It started snowing again as she waited at the tram stop. The piles of snow in the park were ten feet high, and it seemed they would never melt away.
She felt a movement, then another. Three months to go. They still didn’t have a nursery in the apartment. No clothes, no crib. Nothing that could tempt fate. There was such a thing as fate. Why did she think so? What fate was that? How could it be tempted?
It wasn’t something she wanted to talk to Erik about. He had a different attitude to life, but she wasn’t sure that you could direct everything yourself.
The tram was late. It was a means of transportation that relied heavily on dry weather, without much precipitation. Trams are made for southern California, she thought, and read the electronic screen in the shelter, red letters on a black background: Now had been changed to 15 MINUTES.
The baby kicked again. The movements had become a part of her body, of course. It would feel strange to be one again. Or suddenly two. That was a better way of putting it. Becoming two.
She was going to be late and there was no excuse. Sensible people took into account the fact that trams would be running late when it was snowing. She left the shelter and looked for a taxi, but they were never around when you needed them. That’s simply how it was. When you needed to arrive on time, public transportation wasn’t working, and when you turned to Plan B, there was no taxi in sight.
She walked to the road junction, but there were no trams approaching and no sign of a taxi. She looked around. This is what people look like when they need a taxi, she thought. The others still have faith and are waiting in the shelter. If a tram comes, it comes. That’s fate.
A police car stopped on the other side of the street next to the bakery just as she was crossing the road. The driver’s door opened and a police officer got out and raised his arm in greeting. His colleague remained in the passenger seat, behind the windshield wipers. The officer shouted something and she paused when she reached the pavement. He was shouting to her. She approached him.
“We’re heading for Wavrinskys Plats,” he said. “Excuse my asking, but could we offer you a lift?”
She didn’t know what to say. He was around her own age, fair-haired, maybe a bit on the small side for a public order officer. Open face. He seemed familiar.
“I recognized you, that’s why.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “I know Erik a little, so…” he said, gesturing as if to indicate the weather and the lack of public transport. “You work up at the Sahlgren Hospital, don’t you? We noticed you at the tram stop before, so if you’d like a lift, then…”
She glanced at her watch.
‘All right,“ she said with a smile. The other officer got out and opened the rear door for her, and she looked around before getting in. Caught red-handed outside her own front door. What would people say?
The other officer was more heavily built and older. He said his name, but she didn’t catch it.
Neither of them was the type to indulge in small talk, and she appreciated that. A couple of messages over the radio sounded almost like advertisements. It was warm inside the car, pleasant. They dropped her outside the main entrance to the hospital.
“Give our greetings to Erik,” said the driver as she was closing the car door. “And a happy New Year.”
Winter hesitated halfway to Kungsbacka, but continued even so. The road ought to be still passable when he drove back home as well. He’d seen two snow plows with lines of traffic behind them.
It was Thursday, December 30, 1999. Tomorrow all hell would break loose. He’d barely given it a thought. He felt that he needed to get out, leave his office, his desk, the investigation reports that he’d read from beginning to end three times, as one of the contributors. Get out into the world, the wide world. It was around about him, everywhere.
He turned off the E6 and found his way into Västra Villastaden. Traffic grew denser as he approached the town center and people were walking through the snow like faintly drawn cartoon figures.
He passed the Fyran House of Culture and stopped to look at the map. He turned southward, passed a school, didn’t see the street sign until it was too late, and had to stop and reverse when the road was free.
The run-through of police plans took somewhat longer than usual. This was going to be the biggest party ever, and Chief of Police Söder skog and his support services had been working hard on the preparations for a whole year. The Millennium Celebration was a very special event. On the scale from catching a petty thief to war, the Millennium Celebration was closer to war, or at least civil war.
“Nevertheless, we’re trying to cope with the normal level of public holiday staffing,” their colleague from Support Services had said a long time ago. That meant restrictions on leave, more standby duty, more cover for mealtimes and other breaks. Everybody was well prepared, and there would be no panic if panic were to erupt.
“But why should it?” the officer from the administration unit had asked. Yes indeed, why?
Bartram and Morelius were sitting by their lockers with Ivarsson.
“That damn procession is going to bring Gothenburg to a standstill,” Ivarsson said.
“The Goddess of Light leading us into a new millennium,” said Bartram. “Just think about that.”
