Sun and Shadow Page 10

  “Will the undertaker take care of everything?” Winter asked.

  “Yes. As soon as Dr. Alcorta has confirmed the ... cause of death and all that sort of thing. The undertaker will look after all that needs to be done with the authorities. The court. In Spain the formalities have to be approved by the court.”

  Her children nodded.

  “Let’s go back up to your father now,” she said.

  Winter was walking along the Ricardo Soriano. It was evening again. He went into the cervecería Monte Carlo and ordered a glass of draft beer at the bar. The place was full of men watching a football match on a large screen. Real Madrid versus Valladolid. He drank his beer and felt comfortable among all the shouting. There were no women inside the bar. They were sitting at tables on the pavement outside, waiting for the match to end and the evening to begin.

  He crossed the road and entered the maze of alleys in the Old Town. The Plaza de la Iglesia was teeming with people—men, women, and children. Everybody was shouting and applauding, and Winter saw a newly married couple emerge from the Nuestra Señora de la Encar nación. The church towered high above everybody and everything, shutting out the sky. The couple walked slowly past him over the cobbles. Two children clapped enthusiastically. The bride was pretty, radiant. Three young men in tails whistled, and the groom acknowledged his ex-cronies. Consider yourselves dismissed.

  Two statues standing side by side both had heads missing. The couple walked past the statues, looked at each other, then disappeared, swallowed up by the crowd.

  In Orange Tree Square many people were already sitting in the cafés under the orange trees, with carafes of sangria in front of them. Winter could hear people speaking Norwegian, Swedish, and German. A black man in a white suit with beads in his hair was playing “Lili Mar lene” on an accordion. Winter hurried past the cafés and continued westward to the Plaza Victoria. He sat down on a bench opposite a tapas bar.

  His father was in a mortuary at a cemetery called Cementerio Virgen del Carmen. One of three in Marbella.

  “The old cemetery doesn’t have a mortuary,” his mother had said the previous day, in a tone of voice more appropriate to a discussion of a holiday apartment. It was a defense mechanism, of course. He was glad that she was able to do that. “San Bernabé has a lovely location, but Virgen del Carmen is just as pretty. It’s in a pine wood to the north of town. Not very far from the other one, in fact.”

  Winter had nodded. His mother wiped away a tear, but her voice was calm, determined.

  “We never picked a spot, but we’ve actually been there and taken a look. Your father and I.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s a little chapel there as well.”

  “Hmm.”

  “That’s where the funeral will be. A Swedish clergyman, of course. The Protestants used to be allowed to conduct funerals in the old church in Marbella, but I don’t think the Catholic priests approved of that.”

  “So it will be at the cemetery.”

  “The day after tomorrow. I was informed half an hour ago.”

  “That was ... quick.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  He stood up and retraced his steps eastward through alleys and little squares lined with restaurants. In one of the cobbled squares he noticed the Bar Altamirano, where all the outside tables were occupied by customers eating deep-fried fish and shellfish. As he passed, he thought he could see Alicia among a group of people at one of the tables, her hand half-raised in greeting.

  He hurried into an alley at the other side of the square without looking around.

  When he arrived back at his room, he saw her business card lying on the table.

  He took a cold shower and drank a glass of whisky. Lotta phoned from the house in Nueva Andalucia.

  “Mom doesn’t feel up to going into town tonight.”

  “No. I can understand that. What about you?”

  “To tell you the truth, I feel absolutely shattered.”

  “I’ll drive out to you tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes, I think that would be better.”

  He sat in the dark in his boxer shorts, finished his whisky, and tried to establish if he could hear anything inside his head. Then he got dressed again and went back to the Plaza Altamirano.

  The cemetery was at the Carretera a Ojen, a respectable distance away from the new commercial complex La Canada.

  All that was left of his father was in the urn. That’s all that’s left of him, Winter thought.

  The sun was directly overhead. They could almost touch the mountain peak. The cemetery was very close to the white mountain. A long way down below, the horizon formed a semicircle. The sea was dead calm.

  There was a smell of sun and pine needles outside the chapel, and the scent accompanied them inside. He didn’t know many of those present. Some had flown in from Sweden on the same flight as Angela. Old friends. Angela had seemed composed when he met her at the airport not far from Málaga.

  The grave was overlooked by the mountain. Angela held his hand. A man he’d never seen before sang a hymn in Swedish, and another one in Spanish.

  They assembled for coffee afterward at a café in Puerto Banús, close to the beach.

  “This is your father’s favorite café,” his mother said.

  “What’s that statue over there?” Winter indicated the angel on a high pedestal, looking out to sea.

  “Un Canto de la Libertad.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s supposed to symbolize a hymn to freedom.” She pointed to the statue about a hundred yards away. “It’s your father’s favorite statue.” Winter thought he could see a trace of a smile on his mother’s face.

