Should they set up a camera in the shop? Make a video recording and show it to Killdén and Andréasson and Matilda Josefsson and all the other employees? If so, for how long?
The possibilities were endless. So was time, of course, but not now.
He had the feeling that time was slipping away. It was on its way to something that would be a bigger problem than anything that had gone before. He could feel it.
His mobile called again. It was Angela.
“Was it you who called a few minutes ago?” he asked. There was no number displayed on the screen, nor in his memory.
“No.”
“How are things?”
“I’ve just got home, and ... I don’t know. I suddenly felt so ... scared. Can’t you come home, Erik?”
“Has something happened?” He could feel his hand trembling slightly.
“Not really. It’s just that it suddenly felt odd when I went in through the front door. That’s all. As if somebody was looking at me. Scrutinizing me.”
“You didn’t see anybody?”
“No. I looked around, but there was nobody there. It’s ridiculous. Maybe it was that door at the bottom of the stairs, down to the cellar.”
“What about it?”
“It was open. It’s so dark and horrible in there.”
Winter drove home. He called Ringmar from his car.
“I want somebody posted to keep an eye on Angela.”
He’d spoken to Ringmar about the telephone calls and the break-in.
“Have you discussed this with Sture?”
“Screw Sture. Can you fix it?”
“From when?”
“Tomorrow morning. Outside. I’ll ring you later about times.”
Bergenhem kept his head still. Concentrated on following the painting’s frame, first with his eyes and then with his head. It went well. Better than yesterday.
“How do you feel?”
“Better than before.”
Martina had put Ada to bed. She’d been quieter than usual since he’d come home.
He stood up.
“Do you really feel well enough to go out?”
“I have to keep moving.”
“Is it really a good idea to start work again on Friday?”
“No.”
“Then don’t do it, Lars.”
“I can’t just stay at home all the time, Martina. All the time.”
“But you have to get better.”
“I am better. Nearly. I’ll be okay by Friday.”
Night was falling over Torslanda. It looked as if a searchlight had been aimed at the row of terraced houses. Perhaps the light is only shining on my house, he thought.
“I don’t know what to say,” Angela said.
“I’ve learned that almost anything is worth taking seriously,” Winter said.
“You feel so stupid,” Angela said. She smiled at him. “I’m influenced ... by your job.”
He hadn’t said anything to her about his visit to the caretaker’s cubbyhole in the cellar. He didn’t know himself what he ought to do about that.
“Can’t you stop working?” he said.
“Not yet.”
“But can’t you take it easy ... until April 1?”
“Isn’t it a bit early for April Fool’s?”
“No.”
“I want to work, Erik. It feels good. I don’t believe in going home and then sitting waiting for something to happen.”
“We’re keeping an eye ...” He wondered about the best way to put it. “We ... I’ve asked for a radio car to drive past now and again and to keep an eye on what’s happening.”
“Keep an eye on what’s happening?”
“Yes ... you know.”
“You mean you’re giving me a bodyguard?” She was standing by the kitchen window. “Has it gotten that bad?”
“Not a bodyguard. More a bit of... observation.”
“Whenever I leave the apartment?”
He didn’t answer.
“Whenever I go to work?”
“It’ll be discreet, don’t worry.”
“Oh, yes? And who will it be?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. It depends on how much effort he has to put into it.”
“All right. I’ll ask Bergenhem to do it for a few days.” He needs to get back into the swing of things, Winter thought. And he’s good as a shadow.
“But he’s not going to hold my hand?”
“You won’t even know he’s there.”
It was late. He read very carefully the transcripts of the interviews with the film extras. The documentation had only just arrived, the first draft. It was a bit of a hodgepodge. All kinds of jobs, or rather joblessness. Some of the individuals seemed barely sane at first glance, but there was nothing unusual about that. It’s the normal ones we have to look twice at, he thought.
The filming went on. They had been hanging around the police station, but weren’t allowed in. The chief of police made it as difficult for the team as she could. Whoever sees that film will have to work out for himself if that building has anything to do with the uniforms, he thought.
It could be that the film has a role to play in this investigation. Thanks to the extras. It could be. It helps us to find a solution at the same time as it’s a possible indirect cause of what happened.
He was holding several papers in his hand. Names, addresses. He hadn’t recognized several of the names. He phoned Möllerström.
“Janne? Can you drop everything and compare the names and addresses of those film extras with the result of the door-to-door operation after the Mölndal murder?” Or murders, he thought. “Ringmar will send you a few more officers to help.”
“Okay.” There was a rustling noise on the line. “How wide a radius?”
“Make it pretty wide. I’ll be with you shortly.”
“Okay. Should I wait with Vasaplatsen?”
“Take Mölndal first.”
Winter hung up and took the photographs from one of his desk drawers. He scrutinized one of them on his desk, then held it up and studied the necks of the two dead bodies on the sofa.
One of the answers could be here, Lareda had said. It’s all down to the swapping of heads. Or bodies.
He was sitting outside the church. Next to him were two statues. He asked the guide, who was Alicia, and she said that it was always the same in Torremolinos. It was the Moors who cut off heads. Off with their heads. They had a different god. Once the heads are off, those people are no more. Their faces are erased. One of the statues was pointing at him now. Angela was sitting next to him. It’s pointing at me, she said. The statues were in a row outside the church. No heads, no arms. He could hear the music, the guitars, then the drums.
Winter woke up, his ears throbbing. Angela moved, but didn’t wake. He got out of bed and drank some water. It was three-fifteen. The little red lamp was shining on his laptop. She’d said good-night, and then he’d worked on into the early hours.
Neither the Valkers nor the Martells had a computer. That didn’t necessarily mean that they’d never owned one. But there’d been no sign of them on the Net. Despite millions of souls seeking contacts. Tens of thousands of sex contacts.
