Sun and Shadow Page 24

  “In a way, yes. Go on.”

  “In that way he already has power over me.” He stood up again, thought, took two steps. “Is there more, Lareda? Is that enough, or not?”

  She stood up as well, went to the window, and looked out with her arms folded. She turned around.

  “I don’t know if we’re getting anywhere, continuing along these lines. But all right ... It could be that you have something that he doesn’t. In order to dominate you, he must get some of it for himself. In order to have power over you.”

  “What do I have?”

  “Compared with him? Everything. You have everything.”

  “What, for instance?”

  “A proper life. His life is ruined, may have been in ruins for a very long time. You have a life.”

  Winter breathed out. It was still very hot in the room. No empty speech balloons. He didn’t want to go any further in the direction the conversation had taken. Later, but not now.

  He went to the Panasonic and switched on the music. Lareda had listened to it at home, and her husband had gone to the cinema to avoid it.

  “I prefer Carreras,” she said when the song started.

  “For me the borderline comes with The Clash,” Winter said.

  “You’re familiar with The Clash?”

  “I’m an expert on them.” He motioned with his head toward the CD player on the floor. “But how can anybody analyze this stuff? Has it given you any ideas?”

  “Well, speculation mostly ... All right. I won’t go on about the ‘intensity’ of the music. You can be misled by that, perhaps look in the wrong direction.”

  “The tempo’s not the important thing, is that what you mean?”

  “Yes. It can be misleading. Everything gets so much more ghastly with this in both the foreground and the background. Do you follow me? If you come to the scene of a murder and find Carreras singing, the impression you get is different.”

  “But, Lareda, we try to be professional here. Carreras, Sacrament ... Mysto’s Hot Lips... Tom Jones... it’s not important in that way. I’m not influenced by the music when I’m standing there.”

  “You can say whatever you like, but you’re missing the point. I’m saying that the ghastliness of it all is made more intense by the choice of music, and that must influence you when you are searching for answers.”

  “How does it influence us?”

  “Let me ask you a counterquestion. Do you see a particular type of person when you envisage somebody listening to this? Listening by choice, that is.”

  “I try to avoid doing that.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked you.”

  “I take your point,” Winter said.

  “There’s something in the music that might conjure up what has happened. It’s latent. This isn’t background music. This doesn’t invite you to relax with smooth classics at seven.”

  “Who does listen to it, then?”

  “It could be somebody who’s always listened to this kind of music, but I don’t think so.”

  “Why choose it now, then?”

  “That’s another good question.”

  “I don’t think either that the murderer is necessarily an out-and-out metal type, with long hair and black leather. We’re not setting out to put away the types who dig black metal.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t listen at all,” Veitz said.

  “That had occurred to me as well.”

  “The message—if it really is a message—might be in the words. Maybe we should concentrate on the words. When you lent me the cassette, you said that this music is impossible without the words. Without the booklet with the lyrics that comes with the CD. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve tried to think about the words. And the cover. The pictures. We can’t forget them. In other words, all the things that are not the music itself, or whatever we should call it. I haven’t got a word for it,” she said, gesturing toward the CD player. The room was still filled with Sacrament, but Winter turned the volume down now. ‘Apart from the words describing the genre, that is. Black metal.“

  Winter agreed. He didn’t have a word for it either. It was more physics than music.

  “There are lots of symbols here, but the pattern indicates just one thing,” she said. “The choice of title, the words, even the pictures. It’s all about a sort of tug-of-war between good and evil. Represented by heaven and hell.”

  “I’m with you so far.”

  “But their relative strengths are not spelled out, as it were. Who will win? Where is the power based?”

  “The words don’t provide an answer to that, is that what you mean?”

  “They express a wish, rather, but against a background of darkness. Hopelessness. And that’s the world that is part of the key to all this. Perhaps.”

  “The world? What world?”

  “The world that predominates.” She looked up at him, and he noticed that her facial color had changed slightly. She was getting excited. She was thinking aloud, thinking clearly. “That could be the key question. And the paradox. There’s an enormous difference between committing sin in a world ruled by God, and in a world ruled by the Devil.”

  “There’s no hope in a world ruled over by the Devil? A world made up exclusively of evil can offer no hope. Is that what you mean?” Winter said.

  “Yes. And that could be the way he sees things. He’s a part of the evil world. But he might still have some idea of the other world.”

  “He wants to go there again? Go back to it?”

  “He wants to get away from everything he’s having to put up with,” she said. ‘And he wants to make up for a deficiency by committing a crime: castration. A deficiency and a longing. The crime takes him back to his experience of humiliation, and he also wants to show us that ’This is where I fall short.‘ He wants to tell us.“

  “He wants to be found out?”

  “He wants to be helped. And this is where we find the biggest paradox of all. He’s longing to be helped, and he’s saying that his crime shows you where his deficiency is, and that it is a cry for help.” She looked at Winter, stared hard at him. “In that way he demonstrates that there is still hope.”

