Frozen Tracks (27 page)

The neighbour stared back with his stupid fizzog.
How can anybody like that be allowed to live? Where
are you, God?

'The whole of my house is bathed in light all night
long from your bloody garden, and it only gets worse,'
said Ringmar in a voice that was rather louder than
usual, to make sure the administrator heard. 'Thank
God Christmas will soon be over.' He turned on his
heel, went back inside and slammed the door behind
him. He was shaking. I managed that quite well. Nobody
got injured.

He was woken up at midnight, out of a dream brightly
lit.

'Bertil, it's Erik. I need your help. I know it's late,
but it can't be helped.'

He could see the light was on in Winter's office as he
crossed the car park. It was the only lit window in the
north wall of police headquarters.

A man was sitting on the chair opposite Winter.

'This is Bengt Johansson,' said Winter. 'He's just
arrived.'

Ringmar introduced himself. The man didn't respond.

'Have you been there?' Ringmar asked, turning to
Winter. 'To Nordstan?'

'Yes,' said Winter. 'And I wasn't the only one
searching. But the place is empty.'

'Oh my God,' said Bengt Johansson.

'Tell us your story one more time,' said Winter, sitting
down.

'This isn't the first time,' said Johansson. 'It's
happened once before. They phoned from the kiosk. It
was only a few minutes that time.'

Ringmar looked at Winter.

'Tell us about what happened,' said Winter.

'She was supposed to collect Micke,' said
Johansson. 'And she did. Huh! We'd agreed that they'd
go off for an hour or so and buy some Christmas
presents, and then she'd bring him back home to me.'
He looked at Ringmar. 'But they never turned up.' He
looked at Winter. 'I phoned her at home, but there
was no answer. I waited and phoned again. I mean,
I'd no idea where they might go.'

Winter nodded.

'Then I phoned round to various people I – we –
know, and then I rang the hospital.' He mimed a phone
call. 'And then, well, then I rang here. Criminal emergency,
or whatever they call it.'

'They phoned me,' said Winter, looking at Ringmar.
'The mother – Carolin – had left the kid at H & M,
near the entrance, and vanished.'

'And vanished?' said Ringmar.

'Shortly before six. Loads of people. They closed at
eight.'

Winter looked at Johansson. The man seemed as if
he had come face to face with a horror that must have
been worse than anything Ringmar had dreamt recently.

'Bengt here started ringing round when they didn't
turn up. And eventually got through to us, as he said.'

'Where's the boy?' Ringmar asked.

'We don't know,' sighed Winter. Johansson sniffled.

'Where's the mother?' asked Ringmar. 'Is the boy
with her?'

'No,' said Winter. 'Bengt mentioned a few places he
hadn't got round to phoning, and she was in one of them.'

'What kind of places?'

Winter didn't answer.

'Pubs? Restaurants?'

'That kind of place, yes. We found her and identified
her, but the boy wasn't with her.'

'What did she have to say?'

'Nothing that could be of any help to us at the
moment,' said Winter.

Johansson showed signs of life.

'What shall I do now?' he asked.

'Is there somebody close to you who can keep you
company in the immediate future?' Winter asked.

'Er, yes. My sister.'

'One of our colleagues will give you a lift home,'
Winter said. 'You shouldn't be on your own.'

Johansson said nothing.

'I'd like you to go home and wait,' said Winter. 'We'll
be in touch.' Maybe somebody else will be in touch as
well, he thought. 'Could you phone Helander and
Birgersson, please, Bertil?'

'What the hell's going on?' asked Ringmar. They were
still in Winter's office. Winter had tried to get in touch
with Hanne Östergaard, the police vicar, but she was
abroad on Christmas leave.

'A family drama of the more difficult sort,' said
Winter. 'The mother left the boy on his own and hoped
that some kind soul from the staff would look after
him. Or some other generous passer-by.'

'Which might be what happened,' said Ringmar.

'It looks like it.'

'But now he's disappeared,' said Ringmar. 'Four years
old.'

Winter nodded, and drew a circle with his finger on
the desk in front of him, and then another circle on top
of that.

'Where's the mother now?'

'At home, with a couple of social workers. She might
be on her way to the Östra hospital by now – I expect
to be informed at any minute. She'd been drinking at
the pub, but not all that much. She's desperate, and very
remorseful, as you might say.'

