Frozen Tracks (22 page)

'What exactly do you mean?' Winter asked.

'Like I said. We marked them with a number for this
district.'

'For the district? Not the farm?' Winter asked.

'No. For this district.'

'But we've been told that there are special numbers
that indicate the precise location the animals come from.'

'That came later, '95, with the EU.'

'And there's one of those for every farm?'

'Yes.'

'So there's one for your farm, then?'

'Yes. But I don't have any cows nowadays. No animals
at all, apart from dogs and cats and a few chickens. I
might buy a couple of pigs.'

'But you still have the number?'

'It's allus there. It goes with my farm.'

Winter saw Ringmar take a drink of coffee, and his
face suddenly split down the middle and a black stream
of coffee gushed forth from his eyes . . . Well, not quite;
but he pulled a face.

'So you've never had one of these marking irons,
branding irons, at this farm?'

'No. It's more or less unheard of. It's in America
where they have such enormous ranches and they brand
their cattle so that it's easier to identify them from a
distance.' He smiled. 'I bet they steal cattle over there
too.' He took a swig of asphalt. 'I reckon they brand
horses in Germany as well.'

'But not here?'

'Horses? There ain't no horses round these parts.'

'Do you know anybody who might have used that
method of marking cattle?' Winter asked.

Smedsberg didn't reply immediately; he seemed to be
searching for the answer in the depths of his mug of
coffee. Eventually he looked up again. He looked across
the room and out of the window where the view was
curtailed by the rain.

'Somewhere where Gustav might have seen it?' said
Winter.

'Haven't you asked him?'

'Not directly,' said Winter, although that wasn't really
true. Gustav Smedsberg had said that he couldn't
remember. 'But it's sort of become more relevant now.'

'Become hotter?' A smile twinkled in Smedsberg's left
eye. A farmer with a sense of humour as black as his
coffee and as the night outside, in another hour or two.

'So you've never seen an iron like that?' Winter asked.

'There is a farm in the upper parish, as we call it.'
Smedsberg looked Winter in the eye. 'I don't come from
round these parts, but my Gerd did. When her parents
were still alive we sometimes used to go visiting.'

He scratched his right cheek again, and his forehead,
as if to massage the memory.

'There was a farm – I don't know if it's still there –
the old man that ran it was a bit odd. Did things his
way, you might say.' Smedsberg did some more
massaging. 'It were in the next village. We needed to
go there once for summat or other, and I think he . . .
that he used to mark some of his animals like that.
Come to think of it . . .' He peered out from inside his
memories, turned to look at them. 'I remember the smell,
in fact,' he said. 'Odd, ain't it? A sound as well. Yes.
When we got back home I asked Gerd and she said . . .
she said he used to brand his mark into his animals.'

'You mean that number he was given by the Cooperative?'
Ringmar asked.

'No. He had his own. I remember asking and Gerd
said so.'

'You remember a lot, Mr Smedsberg,' said Winter.

'It's the smell,' he said. 'Odd, ain't it? You remember
this smell and then you remember loads of other things.
All you have to do is think of a smell, and memories
start to come back.'

Fling wide the gates, Winter thought.

'What was the name of this farmer who had these
unusual methods?'

'I don't remember, I can tell you that now. I don't
have enough memory for that.' It sounded as if he gave
a chuckle. 'There are limits.'

'Do you remember where the farm was? Or is?'

'It's in the next parish.'

'As far as we're concerned, that could be in another
province,' said Winter.

'It is in another province, in fact,' said Smedsberg.

'Could you show us where?' Ringmar asked.

'Do you mean now?'

'Is it far?'

'Yes. It's over twenty kilometres, I reckon. Depends
on what route you take.'

'Do you have time to show us now? We can go right
away. We'll bring you straight back, of course.'

Smedsberg changed the waterproof trousers he'd been
wearing throughout the interview. Somewhat hesitantly,
he got into Winter's Mercedes. Winter noticed the Escort
rusting away peacefully by the big barn.

The road was as straight as an arrow. Black birds
circled overhead, followed them like seagulls shadowing
a ship. The light sank down again, into the earth and
over remote farms where lamps were starting to glimmer
in the windows. They drove through a little village with
a grey church and a hall next to it with a dozen or so
cars parked outside.

'Advent coffee meeting,' said Smedsberg.

'Do you fancy a cup?' said Winter to Ringmar, who
didn't reply.

'We don't have time, surely,' said Smedsberg.

