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 held 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.
“Do you think I might have time for a shower before dinner?”
“You have five minutes,” he said. “Max. I’ll put some foil around these beauties, and the sauce will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
“But what are they? Could they be woodcocks? They’re in season now, aren’t they?”
She recalled the French word for them as she turned on the taps in the shower. Bécasse. She knew that because she’d worked in a French vineyard a couple of late summers and one autumn when she was a student-although she wasn’t studying at the time-and the vintner hunted woodcock. One or two would often be hanging on the porch as she set out to tend the vines in the morning.
They’d been in the office that Hanne generally used at the police station. It was a quiet room, well lit.
She always put freshly cut flowers on the little table by the chairs that had to serve as armchairs. They were just like she was, she’d often thought: inadequate, a bit different from what they would be like on other occasions, under different circumstances.
“I can’t shake off those dreams,” Morelius had said. “Like last night again.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“It was the same as the night before last, and the one before that. Somebody laughing as I stood there, but I didn’t know… which one of them.”
“Was it during that traffic accident?”
“It’s always then,” he said. “Now it crops up as a sort of flash when I’m in the car, for instance. Working.”
“What’s it like then?”
“A sort of memory. It just crops up, then disappears.”
“What does the image look like?” she asked.
“The same image. From the accident.”
“Go on.”
“It’s as if it’s haunting me,” he said. ‘And not only when I’m working.“
She was listening. Waiting.
“I think about it even when I’m not on duty.”
“I understand.”
“And then there’s going to sleep.” He was twisting his head from side to side, as if to avoid getting a stiff neck. “That’s the worst, I suppose.” He twisted his head again. “You need to get some sleep. If you don‘t, you can’t work properly.” Then he said something that Hanne didn’t really understand, and that would give her food for thought later. Much later. “I mean, you have to show people who you are,” Morelius said.
Patrik and Maria were in the center of town, wandering around the shops that were open late, browsing the CDs in music stores, rummaging through shelves of books, touching the clothes hanging on long racks. Street musicians were wearing Santa Claus hats and singing songs about Christmas in English and in Swedish.
In the southeast corner of Femman was a Peruvian band: small, dark men, ponchos in earth colors, songs that smelled of sorrow and high winds. Patrik and Maria joined the semicircle of twenty or so listeners, swaying in time to the rhythm. In front of the musicians was a battered suitcase full of CDs.
“Maybe I should buy one for Mom,” Maria said. “I haven’t found a good Christmas present for her yet.” She gestured toward the CDs. “One of those, and something else as well.”
“A bit of black metal,” Patrik suggested.
“No, thank you.” She looked at him. “You haven’t found anything yourself yet, have you?”
“For Dad, you mean? No.”
“Aren’t you going to get anything for… her?”
“Ulla? No.”
“I think I saw her on the tram near Haga Church the day before yesterday.”
“Was she drunk?”
“If it was her. No, not as far as I could tell. But she had a shopping bag with some bottles.”
“She’d been to the booze shop, no doubt. Too heavy for her to walk home with, I suppose.”
“I never want to get drunk like that again,” Maria said.
“Like what? Like Ulla?”
“You know what I mean, Patrik.”
‘All right.“
“Don’t you think?”
“Straight edge,” he said. “That’s the thing from now on.” He was watching the musicians, all of whom seemed to be playing panpipes at the same time as they strummed open chords on their guitars. They sounded like birds circling over mountain peaks. Get away from all this. “Well, are you going to buy some music from the Andes?”
“I need a bit more time to think.”
“It’s Christmas Eve the day after tomorrow.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“It’s all right for you.”
“You can spend Christmas with us.”
Patrik made no reply. He turned and saw Winter approaching from Brunnsparken, at the edge of the mass of people making their way to the shops. He hadn’t noticed them. Christmas shopping. No parcels yet, but he seemed to know where he was going, unless he was just being carried along by the tide of people.
