Every week. That sounds a bit far-fetched, Fredrik,” Djanali said.

“I’ll see what Beier has to say,” Winter said. “Every little detail can be significant.”

“What else do we know?” Djanali asked nobody in particular. “What have we established about this couple?”

“That they didn’t exactly have a wide circle of friends,” Halders said. “Not many who cared whether they were alive or dead.”

“There were some messages on their answering machine,” Ringmar said.

“Trygg-Hansa,” Halders said. “Some guff about pensions. That’s the only link some people have with the real world nowadays: insurance companies trying to flog pensions to keep you going when you’re so stricken with arthritis that you can barely move.” He thought of suggesting that they were obviously wasting their time with this couple, but he didn’t.

“Two other calls as well,” Ringmar said, who had waited patiently until Halders finished his rant.

“We talked to them,” said Halders. “Those others. Last night.”

“There’s something that doesn’t add up,” said Djanali.

“What do you mean?” Winter asked.

“It’s true,” Halders said. “There was something ... odd.”

“It wasn’t clear to us why they’d been to see the Valkers.”

“Hang on,” Winter said. “One thing at a time. Who went to see whom and in what order?”

“All right. A couple more or less the same age as the Valkers, Per and Erika Elfvegren—they live in Järnbrott. Similar to the Valkers in several ways. No kids, same age, similar appearance ...” She glanced up at the others as if to say: the way they looked
before ...
“We went to see them yesterday, after five. She’d only phoned them to find out what was going on, as she put it.”

“How well did they know one another?” Ringmar asked.

“That’s exactly it—they were pretty vague on that score. They’d met at some dance restaurant or other, they said, but they couldn’t remember where. They’d had dinner at the Valkers’ once, and the Valkers had paid a return visit.” Djanali looked at Halders. “We had the impression that it was a very superficial relationship.”

“They didn’t have a clue about what happened to the Valkers,” said Halders.

“Did they have an alibi for when the murder took place?” asked Winter. They now had an approximate time and date from Pia.

“They were both at home,” Halders said, “and the only witness is their television set.”

“Hmm.”

“What is it that doesn’t add up?” said Ringmar to Djanali. “You said before that there was something that didn’t add up.”

“Yes ... it was their attitude, somehow. They were so ... detached, or knew so little about the Valkers. But at the same time they were scared stiff.”

“Is that really so odd?” Ringmar said. “Their friends have been murdered.”

“Yes, fair enough. But it’s obvious that they’re hiding something. Something they don’t want to talk about.” She looked up. “You know how it is. You can see that there’s something there that a person knows you want to know, but he or she doesn’t want to say what it is.”

“That’s exactly right,” Halders said, nodding in the direction of Djanali. “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

“And it was just the same with the other couple,” Djanali said. “It really was.”

“Which other couple?” asked Winter. “You mean the other message on the answering machine?”

“Yes. These ...” She consulted her notebook. “Martell. Bengt and Siv Martell.”

Bengt and Siv, Winter thought. The same names as my parents.

“No connection with the cognac,” Halders said.

“I just knew you were going to say that,” Djanali said.

“What was odd about them?” Ringmar asked, who was becoming somewhat irritated. “They live in ... Mölndal, if I remember rightly.”

“Yes. You could say that they are a carbon copy of the other two. The same type. The same answers. The same superficial acquaintance.”

“We were with them last night,” Halders said. “But there are one or two differences. For a start, the Elfvegrens are childless, but Siv Martell is divorced and has a couple of teenaged children. They live with their father, and he lives in Malmö.” Halders looked at Djanali. “Even I could see that she found it hard to say anything about the children. It was ... painful.”

“No shared custody?” asked Winter.

“She hadn’t seen them for several years.”

“What about the other difference?” Ringmar asked.

“Well, the Elfvegrens were a bit frightened,” said Halders, “but the Martells were scared shitless, and not of us.”

“It was even more obvious that they were hiding something,” Djanali said. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with the murder.”

“Alibi?” asked Winter.

“Perhaps,” Halders said. “Meals at two restaurants and a few more ... ‘meetings,’ as they put it. We can check them out. Haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“They’re hiding something,” Djanali said.

“I’ll have a chat with all of them,” Winter said. “Starting with the Martells.”

“I recommend that you see them in their home territory,” said Halders. “They seemed to be uncomfortable in their own home.”

“Coming back to the Valkers, you said at the meeting that they’d both acquired a bit of a reputation at work.” Ringmar was addressing Djanali.