They passed two girls riding horses that looked as
big as houses. So there were in fact horses around here.
Winter gave them as wide a berth as he dared, and the
girls waved in acknowledgement. The horses looked even
bigger in the rear-view mirror. It was a different world
out here.

'We're getting close,' said Smedsberg.

At a small crossroads he told them to turn left.
The road surface was made of uneven and patchy
tarmac that seemed to have survived both world wars.
Fields were enclosed by tumbledown fences, and the
village seemed to have been abandoned. Which it
no doubt had, Winter thought. They drove past
two farmhouses that were in total darkness. A depopulated
area: everybody was moving into the cities
nowadays.

'People've started moving out of this place,' said
Smedsberg, as if to confirm Winter's thoughts. 'There
used to be lots of young kids in them two farms.'

They came to another crossroads.

'Left,' said Smedsberg. It was a dirt road now. He
pointed. 'That's where my Gerd came from.'

Winter and Ringmar looked at the house, which was
timber built, still red in the fading light: a cowshed, a
smaller cottage, a fence. No electric light.

'Her nephews and nieces use it as a holiday home,
but they aren't there very often,' said Smedsberg. 'They
ain't there now, for instance.'

The forest became more dense. They came to a
clearing, then more trees, another clearing. There was
a gloomy-looking log cabin at the side of the road.

'That used to be a village store once upon a time,'
said Smedsberg.

'This really is a depopulated area,' said Ringmar.

The forest suddenly opened up and they found themselves
driving through fields that seemed endless,
compared with the concentration of trees they'd just
passed through. There was a big house on the other
side, set back some fifty metres from the road.

'That's it,' said Smedsberg, pointing. 'That was the
house.'

There were lights on.

'How are we going to explain this?' Ringmar asked as
they walked towards the house.

'We don't need to explain anything,' said Winter.

The wind was gusting in circles around the house.
Winter could see only one single light in the distance,
like a lighthouse at the edge of the plain. Darkness was
closing in fast. It also felt chillier, as if winter was
approaching at last. If he were to come back here a
month from now, everything would be white on all sides,
and it really would look like an ocean. It would be even
more difficult to see the difference between sky and
land.

As he raised his fist to hammer on the door, he had
the feeling that he would in fact be coming back here.
It was a feeling he couldn't explain, but in the past it
had led him deep down into the depths of darkness. It
was a premonition that foreboded terrible things. Once
it appeared, it wouldn't go away.

Everything is linked.

He kept his hand raised. Gusts spiralling, a strange
hissing in his ears. A faint light in the window to the left.
An acrid smell of soil. His own breath like smoke signals,
Bertil's breath. Another smell, hard to pin down. He
thought of a child on a swing, he could see it. The child
turned to look at him and laughed, and it was Elsa. A
hand was pushing the swing, and another face appeared
and turned to look at him and it was not himself. He
didn't recognise it.

'Aren't you going to knock?' Ringmar asked.

After the third salvo of hammering they could hear
somebody moving inside, and a voice said:

'What's it about?'

Yes, what is it about? Ringmar looked at Winter.
Two stupid chief inspectors belting on the door of a
solitary house in the middle of nowhere. In the back
seat of our car is a hillbilly who has tricked us into
coming here with his cock-and-bull story. Inside the
house his psychopathic brother is waiting with an elk
rifle. Our bodies will sink down under all the pigshit
and never be recovered. Our coats will keep the brothers
warm on their tractors.

You've got me covered, Erik?

Uh . . . sorry, no, Bertil Boy.

'We're from the police,' said Winter. 'May we come
in and ask you a few questions?'

'About what?'

The voice was gruff and seemed to be in several
layers, an old man's voice.

'May we come in?' Winter said again.

'How do I know you're not thieves?' The voice was
muffled by the door, which looked battered but substantial.

'I have my ID in my hand,' said Winter.

They heard a mumbling and a clanking of bolts. The
door opened and the man inside appeared as a silhouette,
illuminated by a low-octane light from the hall and
perhaps also the kitchen. Winter held out his ID. The
man leaned forward and studied the text and photograph
with his eyes screwed up, then looked at Winter and
nodded at Ringmar.

'Who's he?'

Ringmar introduced himself and showed the man
his ID.

'What's it about?' asked the man once more. He was
slightly hunched but even so of average height, his head
shaved, wearing a whitish shirt, braces, trousers of no
particular style and thick woollen socks. Classical rural
attire from head to toe. Winter could smell a woodburning
stove and recently cooked food. Pork. It was
damp and chilly in the hall, and this was not entirely
due to the air coming from the outside.

'We just have a few questions we'd like to ask,' said
Winter again.

