Winter turned off the main road. He drove past the seven-story buildings on the right, turned into the parking area, and found a place directly opposite the huge apartment buildings marked with a housing association sign.
They seemed to be in good condition. The entrance had a sort of superstructure, and stone paving slabs on the floor.
Bengt Martell answered the intercom and Winter was let in. The entrance hall was attractive, painted in soft pastel colors not yet disfigured by graffiti. Perhaps there weren’t any young people here. Winter hadn’t seen a soul outside.
The man opened the apartment door. There was a smell of coffee in the hall. The sun shone right through the apartment, which presumably had windows facing in different directions. The man was a little shorter than Winter, about the same age, dressed in gray trousers and a cardigan that might have been green. He held out his hand.
“Martell.”
“Winter.”
“My wife’s popped out to get something for us to eat with the coffee.”
He showed Winter into the apartment. Through the window Winter could see the hill and the streets down below. Several clouds had appeared during the few minutes since he’d entered the building and taken the elevator.
“Please sit down,” Martell said. He blew his nose. That was the second time. He didn’t sound as though it was necessary. Perhaps he needed to do something with his hands. The apartment didn’t smell of smoke. He ought to do something else with his hands, thought Winter.
The door opened in the hall.
“It’s my wife,” said Martell, as if he were keen to reassure his guest.
A woman came into the room. She was tall, possibly as tall as her husband. Her hair was cut short and she seemed to have a tan. She was wearing a long, brown skirt and a tight-fitting polo shirt. She had a paper bag in her right hand, but transferred it to her left and shook hands with Winter before going into the kitchen, which Winter could see into through the half-open door.
“Well,” said the man, who had stood up when his wife arrived but had now sat down again. “What a terrible business.”
Winter nodded, and sat down as well. The woman returned carrying a tray with coffee cups, a pot, and some Danish pastries. She set out the cups and asked Winter if he wanted milk or cream in his coffee. He told her neither, and waited while she filled his cup. The man blew his nose again. The woman raised her cup and her hand was shaking. She took hold of it with both hands and put it down again, without drinking.
“When did you last see the Valkers?” Winter asked.
The Martells looked at each other.
“Didn’t we tell the other officers who were here?” Bengt Martell said.
Winter looked down at the notebook that he’d taken out of his inside pocket.
“It wasn’t quite clear. I might have mixed up some of the information.”
“It was several months ago,” Siv Martell said. “They were here for… a cup of coffee.” She looked down at the table and the coffee things as if to confirm the truth of what she had just said.
“Two months ago.” Winter was reading from his notebook. “Is that right?”
“If that’s what we said, then no doubt it is,” Bengt Martell said. He looked at Winter. “Such things are not easy to recall precisely” He blew his nose again and then tried to find somewhere to put his handkerchief.
Uncomfortable, Winter thought. They seemed to be uncomfortable in their own home, Halders had said. Scared shitless, he’d also said. But they didn’t seem like that now. Under the surface, perhaps.
“We didn’t note it down in a diary or anything,” Siv Martell said. She had started her coffee now, a quick sip. “We rarely do.”
“But you’ve never been around to their place, is that right?” asked Winter.
“Never,” Bengt replied.
“Why not?”
He looked at his wife, who looked out the window.
“What do you mean? Why we never went to their place?” He looked at Winter again. “Does it matter?”
‘All facts are important to us,“ Winter said. ”Details. Things people notice.“ He leaned forward, picked up his cup and drank some of his coffee, which was getting lukewarm. ”We haven’t yet had the opportunity of talking to anybody who’s been to the Valkers’ place.“
He didn’t mention the Elfvegrens. Per and Erika.
‘Anyway, we haven’t.“
“It was never in the cards?”
“Er… you must understand that we didn’t know them all that well.” Bengt Martell leaned forward. “We only saw them once or twice.”
“But you phoned them.” Winter looked up. “You left a message on their answering machine.”
“Yes… That’s why the police know about us.”
“We were going to suggest a meal out,” Siv Martell said.
“I gather you first met at a restaurant.”
“Yes. A dance restaurant. I don’t know if we mentioned this before, when the other officers were here. It was at King Creole.”
“Do you often go there?”
. “Hardly ever,” Bengt Martell said.
So you met at a place you never go to, Winter thought, but even so you wanted to keep the acquaintance going.
“Did you ever meet them together with other people?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
‘At a party, or a gathering with several people present.“
“What do you mean by several? More than us four?”
“Yes.”
“Never.”
“You didn’t know any of the Valkers’ friends?”
“None at all.”
“You didn’t meet any of them at that dance restaurant?”
“No.”
“More coffee?” Siv Martell offered.
“No, thank you.” Winter checked his notebook again. He was getting nowhere with this pair. Was there any point in staying? Perhaps the Martells were lonely people who had a fleeting acquaintance with the Valkers that might have developed into something more.
They might be scared, but at the same time uninterested. It was as if they were doing their best not to think about the Valkers. They were polite but uncooperative. It could be some sort of delayed shock. Or it could be something else, something lurking in the background. A shared experience. An incident. Something.
“What actually happened?” asked Bengt Martell out of the blue. His wife stood up and went to the kitchen.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What actually happened to them?” Martell asked again. “To Christian and Louise. There’s been a lot about it in the press, but nothing about how… how they died.” He seemed to be listening to his wife, who was running water in the kitchen. “How did he do it?”
“I can’t tell you everything for legal reasons,” Winter said, “but I was just coming to that.” He flipped to another page in his notebook and asked some questions about music.
