Frozen Tracks Read online

  'There was somebody carrying newspapers up and down staircases at four thirty in the morning.'

  'Sounds like a newspaper boy,' said Kaite.

  'Exactly,' said Winter.

  'But isn't there something a bit fishy there? How could he know the usual delivery person was ill?' he asked. 'He could have risked bumping into her, surely? How did he know?'

  'That's what we are wondering as well,' said Winter, studying the boy's face. It was as black as Aneta Djanali's, but with different features, from another part of Africa.

  'Very odd,' said Kaite.

  'Where do you come from, Aryan?'

  'Kenya.'

  'Born there?'

  'Yes.'

  'Are there a lot of Kenyans living in Gothenburg?'

  'Quite a few. Why?'

  Winter shrugged.

  'I hardly ever mix with them,' said Kaite.

  'Who do you mix with, then?'

  'Not many people.'

  'Fellow students?'

  'Some of them.'

  'Who were you with that evening?'

  'Eh?'

  'When you were attacked. Who were you with then?'

  'I said I was on my own.'

  'Before you got to Kapellplatsen, I mean.'

  'Nobody. I was just wandering around the streets.'

  'You didn't meet anybody?'

  'No.'

  'Not at all? All evening?'

  'No.'

  'It was a long night as well.'

  'Yes.'

  'And you didn't meet anybody then, either?'

  'No.'

  'And you expect me to believe that?'

  'Why wouldn't you?' He looked surprised. 'Is it all that strange?'

  'So you didn't know the person who clubbed you down?'

  'What kind of a question is that?'

  'Do you want me to ask it again?'

  'You don't need to. If I knew who it was, I'd say so, of course.'

  Winter said nothing.

  'Why on earth wouldn't I?'

  11

  'What would you say if I said "bicycle"?' asked Halders.

  'Is this some kind of association game?' wondered Jakob Stillman.

  'What?' said Halders.

  Stillman eyed the detective inspector with the shaved head, worn-out polo-neck shirt and jeans and the heavy shoes. Who was he? Had there been a mix-up during the arrest of a gang of ageing skinheads?

  He rolled carefully to one side, and his head followed his body and hurt. He couldn't shake off this constant headache. And this conversation was not making things any better.

  'Association game,' he said. 'You say something and I associate it with something else.'

  'If you'd said "bicycle", I might have said "beating up",' said Halders.

  'Yes, that's a natural association.'

  Halders smiled.

  'Do you understand what I'm getting at?' he asked.

  'Do you always interrogate your interviewees like this?' Stillman wondered.

  'You're reading law, is that right?'

  'Yes.'

  'Haven't you got as far as the chapter on cognitive interrogation methodology yet?'

  Stillman shook his head, which was a mistake. It felt as if something was loose inside it.

  'Let's go on,' said Halders. 'Do you think it's possible that whoever attacked you stole up on a bicycle?'

  'What I saw was just a figure, as I told your colleague. And it all happened damn quickly.'

  'Maybe that's why,' said Halders. 'He was riding a bike.'

  'Well, I suppose that's a possibility.'

  'You can't exclude it for certain?'

  'No. I suppose not.'

  Halders checked his notes, which were detailed and comprehensive. It seemed that after the blow to his head he'd become more inclined to make notes. As if he didn't really trust his own mind any more. Before that he'd often managed with notes made on the inside of his eyelids; but now he needed a notebook and a pencil.

  'When Bert . . . DCI Ringmar asked you about the noises you'd heard, it seemed obvious that you didn't think they were human sounds. What might they have been, then?'

  'I really don't know.'

  'What would you say if I said "bicycle"?' said Halders.

  'I don't know what to say,' said Jens Book.

  'I asked you if you'd met anybody after you'd left the party and before you were attacked, and you answered yes and no.'

  Book said nothing.

  'It's an answer you really ought to elaborate on,' said Ringmar.

  'I did meet somebody,' said Book.

  'Who did you meet?'

  'It has nothing at all to do with this,' said Book.

  'Why do you find it so hard to tell me?' Ringmar asked.

  'For Christ's sake, can I never be left in peace?'

  Ringmar waited.

  'It's as if I'd committed a crime,' said Book. 'I'm lying here paralysed and smashed up and . . . and . . .' His face contracted and he burst into tears.

  Ease off now, Bertil, Ringmar thought.

  'If you tell me who you met, that can help me to find whoever it was who attacked you,' he said, and had the feeling that he'd said precisely that before, many times, to many victims.

  'OK, what the hell,' said Book. 'I met a guy, OK?'

  'That's completely OK,' said Ringmar.

  'OK,' said Book again.

  'Why was it so difficult to say that?'

  The boy didn't respond. He was studying something behind Ringmar's head but Ringmar knew that there was nothing to look at, nothing but a blank wall covered in paint that had never glistened. Hospital wards are very much like Lutheran assembly halls, he thought, or maybe chambers for ascetic sects: life is but a journey to death, and this is an opportunity to get there a bit quicker.

  'Who was it?' he asked.

  'A . . . just a guy.'

  'A friend?'

  Book nodded, carefully. It seemed like a solemn moment, as if he were about to reveal his big secret. Which was exactly what he did.

  'A close friend?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'm not going to ask you how close,' said Ringmar. 'But I must ask you if you met him at his place.'

  'Yes.'

  'I need his address.'

  'Why?'

  Ringmar didn't answer that question. Instead he asked: 'Did he go with you when you left?'

  'Go with me?'

  'When you left his home.'

  'Yes. Just a short way.'

  'What time was that?'

  'I can't remember.'

  'When was it? In relation to when you were attacked.'

  'Er . . . half an hour before, maybe.'

  'He lives near there, does he?'

  Book didn't answer.

  'Were you still together when you were attacked?'

