Frozen Tracks (13 page)

'There must be other doctors, surely?'

'There are not many available when it's a big holiday.'

'Make sure that Angela can get away,' she said. 'What
does she say herself about coming to Spain?'

'Can't you come home instead?' he asked.

'I'll be coming in the spring. But it would be such
fun to celebrate Christmas with you all down here. We've
never done that.'

'Have you asked Lotta?'

His sister was a regular visitor to his mother, with
her two teenage daughters.

'She and the girls are probably going to do something
with some close friends.'

'What's his name?' asked Winter, thinking about how
his sister was trying to find a new man after her grim
divorce.

'She didn't say anything about a him.'

'OK, I'll look into it.'

'Don't interfere in her life, Erik.'

'I meant that I'll look into the possibility of getting
time off so that we can visit you over Christmas.'

'You ought to have done that already, Erik.'

He didn't respond.

'I can make a Christmas ham,' she said.

'No, no! If we come we want fish and shellfish.'

Winter found it hard to picture his mother in front
of a cooker; she had never been that kind of mother.

She could stoop over a work surface in the kitchen,
but that would be in order to cut slices of lemon for
some drinks, or to prepare a cocktail shaker. One
drink too many at times. But she had always been
good. She had treated her children with respect. He
had grown up to become a man who tried to do the
same with the people he came across. He had a reason.
Far too many people didn't have a solid base
against which to brace themselves when the going got
tough.

'It's almost December,' she said. 'You ought to be
booking flights, and doing it now. It might be too late
already.'

'So you ought to have phoned earlier,' he said.

She said nothing.

It suddenly dawned on him why. She had been waiting
for as long as she could in the hope that he would ask
her if they could visit her over Christmas. She'd only
been hinting that they should before. Now she couldn't
wait any longer.

'I'll book provisional flights,' he said.

Why not? Over twenty degrees, lots of places with
good tapas and a few extremely good restaurants. It
was only one Christmas. He'd spent so many in
Gothenburg wrapped up in a shawl of freezing-cold
winds from the sea. Long days between Christmas and
New Year when it never became properly light but everything
was enveloped by a mist that a poor detective was
unable to see through as he staggered through the city
in search of a solution to a case. Holmes. My name is
Sherlock Winter Holmes.

They hung up. He stood in the square for a moment
with not the slightest idea of why he'd gone there.

He drove back to town, leaving the plain behind him
and all the smells associated with that world.

His head had been overfilled with memories, and
now he tried to get rid of them, to let them blow away
through the open window. The slipstream tugged at his
hair and his cheeks. It felt good.

He followed a circular route he knew well. The
network of motorways sucked him slowly in towards
the city centre, like a spiral rotating inwards. Or downwards,
he thought as he stopped for a red light in the
Allé.

He parked at the same place as before. Perhaps it
was exactly the same spot. No. He used the maple tree
as a marker, and that showed him it was a slightly
different spot.

He touched his forehead and felt the sweat. The back
of his neck was also wet, and the back of his head.

He touched the parrot hanging from his rear-view
mirror. Bill was with him. He touched the little bear on
the seat next to him. Odd that he'd never given it a
name. It was always Bear.

He touched the parrot lying next to Bear: it looked
exactly the same as Bill. The colours were almost identical,
maybe something red was yellow instead, but the
difference was so slight that you could hardly see it.

'What do you want them for?' the old man had asked
as he got into the car.

'They're mine,' he'd said.

'That weren't what I asked. I asked what in hell's
name you wanted them for now.'

'They're mine,' was all he'd managed to come out
with.

The only things he had left from his childhood.

'You've always been odd,' the old man had
commented.

Those words had almost been enough to make him
run the old man over. To make a big circle round the
farmyard then come back and really
show
that he didn't
want people to talk about him like that.

He held up the bird so that it was looking past him
and at the trees and the lawn and the playground where
children were on the swings or running round and
playing tag or playing hide and seek, and there were
far too many of them and far too few grown-ups to
keep an eye on the children and make sure that nothing
happened to them.

He would have to help them.

He got out of the car and left his things behind, but
he didn't lock the doors.