It was overcast when he left the building. There was a wind from the northwest. Winter shuddered, and felt a stab in his throat when he swallowed. A slight headache these last two days might be the sign of an infection coming on. He’d have to rely on his immune defenses. The headache was a sign that they were assembling to repel boarders. There’s a battle taking place inside your body, Angela had said.
His car felt cold, and there was a smell of damp.
He took the letter out of his inside pocket and opened it for the first time. The letter paper bore the logo of the Spanish police, just like the envelope.
The letter was handwritten and in English, straightforward and purposeful. Just a few sentences greeting him, and thanking him for his hospitality. He read it several times. It was a part of the dream. There was no need to reply to this letter. Not even to read it. He could close his eyes and then look, and the letter would have disappeared, just like the dream.
Why do I think about it? he asked himself, and then he thought of Angela.
Angela, there’s something I have to tell you.
No. There was nothing he had to tell her because nothing had happened. Angela: I had a very strange dream last night. You don’t say? Do you want to tell me about it? I’ve forgotten it. Almost completely. Was I in it?
She’d been in it. And only a few hours later he’d picked her up at the terminal in Málaga. Not long afterward they’d stood side by side in the cemetery by the mountain. His father.
Winter rolled down the window, felt the wind blowing into his face, and now his thoughts were filled by his father.
He closed the window again and got out of the car. There was a minimarket only a few yards ahead, and he wanted to buy some throat lozenges. There was a sign over the entrance. It looked new. Krokens Livs was its name.
The wind was making the posters at the entrance to the shop sway back and forth. City of Angels, one of them said, the other was advertising The Avengers.
A local bus shuddered to a halt a few yards away and disgorged a couple of elderly people. Winter went into Krokens Livs, which seemed to have the usual assortment of dairy products, chips, confectionery, videos, dish-washing brushes, and newspapers. He bought a pack of Fisherman’s Friend from a woman who looked Arabic or Turkish.
When he came out, the wind was blowing even stronger. Winter felt a few drops of rain. The yellow buildings on the other side of Hagåkersgatan lost their color in the rainy wind.
Morelius was eating the usual deep-fried prawns from Ming. Why could they never think of anything else to order?
Somebody from the Gothenburg council was on television, explaining what the millennium celebrations would entail. If you believed him, they would be more impressive than anything on offer in London and Sydney and New York.
In fact Gothenburg would be subjected to the same old uproar, the same old crowds of staggering revelers. Tears, shrieks, guffaws, fireworks projected at eye height by lunatic antiaircraft gunners in the center of town. The same old uproar as usual.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Bartram said.
“Eh?” said Morelius, getting up to throw away half of the prawns and the sickly salad. As usual.
“I’m going to work on New Year’s Eve after all. In the thick of the revelry.”
“Welcome to the club,” Morelius said. “But you’d already changed your mind. First you were going to work, but you decided not to.”
“Yes. But just like you”-Bartram scraped the last bit of sauce from the foil container-“I’ve decided to work after all.”
“Why not do a good deed,” Morelius said. “Others need time off more than we do.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“What’s your reason, then?”
“I have nothing better to do,” said Bartram, going to switch off the television that was now showing the weather forecast for western Sweden. It was going to be fine but cold again. ‘And I’ll get time off later instead.“
“When?”
“In summer, maybe. How the hell should I know now?”
“What will you do?”
“In summer? No idea. It’s a long way off.”
“We have the revelry to cope with first,” said Morelius.
He went to his locker and opened it. His overcoat smelled of the cold that hadn’t completely gone away when the rain came.
Tomorrow he would see Hanne again, and it would be the last time. She couldn’t help him anymore, and he didn’t need any help. It had happened, but now it was more like a dream. He couldn’t say any more than that. Maybe he wouldn’t know what he’d said when he said it. He’d forgotten all the questions he’d asked himself during the night with the videos playing on the TV screen, and he never did know what they were about anyway.
He put on the earphones of his Walkman and pressed PLAY. Just a few minutes. He saw Bartram moving his lips and switched the music off again.
“What?”
“I can hear it plain as day.”
“Really.”
“Sounds awful.”
Patrik had asked to speak to the short-haired younger policeman, and Winter took the call immediately after he had come back to his office from Mölndal.
“Hello?”
“Er… hello… Patrik Strömblad here…”
Winter hadn’t recognized his voice. There was something gravelly about it.
“Hello, Patrik.”
“Well… that CD. Sacrament.”
“Yes?”
“Jimmo has it. My friend Jimmo…”
Bergenhem had searched the attic at Desdemona in vain. But in the end they were receiving help from another quarter.
“He has that exact disc? Daughter of Habu… whatever.”
“That exact one, yes,” Patrik said. “He could go straight to it. You can buy it chea… There are bett…”
His voice had become inaudible.
“What?”
“You can buy it cheap.”
Winter couldn’t help giving a little laugh.
“Okay! Where is it?”
“I have it here.” Patrik seemed to snort into the receiver. “An ugly cover.” His voice was unclear again, as if he were chewing something.
“Can you come here with it?” Winter asked. “Now?”
“Just the cover?”
“Don’t joke with me, Patrik.”
“I wasn’t joking.” It didn’t sound as if he was joking.
“Can you be here in half an hour?” Winter checked the time. ‘Aren’t you at school?“
“No…”
“Can you come here to the police station? Or we can meet in town.”
“Can’t we do it tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“I’m… I don’t know if I…”
“What’s the matter, Patrik?”
“Er… all right, I’ll come.”
Winter put down the phone and looked at the anonymous cassette in one of the pigeonholes on his desk. He put it into the stereo and played the first tune at high volume, took out the photographs again but only looked at the first two. He picked up the phone and rang Beier, but his colleague in forensics was out. Winter examined one of the photographs again, and made a note.