  He was feeling a little better now. He had avoided thinking about several things, but felt that it would be easier to do so now, for a while at least. Maybe it was that trace of a smile that helped. Maybe he would allow himself to think those thoughts before long.

  He wanted to make a gesture, to do something. Angela was looking at him. Lotta was gazing out to sea, watching a sailing boat heading for the horizon.

  “Let’s go home and have a drink,” he said. “Tanqueray and tonic. That’s Dad’s favorite.”

  16

  The mobile phone rang in Winter’s breast pocket. He thought he’d switched it off. It was Bertil Ringmar. The elderly DCI sounded more subdued than usual.

  “I just wanted to send you greetings ... today of all days.”

  “Thank you, Bertil.”

  “We’re all thinking about you here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Er ... I don’t really know what else to say.”

  “How are things at your end?”

  “Quieter than usual.”

  “So my absence has had a calming effect on Gothenburg crime.”

  “It’s a bit more boring as well.”

  “Maybe I should keep out of the way in future.”

  “You don’t really mean that, surely?”

  “No.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “My flight is tomorrow morning. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

  “We’ll hold the fort, as they say. Await the new millennium with bated breath.”

  “Everybody’s getting on with it, in other words.”

  “Bergenhem’s taken a few days off, on health grounds.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s out of sorts. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with him. He has a headache he can’t shake off. And he’s worrying about something.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “No ... but there’s something bothering him. I’m not a psychologist, but there’s something there.”

  “Has he talked to anybody—someone who could help him?”

  “I don’t know, Erik, but I assume he must have, now that he’s off sick.”

  “Yes, seems likely.”

  “Maybe it’s all the excitement as the millennium approaches.
They say it can affect people in all kinds of ways. Seriously as well.”

  “Really.”

  “I can’t say I’ve thought much about it.”

  “No.”

  “How are you reacting to it?”

  “I haven’t got around to thinking about that yet.”

  “Shouldn’t you stay in tonight? You have an exam tomorrow, after all.”

  “I’ve done the work for that.”

  “When?”

  ‘At school.“

  “Don’t you want me to test you on it?”

  “No.”

  “Maria, please. Can’t you stay in tonight?”

  “I have to go now. They’re waiting for me.”

  “Who is? Who’s waiting for you?”

  “Patrik and the others.”

  “Can’t you ask them to come here instead?” Hanne asked and immediately felt foolish. Would they really want her to serve them sponge cake and lemonade?

  “They’ve already been here.”

  “We’ve moved the VCR into your room,” said Hanne, feeling foolish again the moment she’d said it.

  “Bye, Mom.” Maria closed the door behind her. Hanne heard her daughter’s footsteps on the steps and on the path outside. The snow was already packed so hard that it sounded like somebody bouncing on a trampoline. Winter in November, and it might well have come to stay, although you never knew. It could be fifty degrees over Christmas.

  Hanne went back to the kitchen table and her newspaper and her reading glasses. She tried to spin out the time and avoided getting down to her Sunday sermon until the last minute.

  If only the Christmas spirit would hurry up and arrive. They ought to go away, as far away as possible.... Two weeks in the Canary Islands.

  It would be best if they didn’t come back. A house in some southern country. All those Swedish expats. There was lots of work for a vicar. Several Swedish clergy were working on the Costa del Sol. She thought about Erik Winter. Yesterday, when she’d been at the police station, somebody had told her that his father had died. She could hear a tram approaching from Saint Sigfrids Plan. It sounded as if it were plowing its way through the snow. Maria might be on it. She thought about Winter again, his father. Maria’s father hadn’t been around since she was a baby. Had that sowed the seeds of the harvest she now was reaping? What am I saying, she wondered. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

  And now the girl was a teenager. She saw her home as a potential prison, as they all do at that age—a part of growing up.

  I’d better write that sermon now.

  Málaga looked as it had done before. Nothing had changed of the city or the sea since he last saw them from the air.

  The plane banked, and all he could see was sky. The coast was no longer visible behind them. The flight attendants started trundling their trolleys down the center aisle, and passengers ordered their drinks. Angela was feeling sick. Nothing unusual in the circumstances, she’d said, but she’d rather it wasn’t in an airplane.

  He tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. He avoided alcohol and ordered mineral water instead, like Angela. He didn’t touch his sandwich.

  They passed through a pocket of turbulence that caused the aircraft to shudder once or twice.

  “That actually helped,” Angela said. “I feel better now.”

  “You look better too.”

  “I can see the coast.”

  “Which coast?”

  “Denmark, I think.”

  Half an hour later the plane began its descent. Winter glimpsed Gothenburg through the clouds before they were swallowed up by them. The buildings were gray, but the ground was white.

  The snow was about four inches deep at the side of the runway at Landvetter.

  It smelled like a different country as they left the terminal building and made their way to the long-term car park. He could feel the cold through his thin coat. There were a lot of people milling around, but fewer than he’d been used to for some time. Coming back home was always like that. A lot of noise, but even so it was quieter than when he’d been away.