He'd positioned the car so that it was pointing
towards the road back to the park, and he walked
past the square and after only one or two minutes
found himself behind the high-rise buildings, and he
could feel the sweat again and he suddenly felt sick,
his head spinning round as if he were on a roundabout.
He paused and breathed deeply, and that felt
better. He walked a few more paces and somebody
said something.

He looked down at the boy, who was standing beside
a bush.

'What's your name?' asked the boy.

He looked at his hands on the steering wheel. They were
shaking. He had to keep moving them to new positions,
to make sure his driving wasn't affected. He didn't want
that to happen.

All the parking places were taken, which was unusual.
He drove round the block, and when he returned there
was a vacant space.

He drank a glass of water in the kitchen before taking
off his shoes. He'd never done that before. He always
left his shoes in the hall, so as not to bring grit and dirt
into the flat, as had happened now. He'd cleaned the
flat yesterday, and wanted it to be nice and tidy for as
long as possible.

He put down his glass and looked at his hand, and
what was on the palm of it, and he turned his head
away again and walked all the way through the kitchen
and the hall to the bathroom, where he washed his
hands with his face averted. As he couldn't see properly
what he was doing, water splashed down on to the
floor, but that couldn't be helped.

He dried his hands. The telephone rang. He dropped
the towel. The phone was still ringing. He went into
the hall.

'Hell . . . hello?'

'Is that Jerner? Mats Jerner?'

'Er, yes.'

'Hello, this is Gothenburg Tramways, Järnström here.
I'm calling in connection with that accident at Järntorget.
I'm responsible for the inquiry.'

Järnström and Järntorget, he thought. Did they select
inquiry chairmen on the basis of their names? Or the
victim. My name fits in as well.

'It's almost finished, in fact,' Järnström went on.

'Have we met?'

'No.'

He heard the rustling of paper.

'It's all over bar the shouting,' said Järnström. 'You
can start again.'

'Start work again, do you mean?'

'Yes.'

'So there'll be no more interrogations?'

'Interrogations?'

'Questions about how I do my job.'

'That's not what—'

'So it's not my, er, not my fault any more?'

'Nobody ever said it was. You were—'

'I was suspended.'

'I wouldn't call it that.'

'What would you call it then?'

'It's just that we had to hold this inquiry and it's
taken a bit of time.'

'Whose fault was it, then?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'WHOSE FAULT WAS IT, THEN?' he yelled down
the telephone. The man was evidently a bit deaf and he
had to speak more loudly. 'WHO'S GOING TO CARRY
THE CAN FOR EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENED?'

'Calm down now, Jerner.'

'I am calm.'

'It's all over and done with now,' said Järnström. 'As
far as you're concerned.'

'Who isn't it all over and done with for?'

'I'm not with you.'

'Is it the drunk it's not all over and done with for?
It was all his fault.'

'That kind of thing is a problem,' said Järnström.

'Who for?'

'For Gothenburg Tramways,' said Järnström.

'For the drivers,' he said. 'It's a problem FOR THE
DRIVERS.'

'Yes.'

'That's what causes this kind of thing.'

'Yes, I know.'

'Was there anything else?'

'No, not at the moment. We might need to ask you
about the odd detail later on, but tha—'

'So I just need to turn up for work again?'

'That's precisely why I phoned you, to tell you that.'

'Thanks a lot,' he said and hung up. His hand was
starting to shake again. It was clean now, but it was
shaking.

He went back to the kitchen and sat down, then
stood up again immediately and went into the hall, felt
in his right-hand jacket pocket and took out the souvenir
he had of the girl.

He sat on the sofa and contemplated it. Then burst
into tears.

It had never gone as far as this before. Never. He'd
felt it coming on and had driven round in a big circle
first in the hope of maybe being able to snap out of it,
but instead he'd been sucked into the spiral, and he'd
known it would end up like this.

What would happen next time?

No NO NO NO!

He went to fetch the video camera from the hall, and
continued arguing with himself.

He watched the film showing on the television screen.