  “So there is still some hope? Both for him and for me?”

  “And all the time there is a longing,” she said. “His dreams are an imagined world that he has now made real.” She looked at the CD player. ‘And, so, we’re more or less back where we started, don’t you think?“

  A dream, Winter thought, gazing out the window again at the snow that was starting to glisten in blue. A dream in a winter land.

  It was quiet in the apartment. Patrik could hear his father snoring in the bedroom. He was trying to read, but his mind was elsewhere. He had bought a Christmas present, but he hadn’t decided on anything for Ulla. He didn’t want to buy her a Christmas present.

  Maybe they’d be spending Christmas Eve somewhere else. And Ria had said that he didn’t need to be at home anyway. He could be with her family at Orgryte. That would be wicked. Celebrate Christmas in a posh house. Wicked.

  His father was up now. The whole room seemed to be grunting. Ulla was out buying booze, and he knew that his father wasn’t feeling too well at the moment.

  “Patrik!”

  His father stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. He could smell him even at this distance. The same as usual—but not really, because he always used to be in his own room, where he could be at peace.

  “Was it you what woke me up?”

  “No.”

  “Something did,” his father said, rubbing his eyes again. He went through the living room and into the kitchen. There was a bang and something fell down and broke. Glass. “For fuck—” yelled his father, coming back into the living room. “There’s glass on the floor. Pick it up, will you, I haven’t got the strength.”

  “I’m going out.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m on my way out.”


  “I told you to clear up that glass out there. Ulla will be back soon and she doesn’t know about the glass on the floor.”

  “Yes, all right. I’ll do it.”

  He went into the kitchen and tried to clear up the biggest pieces first. He ought to have put something on his feet, but he didn’t cut himself. Then he swept up the rest of the shards, wrapped them in a plastic bag, and put the bag into the trash under the sink. Ulla came back, he could hear her in the hall.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when she came into the kitchen.

  “Nothing.”

  She put her shopping bag on the table. His father appeared and took down some new glasses.

  Patrik went into the hall and put on his coat and shoes. It was dark outside now, but light everywhere. People were carrying Christmas trees wherever you looked. They cost 150 kronor, but he didn’t want one.

  There was no sign of his mom’s things anyway. Some colorful baubles. They’d disappeared, just like her.

  There was a police car parked at the newsstand when he passed. He thought he recognized the two officers. Then it drove off. The sign over the newsstand was reflected in the car’s polished side. He thought about something he’d seen on the stairs. That reflection made him think about it. Was there some connection?

  36

  “I’ve read the door-to-door reports and what is striking is that nobody pays any attention to anybody else,” Winter said. “‘Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.’”

  “What’s it like in your building, then?” Ringmar was trying to straighten out a paper clip. “What kind of a check do you have on your neighbors?”

  Winter thought of Mrs. Malmer. Angela had made insinuations about Mrs. Malmer’s midnight masses. But Angela didn’t make insinuations anymore. Angela wasn’t even there. No, it wasn’t as bad as that. Angela doesn’t live here anymore. It wasn’t as bad as that. He had told the truth and nothing but the truth that had any significance for them both and their future.

  “Not much,” Winter said. “Not much at all.”

  Ringmar held up the now straight paper clip.

  “Well done, Bertil. You can start picking a few locks now.”

  “Was that how he got in?”

  “We haven’t found a single scratch. Either he had a key or they let him in. He was known to them.”

  “We’ve interviewed all their friends and acquaintances that we know about.”

  “He was a secret acquaintance.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Secrets. People’s secrets.”

  “Hmm.”

  “He was a part of the secret. Something was going to take place there and he was going to be involved. But they never got that far. It didn’t happen. Not that last time.”

  “He had other intentions.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he have other intentions from the moment he arrived?” asked Ringmar, now trying to restore the paper clip to its original shape.

  “That’s an important question. Had he made up his mind when he went there, or did it... did something happen that led to the murders?”

  “Or to what happened after the murders?”

  “Yes. Was he a stranger when he was invited, or was he somebody who’d known them for a long time?” For a long time, Winter thought. His job had become a sort of criminal archaeology. He was digging backward in time in order to find answers. Climbing down into the shadows of the past. He was tired of it. He had enough to do with the present. “Had he known them for a long time,” he said again.

  “Did he know her? Him? Both of them?”

  “Hmm. Her. I think it has to do with the woman. Louise. I think so even more now, after my conversation with Lareda.”

  “Lareda gets carried away sometimes,” Ringmar said.

  “But it makes sense, even so,” Winter said.

  “If we assume that he was let in, the next question is how they made contact,” Ringmar said. “If they were acquaintances from some time in the past, or not known to one another at all but had arranged to meet in the Valkers’ apartment, how did they get into contact?”

  ‘An advertisement.“

  “Do you think so?”

  “Lonely hearts.”