“I suppose that’s all right for people who can’t see beyond the end of their noses, but I can manage on my own, thank you very much,” said Ivarsson. “The center of town will be constipated. Much worse than when the damn students are mucking things up on rag day.” He adjusted his holster and his SIG-Sauer gleamed. “Söderskog’s merry men were going on about panic when they were here. What’ll happen if there is panic? It’s obvious some people won’t be able to cope with the pressure from the crowds, and there could be panic when we carry them away.” He adjusted his belt. “Nobody will be able to move an inch.”
“But where should it go, to make it safer?” Bartram asked. “The procession, I mean? Should they stick to the park out at Upper Hisingen?”
Iversson snorted with laughter: “That would be great as far as I’m concerned. But that’s where the problem lies. This long procession with the Goddess of Light leading the way.” He looked at Morelius. “I mean, we’ve already had the Lucia procession earlier this month, welcoming the light. What more do they want?”
“More than that,” Morelius said.
“Where are you allocated to?”
“I’ll be at Heden to start with, until they’ve finished building the Tower of Babel.”
“What a damned crazy idea that is!”
“At least it’ll be standing still.”
“The hell it will,” Ivarsson said. “It’ll be moving upward!”
“Speaking of moving upward,” Bartram said, “who’s going to look after all the wounded after the fireworks display?”
“Let’s not get too negative now,” said Ivarsson.
“Look who’s talking.”
“I’ll be making my way to Skansen Kronan as midnight approaches,” Ivarsson said.
“I’ll see you there, then,” said Bartram.
“I thought at first that we ought to think special thoughts when the clock strikes twelve, but I don’t think we’ll have time for that,” Ivarsson said. “We’ll be too busy calming down the youngsters.”
“Not only the youngsters, I’ll bet,” Bartram said.
Louise Valker’s mother was alone in the house, which was lit up on the outside but dark inside.
“She didn’t have an enemy in the world,” she said as soon as Winter had introduced himself.
No. Perhaps what had happened to her wasn’t personal. He could see her in his mind’s eye. Her face. Her body. The writing on the wall, which looked fainter at the bottom where the blood had dribbled. The light from Vasaplatsen was not far away. The same light as in his own apartment.
Louise’s mother was tall, powerfully built, leaned forward when she walked-back trouble? She might have been around sixty-five, seventy at most. She showed him into a living room that was mainly in shadow. There were two framed photographs on the low coffee table. Louise when she was about twenty, and when she was some ten years older.
“She should have stayed here,” her mother said. “But I suppose that wouldn’t have worked.” She looked at one of the photographs, spoke to it. “She was good at her job, and there aren’t so many ladies’ hairdressers in Kungsbacka.”
“Did she have a lot of friends?”
“Well… she had quite a few when she was a teenager, I suppose.”
“Did she have a best friend?”
“I’ve answered that before, surely? I told the man who was here… after it had happened.”
“Yes, I’ve read what you said then. But I was thinking more specifically about the idea of a best friend. You didn’t seem to have discussed that.”
“Really? Oh. Maybe because I couldn’t recall one then.” She was looking Winter in the eye, but the room was so dark that he couldn’t make out her features. Just the shape of her head.
“My husband died five years ago,” she said. “Louise’s dad.”
Winter said nothing.
“He was her best-best friend,” she said, and Winter could hear from her voice that she was crying. “She missed him so much.”
“They were pretty close, were they?”
“Very close.”
Winter waited a few seconds.
“But she had quite a few other friends?”
“They came and went. It’s not easy to remember them all.”
‘And then Christian came along.“
“Yes, then he came.”
Winter noticed an altered tone of voice now.
“Did you see them often?”
“No.”
“What did you think of Christian Valker?”
She didn’t answer. Winter could see part of her face, now that he’d become used to the gloom.
“Christian Valker. What did you think of him?”
“They hardly ever came here. I don’t think he wanted to come here, and Louise did whatever he said.” She looked at the photographs again. “She listened to him more than she did to me.” Winter heard a deep sigh, as if she were gulping for breath.
“I never liked him.” Now she was looking straight at Winter, and he could see her eyes. “I don’t think Louise liked him much either.” She shifted on her chair. “She might never have.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“More or less.”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t think he treated her well.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She was thinking of leaving him.”