'As you might say,' said Ringmar.

'She went back after a while, she couldn't say how
long, but the boy was no longer there and she assumed
he'd been taken care of by the authorities.'

'Did she check via the emergency police number?'

'No.'

'And she never phoned her husband? Bengt
Johansson?'

Winter shook his head.

'They are divorced,' he said. 'He has custody.'

'Why did she do it?' Ringmar asked.

Winter raised both arms a little.

'She can't explain it,' he said. 'Not at the moment,
at any rate.'

'Do you believe her?' asked Ringmar.

'That she abandoned the boy? Yes. What's the alternative?'

'Even worse,' said Ringmar.

'We have to work with all possible alternatives,' said
Winter. 'We need to check the father's alibi as well. The
important thing is that the child is missing. That's what
we need to concentrate on.'

'Have you been to their home? The Johanssons? The
father?'

'Yes,' said Winter. 'And we're tracking down everybody
who was working in that part of Nordstan last
night. First priority.'

'So somebody might have abducted the kid?' said
Ringmar.

'Yes.'

'Is this a pattern we recognise from before?'

'Yes.'

'Exactly,' said Ringmar. 'But it doesn't really fit in
with the previous cases. The others.'

'It might do,' said Winter. 'This boy, Micke, went to
a day nursery in the centre of Gothenburg. Not all that
far away from the others we are concerned about,
including mine – or, rather, Elsa's.'

'And?'

'If there's somebody stalking the day nurseries from
time to time, keeping them under observation, it's not
impossible that the person concerned could follow somebody
after they'd picked up their child.'

'Why?'

'To see where they live.'

'Why?'

'Because he or she is interested in the child.'

'Why?'

'For the same reason as in the earlier cases.'

'Calm down now, Erik.'

'I am calm.'

'What's the reason?' Ringmar asked.

'We don't know yet.'

Ringmar eased off. He recognised Winter's fervent
involvement, and his own.

'Perhaps it's easier to abduct a child if you've been
keeping it under observation for some time,' said Ringmar.

'Perhaps.'

'Instead of just marching up and wheeling the
pushchair away. I mean, the mother might have been
within reach.'

Winter nodded. He tried to picture the situation, but
wasn't very successful. There were too many people in
the way.

'For Christ's sake, Erik, we could be dealing with an
abducted child here.' Ringmar rubbed away at his eye.
'Or I suppose it's possible that the lad woke up and
staggered off all by himself?' He peered out from underneath
his rubbing. 'It's a possibility.'

'We have lots of officers searching,' said Winter.

'Down by the canal?'

'There as well.'

'Do you have a picture of the boy?'

Winter pointed at his desk, where a little photograph
must have been lying all the time.

'We're busy producing lots of copies,' Winter said.
'We've written a text.'

'You realise what will happen once the wanted notice
becomes public?' Ringmar said.

'Goodbye, secrecy,' said Winter.

'And all the rest follows, like it or not.'

'I suppose it's just as well that we get to that stage,'
said Winter.

'The press will give us hell,' said Ringmar. 'Or the
media, as they call it nowadays.'

'Can't be helped.'

'I get the impression, Erik, that . . . that you're looking
forward to it.'

Winter said nothing.

'This is going to be some Christmas,' said Ringmar.
'You're on your way to Spain, I gather?'

'I was. Angela and Elsa are flying tomorrow. I'll follow
when I follow.'

'I see.'

'What would you have done, Bertil?'

'It depends what we suspect this is all about. If it's
the worst-case scenario, then there's no question about
it,' said Ringmar.

'We'll have to interview the children soon,' said
Winter.

The flat was being haunted by the ghost of Tom Joad
as Winter stood in the hall with his overcoat half off
and heard the sound of Elsa's feet on the way to greet
him. Angela dropped something hard on the bedroom
floor. Another bang from the bedroom, Elsa's face lit
up; Winter was down on his knees.

It had started snowing outside. Flakes were still
melting on his shoulders.

'Would you like to come outside with me and see the
snow, Elsa?'

'Yes, yes, yes, yes!'

The pavement was white, and the park.

'We make snowman,' said Elsa.