  They didn’t speak much in the car. Angela intended to say something in the elevator, but didn’t.

  “Is it Saturday we’ll be moving in the last of your things?” Winter asked.

  17

  Patrik waited for the snow plow to pass. There wasn’t enough snow for that, surely? No doubt they’d been told off again. The local authority. Whenever it snowed in Gothenburg the local authority was always told off for not getting the plows out to clear it soon enough. So here they were already, cruising around town even though there was barely enough snow to turn the streets white. Patrik checked his watch, then pulled his sleeve down over his freezing hand. His gloves were at home, doing an excellent job on the shelf in the hall, ha, ha.

  He unloaded Beck from his Walkman, replaced it with Boy with the Arab Strap and sauntered over Aschebergsgatan while the music washed away the city sounds. That was good. He sometimes had more cassettes with him than newspapers, but they were all his own choices and it helped to keep changing, often. It made time pass more quickly. The sounds of the city were transformed into something else. Not that there were so many of them. The first trams. A few taxis, some of them apparently being driven by madmen. Drunken men and women yelling for taxis, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings.

  And sounds like now, the snow plow attachment scraping against the tarmac, vibrations shuddering their way through the road surface until they caught up with him, then continuing up his legs and taking possession of his whole body.

  He removed The Boy and replaced it with Gomez. Music was his life. He was a millennium ahead of everybody else. He was before his time. People listened to Eminem. Even some people he knew. Or used to know. Previously known people. He could feel himself making a face when he listened to Eminem. He felt provoked by Eminem. He had seen a television interview with Eminem devoid of intelligence and conducted by a couple of girls. Maria had been watching and he could see that she liked it, so he’d gone to his room and put on “Walking into Clarksdale” at top volume. That was wicked stuff. That was a millennium ahead of its time. Page and Plant, who would soon be sixty and still way ahead of everybody else, who hadn’t a clue and started laughing when he played them. It was almost the same with Morrissey, but not quite as bad.

  The electronic lock on the front door wasn’t working properly, as usual. He had to key in the code twice. There was a smell of old age in the stairwell and he started to feel tired, as there were so many stairs left to climb before he’d delivered all the newspapers. He always started to think along those lines when he’d got this far. He was on the third floor. For the last few days he’d paused here and asked himself what seemed amiss. He switched off his Walkman now and took away the earphones.

  It was several days ago, when he was about to push the newspaper through the mail slot. He thought back to that occasion, again. Some newspapers had landed on end and were blocking the slot. He’d had to push quite hard and he’d heard the music coming from inside the apartment. It was five in the morning, just like now. There were no lights on in the apartment, but he’d heard the music. Listening to metal at five in the morning! Death metal, eh! Or black. Somebody was sitting there, listening to metal, but whoever it was didn’t read his newspapers, nor did he open his mail.

  It said VALKER on the door. Nothing else. Valker. He couldn’t even get the newspaper through the slot anymore. He squatted down and could see the darkness inside the apartment and hear the music as usual. But there was something else now—you couldn’t miss it, couldn’t avoid it. A smell that was worse than ... he didn’t know, worse than ... he couldn’t think of anything worse, but he could smell it and had been able to smell it for several days now and not only in the morning. He’d felt obliged to go back several times and check. Hell’s bells, he had to admit it. He was curious. Maria had been with him the day before.

  “Can you smell it?”

&nb
sp; “Yes, phew!”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know what I think it is?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What, then?”

  “Somebody ... inside there.”

  “Right.”

  “Somebody dead.”

  “It could be.”

  “And still listening to ... to that stuff.”

  “Well ... it could be part of the point. Listening to it. I mean, they don’t call it death metal for nothing.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “It seems to be on repeat. Or auto-reverse. It’s playing all the time.”

  “Doesn’t it drive the neighbors crazy?”

  “There are thick walls, floors, and ceilings in this building. What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know. Is that noise really music?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you call that music? It’s so ... repulsive.”

  “You’d never believe how many people in Gothenburg listen to that crap.”

  “Such as whoever lives in this apartment. What exactly is it? I mean, you know everything. Even about stuff you can’t stand.”

  “I’m not sure. Quite a lot of stuff sounds like that. Could be ...”

  A man walked past, and they moved away from the door. He had no idea what was going on. He looked at them over his shoulder. Patrik started walking downstairs and Maria followed him.

  “You’ve been here lots of times, haven’t you?” Maria asked. “I mean, you’ve noticed it. You’d better report it. I think you should.”

  He stood in front of the door, thinking over what she had said. He was forced to put the newspaper on the floor outside the door, just as he’d done yesterday. It couldn’t go on like this. He thought again about what to do. The smell seemed stronger than before. It seemed to be everywhere, just like the music that was seeping through the thick walls. Odd that the neighbors weren’t up in arms about it.

  He left the newspaper on the floor and delivered to the rest of the apartments, then checked to see if the list of residents’ names by the front door gave any information about a caretaker.