  “Do you know how many lonely hearts ads appear in the daily papers every day? Or even just on the weekend?”

  “No, I don’t. Do you?”

  “No sir. But you only need to take one glance to know that there are lots of them. Lonely hearts.”

  “Do you read them, Bertil?”

  “They are very entertaining. But to start searching through them all would be like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Ringmar said, studying the paper clip that had turned into two steel needles.

  “Pornographic contacts,” said Winter. “Contact ads in the porno magazines.”

  “More needles, more haystacks.”

  “Hmm.”

  ‘Are you thinking of the sperm? Are you wondering if it was that kind of acquaintance?“

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s one theory. They got in touch via an advertisement.”

  “It’s not impossible. It evidently happens more and more often.”

  “People need tenderness and affection,” Ringmar said. “It’s a growing need.”

  “And they find new ways of getting it.”

  “We haven’t found any pornography in the Valkers’ apartment,” Ringmar said.

  “Films,” said Winter. “We could start there. Talk to the local video stores.”

  “And then what? Even if they did rent a porn flick now and then, I don’t see how that would help us. I suspect we’d be surprised by the statistics on the renting of porno.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Practically everybody rents one at some point. Chairmen of the local council. Clergymen. Sture Birgersson.” Winter couldn’t help smiling when he thought of the crime unit boss. Birgersson had performed his annual disappearing trick and Winter had no intention of talking to him.

  “Or they buy one on the Net,” Ringmar said. “Nice and discreet.”

  “Yes, no doubt.”

  “Have you ever thought about doing it?”

  “Renting a pornographic film? I haven‘t, in fact. It wouldn’t be ... me.”

  “Not your style?”

  “No style at all.”

  37

  When Angela closed the door and he heard her boots dropping onto the floor, he opened the oven and took out the two small stuffed woodcocks that needed a short time to rest. It was nine-thirty.

  “What’s that?” asked Angela, going straight to the kitchen, perhaps tempted by the smells. “Doves of peace?”

  “Just a bit to eat.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Winter was busy with the salad dressing, whipping a teaspoonful of French mustard into some olive oil and three drops of honey vinegar.

  “I suspect there’s a hidden meaning here,” Angela said. ‘A subtext.“

  “You could have a guess,” he said, tearing up salad leaves of various types; he nodded toward the woodcocks as if everything depended on them.

  She went over to the work surface and sniffed. The birds certainly looked tasty.

  “Guinea fowl?”

  “No.”

  “I give up.”

  “Already?”

  “I’m tired.”

  She sat down and massaged the toes on her left foot. Her stomach was quite a mound now. There was a little hole in the heel of her tights. In the light from the stove lamp and the two candles on the table, he could see that she had dark circles under her eyes, but that her face was still flushed from the wintry climate outside. Her hair seemed to be flattened, as if dried out after an afternoon and evening at the clinic, where the air-conditioning left much to be desired.

  She looked up, her hair fell away to the sides and the shadows had gone. Her face looked young again. “It’s nothing new. Tired. The nurses probably feel much worse.” She h
eld her hand cautiously over the nearest candle flame. “We had a scandal at the clinic today. A king-size one.” She continued waving her hand to and fro over the flame, without looking at him. “The boss resigned. Made a hullabaloo about it.” She looked at him again. “Just left his desk and cleared off.” She smiled. “Our beloved chief executive was in with Olsén discussing the latest cutback proposals... no, decisions. I was with a patient and didn’t hear anything of it, but they said there was a sort of bellowing from inside Olsén’s room and then Olsén emerged without his coat and Boersma followed him, looking embarrassed.”

  ‘About time.“

  “Meaning what?”

  “About time the director was embarrassed.”

  “To him that’s like water off a du—” she said, looking hard at the little bird nearest to her, which was still giving off a bit of steam and smelling delicious. “Surely these aren’t ducks?”

  She seemed to have forgotten her question, took her hand away from the candle, and massaged her right foot.

  “Olsén didn’t come back. He phoned half an hour later and said he wouldn’t be coming back today. Or ever. He’d quit.”

  “So there’ll be even fewer of you doing what has to be done.”

  “Yes. But some good may come of it.”

  “I’ve brought something good home with me,” Winter said, indicating the woodcocks as he opened the oven door to check the potatoes.

  “Doctors can command a bit of respect,” Angela said, following her train of thought. “If they shout loudly enough, they can shake the foundations a bit.”

  I’ve noticed that, he thought, but he didn’t say anything.

  “They can stir up the administration, I mean,” she said, and walked over to the counter again. He embraced her, and noticed the smell of winter that was still clinging to her hair and clothes. He held her tightly, and felt her stomach. She moved closer.

  “Have you burned the letter?” she asked, barely audibly, addressing his neck, or the birds on the work surface.

  “It’s all gone,” he said. “Everything that never existed is no more.”

  ‘All right,“ she said, pulling away. ’All right, all right.” She looked at the table, which still wasn’t set.