They tried, and managed to make a small one. The
snow wasn't really wet enough.

'Have carrot for nose,' said Elsa.

'It would have to be a little one.'

'Can Daddy get it?'

'Let's use this twig.'

'Snowman breaking!' she said as she pressed the twig
into the middle of the round face.

'We'll have to make another head,' he said.

They were back home after half an hour. Elsa's cheeks
were as red as apples. Angela came out into the hall.
Springsteen was singing on repeat about the dark side
of humanity. Angela's songs had become his as well.

'Snow!' shouted Elsa and ran into her room to draw
a snowman like the real one she'd just made.

'And I'm going to take all this away from her,' said
Angela, looking at him with a faint smile. 'Tomorrow
we shall fly away from the first white Christmas of her
life.'

'It will disappear during the night,' he said.

'I don't know if that was pessimistic or optimistic,'
she said.

'Everything depends on the context, doesn't it?
Positive, negative.'

He hung up his overcoat and wiped a few drops of
water off his neck. He undid another shirt button.

'Where's your tie?' she asked.

'A chap out there borrowed it,' he said, gesturing
with his thumb at the park outside.

'A silk tie. Must be the best-dressed snowman in
town.'

'Clothes maketh the man,' said Winter, going into
the kitchen and pouring out a whisky. 'Would you like
one?'

She shook her head.

'You don't have to go,' he said. 'You could stay at
home. I'm not forcing you to go.'

'I thought that this afternoon as well,' she said. 'But
then I thought about your mum. Among other things.'

'There's nothing to stop her coming here.'

'Not this Christmas, Erik.'

'Do you understand me?' he asked.

'What am I supposed to say to that?'

'Do you understand why I can't go with you now?'

'Yes,' she said. 'But you're not the only person in
Gothenburg who can interrogate a suspect. Or lead an
investigation.'

'I've never claimed that I am.'

'But you have to stay here even so?'

'It's a question of finishing something off. And it's
only just begun. I don't know what it is. But I have to
follow it through to the end. Nobody else can do that.'

'You're not the only one on the case.'

'I don't mean it like that. I'm not talking about me
as a lone wolf. But if I break off now, I won't be able
to come back to it. I'll . . . lose it.'

'And what does that mean? What will you lose?'

'I don't know.'

She looked at the window, which was being pelted
with snowflakes hurled by strong gusts of wind.

'Something terrible might have happened,' said
Winter.

'Have you appealed to the public for information?'

'Yes.'

'Ah, that reminds me, your reporter contact, or whatever
we should call him, at
Göteborgs Tidningen,
Bülow,
has rung.'

'I'm not surprised. He'll ring again.'

'Can you hear the phone ringing? Of course you
can't. That's because I've pulled the plug out.'

'I can hear
The Ghost of Tom Joad
,' he said.

'Good.' She made a gesture. 'Is this case going to
take up all your time for the whole of the Christmas
holidays?'

'That's why I'm staying behind, Angela.' He took a
drink of whisky now; a cold heat passed down his throat.
'I can't say any more than that. You know me. Don't
you? I can do my job or I can pack it in. Either or. I
can't do it by halves.'

'Why bother to make plans for a holiday at all, then?
It's pointless. It would be better to work all the time,
eighteen hours a day, all the year round, year after year.
Always. Anything else would be half measures, as you
say.'

'That's not what I'm saying.'

'OK, OK. I understand that you have to keep going
now. That things are happening all the time. That what
has happened to the little boy could be horrendous. Or
is horrendous.' She was still looking at the snow on the
window. 'But it never stops, Erik.' She turned to look
at him. 'More horrendous things happen all the time.
And you are always there, in the thick of it. It never
stops, never.'

He said nothing.

I did take six months' paternity leave, he thought.
That might have been the best time of my life. The only
time of real value.

'I've been looking forward to this trip,' she said.

What should he say? If we miss one Christmas
together, there'll be a thousand more to come? How did
he feel himself? What did it mean to him, not spending
the special days with Angela? And Elsa?
How many days were they talking about?

'I might be down there with you the day after,' he said.

'The day after the day?'

'Stay here, Angela. We'll go there together the moment
all this is over.'