Patrik looked away, but it was too late. Gothenburg was a small place.
“How are things?”
He was standing close, but not too close. Maria looked up.
“All right, I suppose.”
Winter eyed the band. The song had finished, and some of the onlookers applauded. He turned to the youngsters again. Patrik’s cheek was almost back to normal now. Winter didn’t know whether the investigation had started and he didn’t want to ask, but the boy had been beaten up for the last time.
“Nothing new from your memory bank?” he asked, and felt immediately that it sounded idiotic. Corny.
“No.”
“You still have my phone numbers, hope?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. I’d better get moving. Last-minute Christmas presents, as usual.” He looked around. “Most people seem to be in the same boat.”
“Us, too,” Maria said.
“So long,” Winter said and started walking away, but after a few feet he looked around and smiled, as if at the hustle and bustle all around him, and something jogged in Patrik’s memory. He caught sight of the dark gray trousers that Winter had on under his overcoat. They could be… could be the same kind of trousers that… that he’d seen when he was on the stairs and he came down in the elevator and went out through the front door. Was that it? Was it the trousers he’d been searching for in his memory bank, as the detective had called it?
Maria said something, but he wasn’t listening.
He was standing on the stairs now. He’d seen half the man’s face, or a bit less, and the overcoat rode up and there was something about the trousers. And there was something else as well, higher up. Something higher than the trousers that sort of gleamed. There was a gleam on the trousers as well, like reflector tape. It could be reflector tape, or just a reflection of the light. And he had a sort of belt over his chest, diagonally.
Patrik could still see the detective, but only the head now, bobbing up and down a bit higher than most of the others.
The man who’d left the apartment building had been wearing a uniform or something of the sort underneath an ordinary overcoat. Patrik turned to Maria, who said something again.
“What?” he said.
‘Are you asleep or something?“
“Let’s move on,” Patrik said.
Bartram went home with two videotapes. It was starting to snow again, but the sun was still shining. Perhaps it was so localized that it was only snowing on him and this part of the street. He hadn’t gotten to know it yet. At first it had just seemed long, but now it was divided up by recognizable things. The advertising agency that was unable to do much in the way of advertising even for themselves, judging by their own display card.
The playground.
Ladies’ clothing-or was it just hats?
The buildings that changed color block after block, but didn’t have much color left after all the rain and wind and sun. It was very windy here. Perhaps that had to do with the hill. The wind came from below, was stopped by the hill and sent back to create a circle of wind. When it was at its worst it became a vicious circle.
Now the snow had stopped, as if he’d walked right through it. Just as the wind could turn back when it hit the hill, the haze of the sun had come back and grown stronger.
He was inside now. There was a faint smell of hyacinths. That’s what Christmas ought to smell like. He’d bought ready-made meatballs, and they might add to the Christmassy aroma. He had a bottle of spiced wine to mull, a new brand. That didn’t really matter. He didn’t have a Christmas ham, and had hardly given it a thought.
He put the videos on the chair in the hall. The crispbread was still out in the kitchen. He’d forgotten to put the tub of margarine back into the fridge, and it had acquired various yellow streaks that reminded him of piss. Piss. The tub was more than three-quarters full. He held it at arm’s length and threw it into the sink. Right on target at the first attempt. He raised his fist and lapped up the applause. Anybody who is bang on target raises his fist. As far as he could see, he was the only one doing so.
That night he held Angela in his arms. She moved slowly in time with his movements, her back toward him. His body was a part of her. After a few minutes he abandoned his caution. He lifted her up and it was as if she were floating on air. She shouted something in a different voice, but he didn’t hear as he was on his way to the same powerful feeling as she was, simultaneously. It was filled with light.
Afterward, as they listened to her CD, the boatman calls from the lake, a lone loon dives upon the water, and they were lying still and silent, he thought about a name for their child, but didn’t dare to be too bold. Angela had also grown more careful.
