Sun and Shadow Page 5

  “Helene.”

  “Was that her name?”

  “Yes. What was unclear?”

  “What happened to the child.”

  “She was okay.”

  “But she’d disappeared.”

  “Not really. She was ... being looked after. Protected.”

  His father didn’t ask any further. Winter listened to the sick man’s labored breathing, like a weak pair of bellows. He thought about his work. He’d never had any doubts about what he did ... or even thought that he did much at all, really. Or was it just the challenge that interested him? Might he just as well be doing something else? That thought had suddenly entered his head, in the car as he was driving to the hospital. It was a worrying thought. It could be constricting.

  “I think I’ll have a nap,” his father said.

  “I’ll be sitting here.”

  “Shouldn’t you go back to your room and get some sleep? It was a long journey.”

  “I’ll get some rest here, on the chair.”

  He could hear the patter of rain on the window, gentle at first but growing louder.

  “It’s raining,” his father mumbled. “That’ll please a lot of people.”

  Bartram was daydreaming when the door to the basement stairs was flung open and two youths came racing out and ran off to the left.

  Bartram leaped out of the car, shot over the flowerbed, and tackled one of them with a kick on the shin.

  The other boy disappeared down the next flight of stairs. Bartram looked down at his captive squirming on the ground, glanced around, then slammed his foot down on the youth’s back.

  “Ouch! You bast—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Take your foot off—”

  “Shut up, I said.”

  Vejehag and Morelius emerged from the basement and ran over to Bartram and the boy.

  “What happened down there?” Bartram asked.

  “We caught ‘em red-handed,” Vejehag said.

  “That’s bullshit! I caught ‘em red-handed,” said Bartram, pressing his foot down harder on the kid’s back.

  “That’s enough of that,” Vejehag said. “Where’s the other one?”

  “Ran down the basement stairs over there,” Bartram said, pointing.

  “Get up,” Vejehag said to the boy, gesturing to Bartram to take his foot away.

  A patrol car was approaching.

  “This bunch is from the emergency call-out squad,” Morelius said.

  “Have you been yakking over the radio?” asked Vejehag, glaring at Bartram.

  “Of course I haven‘t, goddam it!”

  The car drew up alongside them. The driver’s window was wound down and a very young face appeared—the officer looked about twenty-five.

  “What’s going on, Granddad?”

  “We’ve lost a nightshirt and a nightcap and thought we might find them in the basement here.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “And what are you lot doing here?” Vejehag said.

  “Who’s that?” asked the constable in the patrol car, nodding toward the youth slumped between Bartram and Morelius.

  “It’s my young brother,” Vejehag said, and at that very moment the door behind them flew open and out charged the other youth. Bartram let go and raced after the second kid and tackled him after only ten yards. The constable’s jaw dropped. Somebody said something inside the car, but it was impossible to see anything through the tinted windows. There was some faint applause.

  The young constable looked at Vejehag.

  “Another brother of yours?”

  “We’re gathering the family together for a party. It’ll soon be Christmas.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  Bartram strolled up with the boy in handcuffs.

  “Nice bit of work,” the constable said.

  “Look and learn,” Vejehag said.

  “Are there any more?”

  “Eh?”

  “If there are any more assembling for your party, you might need a bit of backup. I mean, all that violent resistance.”

  “We’re not expecting any more violent resistance.”

  “Oh no?”

  “We normally capture the villains verbally.”

  “Eh?”

  “We try to talk to people. Even villains. We don’t expect violent resistance when we’re at work.”

  “I can see that.”

  Vejehag pretended not to hear. “If anybody thinks that violent resistance plays a significant part in our work, maybe they ought to think again about their choice of profession.”

  “Be seeing you, Granddad,” said the young constable, and the car moved off. The buildings that comprise Rickertsgatan were reflected in its windows.

  “What a bunch,” Vejehag said. “Six officers who can’t bear the thought of being parted from the other. Hiding behind tinted glass.” He looked at Morelius. “There’s something perverse about that, don’t you think?”

  “Could be.”

  “There’s something perverse about the whole idea of special call-out units,” Vejehag said. “They should be sent on Swedish-language courses instead of all that goddam macho nonsense. We talk every day, but it’s pretty rare that the Gothenburg police force gets to storm a Boeing 757. Even so, that bunch practices it every few days.”

  “We sometimes catch villains using methods other than words,” Bartram said.

  “Yes. Now, let’s see if we can get these boys somewhere warm and cozy.”

  Maria Ostergaard felt cold. She’d been in such a rush to get away from home that she’d forgotten her gloves. Her hands felt like lumps of ice only a couple of minutes after they’d left the café.

  “Where should we go?” Patrik said.

  “I wanted to stay where we were,” answered Maria.

  “I didn’t like the people in there. Can’t we go back to your place?”

  “Mom’s impossible, completely around the bend. Why can’t we go back to your place?”

  “Dad’s impossible, completely around the bend,” said Patrik, with no trace of a smile.

  There wasn’t a soul to be seen in Vasagatan. Trams clattered over Vasaplatsen. A woman got off the tram that had approached along Aschebergsgatan and disappeared into one of the apartment buildings. As she opened the front door her face was lit up by the light from the entrance hall and the streetlamps.