'Are you lost?' asked the man. He appeared to be
pointing at the ceiling. 'The main road's that way.'

'We'd like to ask you about a few things,' said Winter.
'We're looking for somebody.' Best to start there.

'There's a search party out, is there?'

'No. Just us.'

'What's your name?' Ringmar asked.

'My name's Carlström,' said the man, without offering
to shake hands. 'Natanael Carlström.'

'Could we sit down for a bit, Mr Carlström?'

He made a sort of sighing noise and ushered them
into the kitchen, which was reminiscent of Georg
Smedsberg's but smaller and darker and much dirtier.
Winter thought about Smedsberg sitting in the back seat
of his Mercedes as it got colder and colder, and regretted
leaving him there. They had better make this short.

'We're looking for this young man,' said Ringmar,
handing over the photograph of Aryan Kaite. It was
simple, probably taken in a photo booth. Kaite's face
looked like soot against the shabby background wall.
Nevertheless, he had gone to the trouble of having it
enlarged and framed, and hung it in his room, Winter
had thought earlier.

'You'd better get a move on before it gets dark out
there, or you'll never see him,' said Carlström, and the
sighing noise dissolved into a rattling breath that could
well have been a laugh.

'Have you seen him?' Winter asked.

'A black man out here in the sticks? That would be
a sight worth seeing.'

'So he hasn't been seen round here?'

'Never. Who is he?'

'Has nobody else you know spoken about him?'
Winter asked.

'Who could that be?'

'I'm asking you.'

'There is nobody else here,' said Carlström. 'Couldn't
you see that for yourselves? Did you see any other houses
near here?'

'So you haven't spoken to anybody else about a
stranger in the vicinity?'

'The only strangers I've seen for a very long time are
you two,' said Carlström.

'Do you know Gustav Smedsberg?' Ringmar asked.

'Eh?'

'Do you know anybody called Gustav Smedsberg?'

'No.'

'His mother grew up round here,' said Winter. 'Gerd.'
He hadn't asked Smedsberg senior about her maiden
name. 'She married Georg Smedsberg from the neighbouring
parish.' Although it's hardly the right name for
it, Winter thought. It's too far away.

'I've never heard anything about that,' said Carlström.

'The Smedsberg lad knows this Aryan Kaite who has
disappeared,' said Ringmar.

'Really?'

'And these boys have both been violently attacked,'
said Winter. 'That's why we're here.'

He tried to explain about the branding iron. They
were very curious to see what one looked like. And
they'd heard that he might have one. It would help them
to decide on the plausibility.

'The plausibility of what?'

'Of the assumption that it was used as a weapon.'

Carlström looked as though he very much doubted
that.

'Who's said that I mark my animals with an iron?'

'We asked around a bit in the village.'

'Was it Smedsberg?'

Does he mean the young one or the old one? Ringmar
and Winter looked at each other. He remembered the
name he'd never heard of before.

'Georg Smedsberg thought he'd seen you using one
of those irons ages ago,' said Winter.

'Is that him in the car outside?'

The old man sees more than you'd think. Winter
was very tempted to turn round and look out of the
window to see if Smedsberg's silhouette could be seen
in the car.

'Why doesn't he come in?' said Carlström.

'He only showed us how to get here,' said Winter.

Carlström muttered something they couldn't catch.

'I beg your pardon?' said Winter.

'Yes, that could well be,' said Carlström.

'What could?' asked Winter.

'That I branded a few cattle.' He looked up, straight
at Winter. 'It wasn't illegal.' He gestured with his hand.
'They don't like it nowadays, but nobody said anything
then.'

'No, no, we only wanted to see what—'

'I don't have the iron any more,' said Carlström. 'I
had two at one time, but not now.'

'Have you sold them?'

'I sold one twenty-five years ago to an auctioneer, so
you can try and track that one down.' One of his eyes
glinted, as if the very thought amused him.

'What about the other one?'

'Pinched.'

'Pinched?' said Winter. 'You mean it's been stolen?'

'This autumn,' said Carlström. 'That was why I was
a bit cautious just now when you came knocking at my
door. I was going to ask if that's what you'd come for,
but then I thought it was better to be a bit cautious.'

'What happened?' asked Ringmar. 'The theft.'

'I don't know. I went out early one morning and tools
were missing from the shed.'

'Several tools?'

'Quite a few. New and old.'

'Including your marking iron?'

'Who would want that?'

'So the marking iron was stolen, was it?'

'That's what I've just said, isn't it?'

'When exactly did this happen?'

'This autumn, like I said.'