  'No.'

  'Where did you part?'

  'A bit . . . a bit higher up the street.'

  'In Övre Husargatan?'

  'Yes.'

  'Where exactly?'

  'Just past Sveaplan.'

  'When?'

  'Er, it was just before that bastard came and knocked half my head off.'

  'I want his name and address,' said Ringmar.

  'Don't we all?'

  'I mean your friend's,' said Ringmar.

  * * *

  It was more or less dark when they assembled again in Winter's office. There wasn't enough light to fill the corners.

  'Can't you stub that bloody cigarillo out just for once?' said Halders.

  'I haven't even opened the packet yet,' said Winter, with a look of surprise on his face.

  'I was just getting my retaliation in first,' said Halders.

  Ringmar cleared his throat and spread some of his papers out on the desk that Winter had just tidied.

  'It was hard for the lad to come out with it,' said Ringmar. 'For Book, that is.'

  'I hope you managed to convince him that in principle we couldn't care less about his sexual orientation,' said
Winter.

  'It's that "in principle" that could get in the way,' said Ringmar.

  'Was his friend at home?'

  'No reply when I phoned him.'

  'We'll have to pay him a call.' Winter looked at Bergenhem. 'Will you have time this evening, Lars?'

  'Yes. Just a formal check, I take it?'

  'No,' said Halders. 'Bring him in here and give him a good whipping.'

  'Is that an attempt to be sarcastic?' said Bergenhem, turning to face Halders.

  'Attempt?' said Halders.

  'The timing is absolutely crucial, Lars,' said Winter. 'But you know that as well as I do.'

  'His bloody poofta friend didn't do it, for Christ's sake,' said Halders.

  'But he might have seen something,' said Ringmar.

  'In which case he'd have come and told us about it already,' said Halders.

  'You don't understand what it's like,' said Bergenhem.

  'What what's like?' asked Halders.

  'Having to be secretive about it,' said Bergenhem.

  'No – but you do, do you?' wondered Halders.

  'It needs a lot of courage to come out, or whatever they call it,' said Bergenhem, without seeming to have heard what Halders had said.

  'Really?' said Halders. 'Then how come you can't open a newspaper nowadays without reading about how some celebrity poofta has just come out of the closet?'

  'It's different for celebrities.'

  Ringmar cleared his throat again.

  'Got a sore throat, have you, Bertil?' Halders turned to look at Ringmar.

  'Fredrik,' said Winter.

  Halders turned to look at Winter.

  'There's something these four lads have in common, and it's not their sexuality,' said Winter. 'Can you repeat what you told me earlier, Fredrik?'

  'I did a bit of checking up,' said Halders. 'They've all lived in halls at Olofshöjd.'

  Bergenhem whistled.

  'The same thing applies to about half of Gothenburg's students, past or present,' said Halders.

  'Even so,' said Bergenhem.

  'Kaite and Stillman still live there now,' said Winter.

  'Smedsberg moved to the Chalmers halls,' said Ringmar.

  'Why?' Bergenhem wondered.

  Nobody knew at this stage.

  'And Book shares a flat in Skytteskogen,' said Halders. 'No doubt they'll have to make it suitable for the physically challenged now.'

  'What are we going to do about Olofshöjd?' asked Winter. 'Any suggestions?'

  'We don't have enough personnel,' said Ringmar.

  'We can check their corridors, though,' said Bergenhem. 'The ones where Kaite and Stillman live.'

  'Their rooms are on different blocks,' said Halders.

  'Kaite said something odd when I spoke to him,' Winter said. He fumbled for the packet of cigarillos in his breast pocket, and noticed Halders glaring at him. 'We were talking about Smedsberg having seen a newspaper delivery boy, and Kaite was wide awake enough to ask how the fake one could have known that he wouldn't be disturbed by the genuine one.'

  'Maybe he just took a chance and risked it,' said Bergenhem. 'The fake one, that is.'

  'That's not the point,' said Winter. 'The thing is that Kaite said "her" when he was referring to the usual delivery person. "He could have risked bumping into her, surely?" he said. How could he have known that it was a woman?'

  'Maybe a slip of the tongue,' said Bergenhem.

  'Don't you think that would be a very odd slip of the tongue?' said Winter.

  'It could be that in a bloke's world it's always women who deliver newspapers,' said Halders. 'In his dreams. He lies awake and hopes they are going to drop in on him in the small hours.'

  'How does this fit in with the gay theory?' wondered Bergenhem.

  'Don't ask me,' said Halders. 'That's yours and Erik's theory, isn't it?'

  12

  Bergenhem walked across Sveaplan with a strong following wind. A sheet of newspaper went flying past the corner shop.

  The buildings around the square looked black in the dusk. A tram rattled past to his right, a cold yellow light. Two magpies took off as he pressed the button next to the nameplate. He heard a distant answer.

  'I'm looking for Krister Peters. My name is Lars Bergenhem, from the Gothenburg CID.'

  No response, but a humming sound came from the door and he pulled it open. There was no smell in the stairwell, as if the wind had blown in and cleansed it. The walls on each side were as dark as the building's façade.

  Bergenhem waited for a lift that never appeared.

  He walked up the stairs and rang the bell next to the door labelled Peters. The door opened a couple of inches after the second ring. The man peering through the crack could be the same age as Bergenhem. Five or six years older than the students.

  He stared at Bergenhem. His dark hair hung down over his forehead in a way that looked intentional, fixed with some kind of gel or spray. He didn't appear to have shaved for three or four days. He was wearing a white vest that stood out against his tanned and muscular body. Of course, Bergenhem thought. No, you mustn't be prejudiced. The guy is simply uncombed and unshaven and trim.

  'Can I see your ID?' said the man.

  Bergenhem produced his card and asked, 'Krister Peters?'