“Did she say that?”
“It was only a question of time.”
Winter repeated his question yet again, but didn’t get an answer. In the end she said that a mother knows things like that.
Winter continued questioning her about Louise’s life. He received vague answers regarding her boyfriends, evasive answers, just as when he’d asked about her friends, and best friend.
He stayed for an hour. When he returned to his car he switched on his mobile phone and found that he had several messages. The first was from Ringmar. The boy had been trying to contact him, Patrik. He didn’t want to say what it was about. Ringmar had the kid’s phone number, in case Winter didn’t have it handy. Ringmar didn’t know if he’d been phoning from home, as he’d hung up so abruptly.
Winter rang Ringmar, but there was no reply. In the bathroom, perhaps. Winter found the road home not too bad. It was still snowing, but more gently now. Traffic was moving faster than it had been when he’d driven south earlier. It was starting to get dark. The day was giving up the ghost, and he sympathized.
The piled-up snow at the side of the road was sometimes high, but in places the wind had blown it into the fields. It was like a wall, a hundred yards long. The Wall. Wall. His mind was wandering as he drove back toward the metropolis. Wall. He’d thought about it briefly, for the first time in days, while in the dark house at Kungsbacka. Wall. Vall. Vallgatan. Desdemona wasn’t in Vallgatan, but it wasn’t far away. Those middle-aged men dressed in black, among all those piles of CDs and all those computers, posters. Wasn’t there a shop selling CDs in Vallgatan? Had it closed down? There was nothing in the case notes about a record shop in Vallgatan. It must have closed down. He remembered passing by a shop selling music in Vallgatan, years ago. He thought of Patrik, and his friend who’d had the Sacrament CD. Where had he bought it? Didn’t he say Haga? But that wasn’t certain. Had Winter been too excited to ask the right questions? Did he have any more questions?
He came to the industrial district and turned off toward the docks. He phoned Ringmar and was given Patrik’s address.
“Is he going to call back?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he sound like?”
“Hard to say. It was so funn-”
“Did he sound upset? Scared? Calm?”
“A bit… upset. Maybe.”
“Surely he could have told you what it was about.”
“Don’t think I didn’t try.”
“This isn’t my personal case.”
“The kid didn’t say anything. He hung up the moment I said you were out. He didn’t ask for your mobile number, and I didn’t have a chance to say anything else before he slammed the receiver down.”
“All right, all right.”
“What are you going to do now? Call in on him?”
“I’m already on my way. I’m at Linnéplatsen now.”
Ringmar mumbled a good-bye and Winter continued driving northward. Ringmar was the last person he wanted to fall out with. It was Winter’s own fault if Patrik was not keen to talk to anybody else. He must have given off the wrong signals, given the impression that this was Winter’s case and nobody else’s… that it was essential for him, Winter, to be the one contacted first. This sort of thing could cause problems, delays.
He parked illegally on the other side of the road and walked up the three flights of stairs. There was an aroma of cooking. The walls were painted, but a long time ago. Somebody somewhere was playing music, and the bass echoed around the stairwell. There was a bicycle on the second floor, and a plastic shopping bag full of empty bottles outside one of the doors on the third. Winter rang the bell, but could hear nothing from inside. He rang again. Still no response. He knocked on the door several times. There was a scraping noise from inside. Somebody opened the door slightly. The man was between fifty and sixty and looked like an alcoholic. Winter could smell the telltale old wine plus some more recent fuel. The man was drunk, possibly dead drunk.
“Who ish it?” A woman’s voice could be heard from inside the apartment. “Ish it Perrer?” The voice was slurred. “Ish it the quack?”
“Who are you?” the man snarled. “Wodduyawant?”
“I’m looking for Patrik,” Winter said.
“What the fu-Wotsie done?” the man asked, glaring at Winter and his ID.
“He’s been trying to get in touch with us,” said Winter.
“He‘sh not well,” the man said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“He‘sh got nothing to shay,” the man said.
“Is Patrik at home?” Winter said, raising his voice. He could see the woman now, in the hall. As she staggered toward the door, he could see the fear in her eyes, perhaps something else.
“He‘sh got nothing to shay,” said the man again. Winter decided to act, entered the apartment, pushed the man out of his way and against the wall, and continued into the hall.