He heard the boy's voice asking what his name
was. He heard himself replying without knowing
then
what he'd said. But he didn't say the name he had
now. He said the other name he'd had when he was
a boy, a little boy like him, no, bigger, but little even
so.

The film was flickering on the screen. Cars, trees,
rain outside, traffic in the street, a set of traffic lights,
then another, his own hand on the steering wheel. The
boy. A glimpse of his hair. No voice now, no sound at
all. His hand. A glimpse of the hair again, no face, not
in this film.

Winter tried to think in time with the music. Which
was in tune with the November twilight outside. Car
headlights on the other side of the river were stronger
than the light from the sky.

He had taken the same route that Stillman, the law
student, had walked that night. Climbed up the steps
and passed Forum and his own dental surgery and the
library and stood in the middle of the square where the
attack had taken place. How could it happen? How
could Stillman avoid seeing what was coming? Bicycle,
perhaps? But that was difficult to believe. Somebody
creeping up from behind? Hmm. No, he didn't think so.
Somebody Stillman had arranged to meet? Who came sauntering
up at the same time, from behind or the side or in
front? More likely. But Stillman ought to have noticed,
for God's sake. Ought to have been able to say something
about it afterwards.

He might have met somebody he knew.

There was also the other possibility, that he was
together with somebody whose identity he didn't want
to disclose. Why?
Warum? Pourquoi? Porqué?

That was always the most difficult question, no matter
what language you asked it in. 'Who?' and 'Where?'
and 'How?' and 'When?' were the immediate questions
that required immediate answers, and when those
answers were found, the case was solved. But there was
always that 'Why?', often in the form of a little prick
in his memory, long afterwards. Something unsolved,
or at any rate not discovered. Always assuming there
was an explanation. Not everything came together with
explanations as an extra bonus.

But nevertheless. Whenever he could get a better idea
of this 'why', and do so quickly, he was more swiftly and
more often able to discover the answers to 'who' and
'where' and 'how' and 'when'.

There was a tap on the door and he shouted, 'Come!'
and in came Ringmar. Winter remained in his desk chair,
and Ringmar perched on the edge of his desk.

'It's gloomy in here,' said Ringmar.

'Are you referring to the light?'

'What else?'

'It's serene,' said Winter.

Ringmar eyed the Panasonic on the floor under the
window, and listened for half a minute.

'Serene music,' he said.

'Yes.'

'In tune with the light.'

'Bobo Stenson Trio.
War Orphans
,' said Winter.

'War victims.'

'Not really. More like kids who have lost their parents
thanks to war.'

'War victims sounds better.'

'If you say so.'

Ringmar sat down on the chair in front of the desk.
Winter switched on his desk lamp and the light formed
a little circle between them. They had sat there many a
time and slowly discussed their way forward to solving
a riddle. Winter knew he wouldn't have got as far as
he had without Ringmar. He hoped it was the same for
his older colleague. No, he knew it was. Even so, there
were things he didn't know about Bertil, of course. Large
chunks of his life. The kind of things he didn't need to
know, just as Bertil didn't need to know everything about
him.

But just now he did want to know more about the
older man oppo site him, assuming Bertil wanted to tell
him. Perhaps it was connected with Winter's own life,
his . . . his development. His maturity, perhaps. His
journey from being a lonely young man with a lot of
power to something different that also encompassed
others.

They needed each other, needed their conversations.
The banter that wasn't always merely banter.

Ringmar's face seemed thinner than usual. There was
a shadow behind his eyes.

'Why does everybody insist on telling lies all the time?'
he said.

'It's part of the job,' Winter said.

'Telling lies?'

'Listening to lies.'

'Take these lads who've been attacked. It's becoming
a real mess.'

'Theirs first and foremost.'

'But ours as well,' said Ringmar.

'We can untangle their mess. That's our job. They
can't do it themselves.'

Ringmar nodded, but didn't say anything.

'Or else it's the truth and nothing but the truth.'

Ringmar nodded again, but still didn't say anything.

'But that's not why you came to see me, Bertil. Is it?'

Ringmar said nothing.

'To be honest, you don't look all that good,' Winter
said.