“I don’t think I said ‘reputation.’ But there were hints. Nobody wanted to go into detail.”

“But neither of them had anything against a little flirting?” said Ringmar.

“You could say that. I suppose the husband had more of a reputation. Well, how should I put it? He saw other women, but I think she was just a bit of a flirt.”

“So there could well be other couples,” said Winter. “Let’s start with the Elfvegrens and the Martells. Or, rather, take another look at them.”

 

Winter read his notes. The others had left. He played the black metal cassette at low volume, but the screeching of the “singer” was just as penetrating. The phone rang.

“Winter.”

“Sacrament.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Rickard Nordberg here. We’ve found the band. It’s called Sacrament. Canadian. Sverker wasn’t far off the mark.”

“Are you certain?”

“I think so. We’ve received several responses. Twenty or so, I think. They all say it’s Sacrament. I’ve never heard of them. Nor has Sverker.”

“Sacrament,” Winter said. Baptism, or Holy Communion, he thought.

“Some of the responses have given the name of the song, and of the disc,” said Nordberg. “I posted the first track as an MP three file, and it’s evidently called ‘Evil God.’ The CD’s called
Daughter of ...
hang on a minute ...
Daughter of Habakkuk,
or however you pronounce it.”

“Habakkuk? What’s that?”

“No idea. If you force me to guess I’d say it’s a fantasy name for a devil.”

“Habakkuk’s Daughter,” Winter said.

“Perhaps she’s nice,” Nordberg said, bursting into laughter. “We placed ourselves at the mercy of the Net and got ninety-eight hits on Sacrament. Then we dove deeper into the morass, and found that Sacrament comes from Edmonton and that they’ve made another CD as well as Hab ... well, whatever. And a promo as well.”

“That’s very well done,” said Winter.

“Well, another forty-seven hundred twenty-one visitors think so,” said Nordberg. “Sacrament’s home page has had forty-seven hundred twenty-one hits so far. That fits in with what we said when you were here, more or less. Statistics suggest that they have an audience of five thousand fans, give or take.”

“You don’t have a list of names, I suppose?”

“Eh? Ha, ha.”

“What do you think we should do now?” Just for once I’ll listen to what the experts have to say, he thought.

“Well ... I suppose we could try to get a copy of Daughter direct from Canada. Or we could check with other distributors, now that we have the name of the band. See which shops have stocked the disc. Or if it’s been puffed in the fanzines. That would cut out the record shops. I’m inclined to think that the fanzines are the best bet in this case. But it’ll be a hell of a job. The problem is that the disc came out in 1996, but so much has been published since then that it might as well have been 1896.” Nordberg gave a snort. Judging by the sound quality, it could even have been from then!“

“Can you help me with this case?” Winter asked.

“Okay. I have to say that I’m getting quite curious myself. Just a minute ... Sverker wants to say something.”

Winter waited. Heard distant voices on the telephone. Then Nordberg returned: “Well, let’s be honest, we get lots of promotional CDs every year, and we farm a lot of them out to our friends or whatever, but we do save a few, or, rather, we dump them in the attic archive. It’s expanded beyond our wildest dreams. There’s a possibility that the disc is up there. I mean, it’s highly probable that we’ve had the disc here at one time or another.”

“Do you have time to check your archives?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll send a colleague.”

It was evening. Winter walked home through Heden. It was still cold, clear. A dozen or so men were playing football on one of the gravel pitches, with much shouting and dull thuds as the ball was kicked. Football in November? Why not? In England the season has barely gotten off the ground by then. Somebody shouted. He turned and saw that the ball was rolling toward him. He side-footed it back to them. Far from finished yet.

He thought about Steve, a colleague in London. Steve was obstinate about what records he listened to. Winter had sent him some jazz, but had been forced to accept that it was a waste of time. I’m more impressionable than he is. People who listen to classic rock are conservative.

They hadn’t spoken to each other for months. Winter had considered dashing over to London briefly before Christmas, but now he wasn’t sure. Go by all means, Angela had said. If it’s possible.

Why shouldn’t it be possible? The baby wasn’t due until the beginning of April. The first one, Angela had insisted, and she wasn’t joking. London was tempting. London calling. It had been a long time.

Winter heard more dull thuds behind him, followed by whoops and cheers: somebody had scored.

The last time they’d spoken on the telephone, Chief Inspector Steve MacDonald had had his leg in a cast after an obligatory Sunday match for his pub team in Kent. Come over for a few days whenever you feel like it, he’d said. You’re not so important, but I’d like to see Angela. Again.