  “I recognize her,” Maria said. “That woman going in through the door over there.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about it?”

  “She’s pretty.”

  “What about it?”

  “She lives with that guy who’s a detective, a cop. Mom works for the police every other week, that’s how I know of him.”

  “You mean the police have vicars?”

  “Evidently. I think his name’s Winter. That detective. Cool name, don’t you think?”

  “Hmm.”

  They walked across Vasaplatsen.

  A squad car came down Aschebergsgatan from Johanneberg. Morelius was driving.

  “I recognize those kids over there,” he said. “Those two, next to that stand.”

  “I recognize the girl at least,” Bartram said. “Small world.”

  “Winter lives over there, to the left, incidentally,” Morelius said. “The star of the force. That entrance there,” he said, gesturing with his hand as they drove past the building.

  “How do you know?” asked Vejehag.

  “I drove him home one night.”

  “Winter?” said Bartram. “Oh, right. So that’s where he lives?”

  8

  When Winter got up, the square of sky he could see through his bathroom window was gray. When he went out the door, the same thing applied to the whole horizon. But it was warm. He was wearing a short-sleeved silk shirt, cool linen trousers, and sandals with no socks.

  He passed the landlord and landlady, whose kitchen was next to the front door; they seemed to spend all day under the parasol, or under the sheet of canvas that had been s
tretched over half the patio when Winter arrived yesterday. Yesterday. Hadn’t it been longer than that?

  As he passed by, the woman said something to him. She held up a finger, as if issuing a warning. He thought he had heard the word chicas. Yes, she had said “No chicas” and pointed to his room at the other end of the house, then added what sounded like “en la habitación. ” Her man smiled, perhaps in embarrassment. After a few seconds the penny dropped, and Winter made a dismissive gesture. No, of course not. He wouldn’t bring any women back to his room.

  Winter turned right into Calle Luna and then left into Calle del Sol before coming to a little square. He continued to the open Plaza Puente de Málaga and found a café in the corner to the left: GASPAR. PANADERÍA AND CAFETERÍA. He sat outside at the only empty table. It was eight-thirty He was surrounded on all sides by Spaniards, men and women. They were drinking coffee with milk in tall glasses and eating small bread rolls with butter and jam, or just olive oil and salt. A waiter came, and Winter managed to order café con leche and pan with confitura. “Mantequilla?” the waiter asked, and Winter nodded without knowing what it meant. Butter, perhaps?

  His coffee was duly served and was very good, strong espresso with hot milk. The bread arrived and was also hot. Mantequilla. was indeed butter. He prepared his breakfast sandwiches while the Spaniards on all sides coughed their way into the new day between deeply savored drags on their cigarettes. A man at the next table turned away and started coughing something awful. Another one joined in. It was like sitting through breakfast in a sanatorium. When the man at the next table had cleared what remained of his lungs, he signaled to the white-clad waiter as if to a nurse, and the waiter disappeared into the café before reemerging with what Winter assumed was a glass of water. But as the waiter passed he could smell gin. A glass of gin to start the morning. Why not? Winter smiled, finished his breakfast and lit a Corps cigarillo. Now everybody at the Gaspar café was smoking. The smoke drifted up toward the sky, which was gray, still. There was a different kind of stillness today, compared with yesterday, a silence that he hadn’t noticed then. He couldn’t work out where the sun was, which seemed almost an impossibility in a place like this.

  Winter checked his watch and ordered another coffee. He still hadn’t finished his cigarillo. A young woman was walking from table to table, handing out leaflets. She came to Winter and he automatically held out his hand. She gave him a leaflet, her eyes fixed on his cigarillo. The message was from Centro Cristiano Exodus. He read it. It urged him to say NO! to heroina, cocaina, alcohol, tabaco, condenación, juegos de azar, Éxtasis, and SÍ! to el amor, la sinceridad, la paz, el perdón, la paciencia, la libertad, la vida ...

  He stubbed out his cigarillo, paid his bill, and checked his watch again. An Andalusian dog wandered over the road, chasing shadows. Winter thought about his father. He felt a drop of rain. The sky had turned a deeper shade of stone. The mountains beyond the avenida were an extension of the sky and hence whiter now than they had been before. Everything looked different. The buildings no longer reflected any light, which made people’s skin seem luminous. The rain was getting heavier, and Winter could picture his father in his hospital bed. The holiday season on the Costa del Sol was coming to an end, and Winter tried to avoid seeing symbolism in what was happening now, here and in the room at the Hospital Costa del Sol.

  He crossed over the wide Avenida des Ramón y Cajal and continued as far as the promenade. Another Andalusian dog wandered over the paving stones, stopped outside a café, and listened to the flamenco music being played with the treble turned up. It cocked its leg against a wall.

  The sea flowed into the sky, just like the mountains in the north. The feeling that the holiday season was over was stronger down here by the beach. Winter took off his sandals and walked to the water’s edge. A beach guard was carrying parasols. A café was open, its curtains flapping in the breeze. Winter could feel the wind now, and what seemed almost like a blast of cold. Sand was being whipped up as the wind strengthened. The song coming from the café was suddenly audible on the beach below. Winter thought about his child, and how the winter was creeping up on all sides. He thought about Angela, and suddenly longed to phone her; but he knew that she would be at work.