Winter went back to the bedroom and got his dressing gown from the chair, then went to the living room and sat down in the armchair by the window.
What should he do about Per Elfvegren? There was something about him ... Something he didn’t want to let go.
Winter had asked Molina about a DNA check, but there was no chance of that—yet.
“Put a bit more pressure on him,” Molina had said. “Then we can talk about an arrest.”
“More pressure? How?”
“Halders. Give him his head.”
“Not possible. I don’t dare.”
They’d interviewed them. Individually.
“Give me the details,” Halders had said to the woman.
“The ... details?”
“Everything. From the moment you got to their front door.”
Per Elfvegren was talking about engaging a solicitor now. About time, Winter thought.
Then he changed his mind. I have nothing to hide.
They’d searched the Elfvegrens’ apartment. Nothing. No computer. Halders had the men’s magazines. They’d read the Valkers’ ad. Per Elfvegren had thrown away his reply. Of course.
Why hadn’t they found anything in the Valkers’ apartment? Nothing at all. The place was clean. There ought to have been something there. Why had they cleaned up the apartment? Not cleaned up. Thrown things away. Got rid of things. No magazines. No notes. Not even a copy. Did the murderer take those away with him? Maybe. Or maybe not. Could he have been in a fit-enough state to make a search? Who else could have done it?
Elfvegren didn’t seem to be able to understand that it could happen again. That also made Winter think. Elfvegren was putting on a mask, maintaining a mask. It could fall off.
We can save you, Halders had thought while he was conducting the interrogation; and then he’d said as much outright to Elfvegren. You, and perhaps others.
53
There was a small, flat package on the hall floor among the rest of the mail.
“Why don’t you try this tonight?” Steve MacDonald wrote in the letter accompanying the CD. Winter read the title: Tom Waits. Sword
fishtrombones.
“His real breakthrough in a way,” MacDonald wrote, “and there’s more to come. It’s got some jazz in it too! And: good luck with the baby.”
His colleague in Croydon was continuing with his mission to educate Winter in classic rock and other music that was more than an arm’s length away from Coltrane.
“Steve’s sent another CD,” Winter said to Angela, who was lying in the bath with her feet in the air. He ventured a couple of paces into the mist. “Hard day?”
“It’s even worse for the patients.” She moved, making the water slop about. “This is my famous imitation of a walrus turning over in the bath.”
“Imitation?”
“Shut up, you pig. What has Steve sent now?”
“Tom Waits.”
“He’s good.” She sat up and reached for the shampoo. “It would be nice to meet him. And his family.”
“Tom Waits?” said Winter, with a smile.
Angela stuck out her tongue.
“We’ll head for London just as soon as we can,” Winter said. “All three of us.”
“I can just see you strutting around in front of Steve and the whole of the south of England,” she said, peering through the lather. “The proud paterfamilias.”
“With every right,” he said as the telephone rang in the hall.
“I hope I’m not calling at an inconvenient moment.” It was Benny Vennerhag.
“If you’ve phoned here it must be something important,” Winter said. Vennerhag had been given a new unlisted telephone number.
“I don’t know, but there is something. As you can probably imagine, some of my ... business colleagues are very good at recognizing the police officers in Gothenburg.”
“You keep tabs on us just as we keep tags on you.”
“Hmm. My acquaintances might go a bit further than that definition. But all right. I asked around a bit and there wasn’t a lot of solid resistance, if I can put it like that. What’s been happening doesn’t do anybody any good. People get worried. Your boys can get a bit inquisitive, if you see what I mean.”
“So you did some asking around.”
“All right, Erik. Somebody has been seen a couple of times wandering about in a police uniform, but he hasn’t been recognized. He might be a cop, of course, but I don’t think so.”
“Go on.”
“That’s about it. A couple of times. But it was some time ago now.”
“Where and when? Who?”
“You can’t ask me to disclose a source of information, Erik. But I’m happy to continue helping. I’ve asked a lot of questions, in fact.”
“Where and when, then?”
“In several places in the center of town.”
“Day or night?”
“Night ... both times.”
“When?”
Vennerhag mentioned several dates.
“That was it. I hope it’s useful.”
“Now I need a face and a name. Or an address.”
“Don’t we all?”
“You’ve taken this seriously, Benny. Keep on doing so.”
“I can’t see what else I can do. Am I supposed to attach a shadow to the fake cop if he’s seen again?”
“That would be good.”
‘Are you joking?“
“No. Tell that to everybody.”
It was light in the morning. Nearly March. On March 5 he’d be forty. Less than a month later he’d be a father, and life would really start.
They’d listened to the CD from Steve last night and Winter was going to buy everything else by the same guy, when he found the time. I think he made a new one last year, Angela had said. His first for several years. Last year. Last year was the twentieth century, now they had to remember to say two thousand. The naughties, Halders had said.
“Can I take the car today as well?” Angela asked.
“Of course.”
“I can’t cope with the tram anymore.”
“You ought to stay at home.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
She could take a taxi, but she preferred to drive. A bit of freedom. The Mercedes gave her a feeling of security, the smells, the soft, dark colors inside.
The investigation material was growing in breadth and height, with names, addresses, transcripts of interviews.
“We still haven’t been able to get hold of some of the people who replied to the advertisement,” Ringmar said.
“So I see.”
“Several of them didn’t give their real names, but we usually discover that when we check the address.”
“Some helpful neighbor who lets them use his name or address?”
“Hmm, that’s a thought.”
“Maybe we should go a step further. Bring in the neighbors as well.”
“Huh?” Ringmar said.
Winter was studying the lists on his desk. He was wearing his reading glasses.