It was to do with the fact that the time was coming. January, February, March, April. Perhaps before then. Less than three months, perhaps. Had he really grasped that? Had he, hell! Had she? Of course not. Who could?
There will always be suffering, it flows through life like water. It was dark, self-evident music, beautiful, suitable for bright afternoon light, but here, on the way into the small hours, it was floating on air, just as they had floated into each other a few minutes before.
Ringmar had said that there’s an Arab proverb: “You’re not a man until you’ve written a book, planted a tree, and fathered a child.”
He’s done the biggest of those. Almost there now. Angela hadn’t said anything more about houses, but he knew. A plot with a hole he’d dug, a tree, a hundred trees.
He could write a book, or think one, keep it in a drawer within a drawer, pages full of thoughts. Was his life over already? In that sense? Retirement after working for thirty years and then the quiet life that always followed. Had he ever set foot in life?
Or did he have anything else in him? Good Lord! Imagine writing a book that wasn’t a handbook on interrogation techniques or about the significance of intuition in criminal investigations.
To write well you needed to think well, it seemed to him. Did he think well? He’d always had faith in himself in that respect, relied on his thoughts sooner or later moving things forward. Now he knew. So much was happening in his life this winter, and had happened that autumn. Who he was, who he was becoming. His father, and the baby, everything part of an enormous progression that was bigger than anything else he could conceive of.
His wavering concentration on the case, on the murders. Yes. Wavering concentration. He had to admit that to himself. He was still being professional, but his mind could wander off in the wrong direction. That hadn’t happened before, not like this. It had wandered off in various directions, but never very far. Was something happening to him? Was it only the child, and his father’s death?… and Angela, their new, more serious relationship?
“I can hear that you’re thinking,” she said, making the effort to turn and face him. “I hope it’s about us.”
“Yes.”
“I hope you’re not bringing your work to bed with you.”
“Not in that way”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t know. I feel as if it’s becoming… becoming more difficult to keep my eyes fixed on what I’m doing. This case. I don’t know…” He kissed her.
Maybe he knew what it was. He’d barely had the courage to allow the thought to enter his head. Maybe he was afraid. Afraid for them. There was something making him afraid.
She sat up and was about to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. He felt thirsty, and at that very moment she asked him if he wanted something to drink.
“Yes.”
“Wine for you.”
“Sounds like an excellent idea.” He reached out for her before she’d had time to leave the bed.
“Angela.”
“Yes?”
“Have you had any more silent calls?”
“Wrong numbers, you mean? Isn’t that what you called them?”
“Have there been any more?”
She could see from his face that he was serious. Why was he reminding her? Was he afraid, in spite of everything?
She had moved on. She wasn’t scared now. They weren’t scared. It was one time then, another time now. Everything was bright and she’d been feeling optimistic at last, happy. That damn business of the letter was a misunderstanding. No more misunderstandings.
“No,” she lied.
The flight from Málaga landed in the Nordic twilight. Winter saw it touch down as he pulled into the little parking area to the east of the international terminal.
His mother was one of the first out through customs. She hugged him tight. She smelled of sand and a different kind of sun. No gin. Her trolley was fully loaded, in danger of tipping over from the weight.
“I didn’t realize that you’d decided to move back to Sweden.”
“It’s just a few Christmas presents, Erik.”
In the car she huddled up, then stretched out again, blew into her hands.
“It’s colder than I expected.”
“We’re having one of the coldest winters of the twentieth century.”
“And tomorrow it’s Christmas Eve.”
“Exactly.”
“When are you going to Lotta’s?”
“I gather we’re eating at half past one.”
“I’m looking forward to that.” She looked out into the dark night and the white snow lighting up the landscape.
“How’s Angela?”
“Never felt better.”
“She’s growing as she should?”
“Everything’s going according to plan.”
“You’re taking Christmas off I hope, Erik?”
“Of course.”