  For people living down here the promise of winter must be a kind of hope, he thought. A mixture of desire and longing. Maybe people living here would now be able to be themselves, instead of constantly putting on a show.

  He felt a warmer gust of wind and looked up. The clouds were breaking. Half of the sky was blue. It had opened up on the far horizon, over Africa. The sea was changing color, as if it were being lit from underneath.

  Now the sun was visible, and seemed to be racing at breakneck speed through the remains of clouds resembling flakes of snow. Winter thought about the cold weather back home in Sweden: it would soon be upon them. Once again he thought about his child.

  He could feel the heat on his head. As the sun returned he could appreciate its incredible strength even more clearly thanks to the preceding chill. The sudden surge of light made him feel strangely elated, as if he were starting to hope that the holiday season was back, that the sun had returned for good. He tried to avoid seeing symbolism in that as well. The sun is life, but it is also death.

  As he stood there more and more people arrived to slump down on a hamaca and adjust the sombrilla to shield them from the sun. One man was building a sand sculpture about ten feet tall, representing a sphinx and a pyramid. This is the same sand as they have in Africa, Winter thought, blown here over the Mediterranean.

  A street musician sat down on a chair a couple of feet away from Winter, put on his sandals, and launched into the first of the day’s flamenco songs: Adiós Graaaanaaaada, Graanaada Mííía. Winter dropped a few pesetas into the guitar case and went back to his car.

  When he arrived at Room 1108 he found it empty. His stomach turned over.

  Why the hell hadn’t she phoned? She took the mobile with her wherever she went, after all.

  He went into the corridor and said his father’s name to the woman who hadn’t been standing there when he arrived, and she pointed to the exit and said: “Cuidados Intensivos, ” with an appropriately worried expression on her face. Calm down, Winter thought. This is only what you expected when you came here yesterday.

  He found his mother in the corridor outside the ward.

  “I haven’t had a chance to phone,” she said.

  “How is he?”

  “Stable, they say. He’s stable now.”

  “What happened?”

  “He had breathing problems. And his pulse.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “Dr. Alcorta wants to wait a bit before forming an opinion.”

  “This fucking Alcorta! Where is he? I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s operating.”

  “On Dad?”

  “No. Another patient.”

  “Where is Dad?”

  “He’s asleep. I can take you to him.”

  They went into the intensive care ward. Everything was white and clean. There were no windows here looking out onto a graveled courtyard and dusty palm trees swaying in the wind. But there was a window with a view of the room where Winter could see his father in a bed surrounded by tubes and machines. He looked as if he were part of a medical research project.

  “We’re not allowed to go in now,” his mother said.

  “No.” He looked at her. In this intense light she appeared as ill as his father, possibly even worse, as her thin face was incapable of hiding anything. Winter could smell the smoke clinging to her dress and thought about the leaflet he still had in his pocket. La vida. Paciencia. Life and patience, in that order.

  “How long is he going to have to stay here?”

  “I don’t know, Erik.”

  “How long have you been here now without a break? Three days? Four? Can’t you go back to the house? I’ll stay with him today and tonight.”

  “Not
now, Erik.”

  “I think you need to get away from here for a while. Just a few hours, if you prefer that. You can take my rented car.”

  “I don’t think I’m fit to drive just now.”

  “Take a taxi, for Chr—”

  She looked at him. Her eyes more red than white.

  “Maybe I should, I suppose. Just for a bit.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Winter said. “Go on, off you go.”

  Bartram and Morelius were back at the station with a double portion of sweet-and-sour chicken from Ming’s down the road. They sat in the coffee room, halfheartedly watching a crime film on the box.

  “That could have been us,” said Bartram, nodding at the television.

  “The detectives, you mean?”

  “They could have been us. The problem solvers. Think of all those women they get as perks.”

  “We solve enough problems as it is. For ladies as well.”

  “You know what I’m getting at.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I’m not sure I have the strength to listen.”

  Bartram said nothing, just poured more chili and soy sauces over the rice. The film had finished and was followed by a commercial for diapers. A baby was rolling around on a blanket and was then lifted up by his smiling mother.

  “What a nice mom,” Bartram said.

  “As long as the cameras are there, at least.”

  “A nice mom,” Bartram said again. He chewed, swallowed, and poured on some more soy sauce.

  “Your rice is black now,” Morelius said. “Black rice.”

  ‘A nice lady,“ Bartram said. ”A nice lady. A nice mom.“

  Morelius tried not to listen, to concentrate on something else. The wall. The next commercial. The wall again. The last greasy lump of chicken. Bartram kept on and on.

  “Nice ... lady,” Bartram said.

  “Put a sock in it now.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Put a sock in it.”

  “But for Chrissakes ... What have I said?”

  “PUT A GODDAM SOCK IN IT!” screamed Morelius, standing up and walking over to the sink, where he threw his foil tray into the bin. He wished he could have stuffed Bartram inside at the same time.