'Do you know what day it was?'

'I think probably not. I was going to go into the village
that day, I think, and it's not every day I do that . . .'

They waited.

'I'm not sure,' said Carlström. 'I'll have to think
about it.'

'Have you had any break-ins before?' Winter asked.

'Never.'

'Did you report it to the police?'

'For a few old tools?' Carlström looked surprised, or
possibly just bored stiff.

'How many tools?'

'Not many.'

'Do you know exactly?'

'Do you want a list?'

'No,' said Winter. 'That's not necessary yet.' Ringmar
looked at him but said nothing.

'Have you heard if anybody else has been burgled?'
Ringmar asked.

'No,' said Carlström.

We'll have to check with the neighbours, Winter
thought. The problem is, there aren't any neighbours.

'Do you live alone here, Mr Carlström?'

'You can see that, can't you?'

'But we can't know for sure,' said Ringmar.

'All on my own.'

'Have you got any children?'

'Eh?'

'Have you got any children?' Winter asked again.

'No.'

'Have you been married?'

'Never. Why are you asking that?'

'Thank you very much for your time, Mr Carlström,'
said Winter, getting to his feet.

'Is that it, then?'

'Thank you for your help,' said Winter. 'If you hear
anything about your tools I'd be grateful if you could
let us know.' He handed over a business card. 'My
number's on the card.'

Carlström handled it as if it were an item of china
a thousand years old.

'Especially if you hear anything about that branding
iron,' said Winter.

Carlström nodded. Winter asked his last question,
the one he'd been waiting with.

'Do you happen to have a copy of your mark, by
the way?' he asked in an offhand tone. 'That symbol,
or number combination, or whatever it was.'

'Eh?'

'What did your mark look like?' Winter asked.

'I don't have a copy, if that's what you want to see,'
said Carlström.

'But you remember what it looked like?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Could you draw it for us?'

'What for?'

'In case it turns up.'

'If it turns up, it'll turn up here,' said Carlström.

'But we'd be grateful if you could help us even so,'
said Ringmar. 'Then we could exclude your iron if we
find the one that was used in the attacks.'

'Why the blazes should my iron have been used?'
Carlström asked.

'We have no idea,' said Winter, 'and we don't think
it was, of course. But it would be of help even so if we
knew what it looked like.'

'Yes, yes,' said Carlström. 'It's a square with a circle
in it and a C inside the circle.' He looked at Winter. 'C
stands for Carlström.'

'Could you possibly draw it for us?'

Carlström made that strange sucking noise again, but
stood up and left the room without a word. He returned
a minute later with a sketch that he handed to Ringmar.

'Have you had it long?' Ringmar asked.

'As long as I can remember. It was my father's.'

'Many thanks for all your help,' said Winter.

They went back through the hall and stood in the
doorway. The darkness was compact now, there was no
sign of any stars or moon in the sky. The only light
Winter could see was the lighthouse on the horizon,
brighter now.

'What's that over there?' he asked, pointing. 'The
light.'

'Television mast,' said Carlström. 'Radio, television,
those stupid computer contraptions, God knows what
else. It's been there for some time.'

'Anyway, many thanks,' said Ringmar, and they went
back to the car and got in. Carlström was still in the
doorway, a hunched silhouette.

'Are you cold?' asked Winter as he started the car.

'No. You weren't very long,' said Smedsberg in the
darkness.

'We were longer than intended.'

Winter turned the car round and headed for the main
road.

'Were we on the veranda long enough for you to
recognise him?' Winter asked as they turned right.

'A few years have passed, but I've seen him now and
again,' said Smedsberg. 'While I were sitting there I
remembered his name as well. Carlström. Natanael
Carlström. The kind of name you ought to remember.'

'Is he religious?' asked Ringmar. 'Or rather, his
parents?'

'Dunno,' said Smedsberg. 'But there were a lot of
God-fearing folk round here in the old days, so it ain't
impossible.'

They drove in silence. Winter wasn't familiar with
the road. It was all darkness and narrow roads and trees
lit up by his powerful headlights. Gloomy houses came
and went, but they could have been different from the
ones he'd seen earlier that afternoon.

They drove over the plain, the mother of all plains.
Flickering lights like solitary stars anchored to the earth.
Another crossroads. No traffic.

'He had a boy,' said Smedsberg without warning from
the darkness of the back seat.

'I beg your pardon?' said Winter, turning right
towards Smedsberg's farm.

'Carlström. He had a boy at the farm for a few years.
I remember now. Nowt to do with it, I reckon, but I
remembered just now as we turned in.'