Ringmar ran his hand over his forehead and his face,
as if trying to wipe away the tiredness and the shadows.
It looked as though he was moving his head in time with
the jazz coming from the Panasonic without realising.

'Are you running a temperature?' Winter asked.

'It's not that,' said Ringmar.

Winter waited for what was coming next. The music
stopped, the CD had finished. It was darker outside
now. He could see the car headlights more clearly, and
the sounds coming from outside were clearer as well.
A few drops of rain tapped hesitantly at the window
pane. Soon it might turn into snow, but that didn't seem
likely. Snow was a rare gift to Gothenburgers. A surprise
to the snow-clearing teams every other winter when
chaos descended. Winter had always enjoyed that type
of chaos. He liked to walk home over Heden in the eye
of the snowstorm, and drink a glass of punch while
looking out of the window.

'It's Martin, of course,' said Ringmar.

Winter waited.

'Ah well . . .' said Ringmar.

'There's something else you want to say,' said Winter.

'I don't know how to put it,' said Ringmar.

'Just say it,' said Winter.

'Its about . . . about fathers and sons,' said Ringmar.

'Fathers and sons,' said Winter.

'Yes. I'm trying to work out what the hell the lad's
thinking,' said Ringmar. 'How things could have got to
this point. What could have caused it.' He ran his hand
over his brow again. 'What I've done. What he's done.
No, what I've done above all else.'

Winter waited. Took out his packet of Corps but
didn't touch the cigarillos. He raised his head and
Ringmar looked him in the eye.

'That's why I thought about you,' said Ringmar.
'About how it was for you, with your father. How things
got to the state they did. Why the pair of you . . . why
you . . . didn't have any contact.'

Winter lit a cigarillo and inhaled deeply. The smoke
drifted through the circle of light from the desk lamp.

'That's a complicated question you're asking, Bertil.'

'You've seen how much I've been dreading it.'

Winter took another drag. He could see himself
standing on a slope overlooking the Mediterranean when
his father was buried after a funeral in a church as white
as snow. Sierra Blanca. No possibility of contact any
more.

'He did a runner and took his money with him,' said
Winter.

'I know,' said Ringmar.

'I didn't approve.'

'Is that all?'

Winter didn't answer, took another draw on his cigarillo,
stood up and walked over to the window, opened
it and saw that it had stopped raining. He tapped the
ash from his cigarillo after checking to make sure nobody
was marching around on the lawn below. He turned
round.

'I don't know,' he said.

'How much did you actually know about . . . Bengt's
financial affairs?' asked Ringmar.

'Enough to disapprove.'

'You are a moral person.'

'He did something wrong,' said Winter. 'He could
have stayed in Sweden and, well, been of some help.
He could have afforded to. He could have had his house
in the sun even so.' Winter smiled. 'If he'd paid his tax
we might have had an extra CID officer.'

He went back to his desk. He suddenly felt weary.
All the things he'd just said to Bertil. What was the
point? Everything could have been resolved if only they'd
spoken to each other. The only thing that helps is
communication with words. That's the only thing that
enables us to make progress. Silence begets more silence,
and eventually causes a muteness that is like cement.

'In the end it wasn't possible to say anything,' he
said. 'It was as if we'd lost the ability to talk to each
other.' He sat down. 'I don't know. I've often thought
it must be something further back in time. Something
unconnected with – with that money business.
Something quite different.'

Ringmar didn't answer. The shadows behind his eyes
had deepened.

'Good grief, Bertil, I shouldn't be sitting here saying
that to you.'

'That's why I came here.'

'I don't think you're a self-tormentor. And you're not
like him.'

'We're all different,' said Ringmar, 'but even so we
all make the same damned mistakes.'

'What mistakes have you made?'

'I must have done something. I have a grown-up son
who doesn't want to meet me. He doesn't even want to
talk to me.'

'He'll regret it. He'll change his mind.'

'Are you speaking from experience?'

Winter didn't reply. Rain was pattering against the
window pane again, coming from a sky that had turned
black. It's not five o'clock yet, but night is upon us.

'I'm sorry, Erik. It's just that . . . Oh, damn . . .'

'I could try to talk to him,' said Winter.