'Sometimes when I think about you and your job it's
as if you're some sort of artist,' she said. 'No fixed
working hours, you choose yourself when and how you
work, you sort of direct the work yourself. Do you
understand, Erik? It's as if you . . . create your work
yourself.'

He didn't respond. There was something in what she
said. It wasn't possible to explain it, nobody could. But
there was something in it. It was a frightening thought.

'I can't explain it,' she said.

'It's not possible,' he said. 'But I understand what
you're saying.'

'Yes.'

'Of course you should stay here over Christmas,' he
said again.

'Let me think about it,' she said. 'Maybe it's best for
all concerned if we go to Spain, Elsa and I.'

Five days, he thought out of the blue. It'll be all over
in five days. It'll be over by Boxing Day.

He knew already that wasn't going to be something
to look forward to. Irrespective of what happened, he
knew there was something dreadful in store after the
Christmas holiday. Or during it. He knew that he would
be surprised, find questions and answers that he hadn't
formulated. He would be left with unanswered questions.
See sudden openings that had previously been
welded together. And new walls. But he would be on
the way all the time, really on the way, and this moment
at this table would be the last bit of peace he would
have. When would he be able to return here, to this?
To peace?

'Will you marry me, Angela?' he asked.

The telephone rang the moment he plugged it in again.
It had just gone midnight. Nothing new on his mobile,
and nobody had that number unless he'd given it to
them personally. Hans Bülow wasn't among those.

'What's going on, Erik?' asked Bülow.

'What do you want to know?'

'You've sent out an appeal for information about a
four-year-old boy called Micke Johansson?'

'That's correct.'

'What's happened?'

'We don't know. The boy is missing.'

'In Nordstan? In the middle of the Christmas rush?'

'That's precisely where and when such things
happen.'

'Has it happened several times, then?' asked Bülow.

'I meant in general. Children get lost when there are
lots of people around.'

'But this one hasn't come back?'

'No.'

'A full day has gone by.'

Winter said nothing. Bülow and his colleagues
could follow the hands on a clock just as well as he
could.

Angela moved in bed. He hung up and went quickly
out into the kitchen and picked up the receiver of the
wall telephone. The reporter was still there.

'So somebody has kidnapped the boy?' said Bülow.

'I wouldn't use that term.'

'What term would you use?'

'We don't know yet what's happened,' said Winter
again.

'Are you looking for the boy?' asked Bülow.

'What do you think?'

'So he's disappeared.' Winter could hear voices in the
background. Somebody laughed. They ought to be
crying, he thought. 'It sounds like a very serious business,'
said Bülow.

'I agree,' said Winter.

'And then there was the abuse of that English boy.'
Winter could hear the rustling of paper near Bülow's
telephone. 'Waggoner. Simon Waggoner. He was evidently
kidnapped as well and mistreated and left on his own.'

'No comment,' said Winter.

'Come on, Erik. I've helped you before. You ought
to know by now, after all the contact you've had with
the media, that facts are better than rumours.'

Winter couldn't help laughing.

'Was that an ironic laugh?' asked Bülow.

'What makes you think that?'

'You know I'm right.'

'The statement is correct but the messenger is wrong,'
said Winter. 'I deal in facts, you deal in rumours.'

'That's what can happen when we don't get any facts
to work with,' said Bülow.

'Don't work, then.'

'What do you mean?'

'Don't write anything until you know what you're
writing about.'

'Is that how you work?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Do you sit around doing nothing until you get a
little piece of the jigsaw?'

'I wouldn't find a little piece of the jigsaw if I sat
around doing nothing,' said Winter.

'Which brings us back to the point of this conversation,'
said Bülow, 'because I'm also doing something
to find a little piece of the jigsaw that I can write
about.'

'Ask me again tomorrow evening,' said Winter.

'I have to write about this now,' said Bülow, 'tonight.
Even you must understand that.'

'Hmm.'

'We've already got facts in connection with the
Waggoner case.'

'Why have you waited before publishing them, then?'
asked Winter.

Winter could hear that Bülow was hesitating before
answering. Was he going to say: 'No comment'?

'We've only just got hold of them,' said the reporter.
'In connection with the appeal for information about
the other boy.'

'Oh.'

'Can you see a connection, Erik?'

'If I say yes, and you write that, it's hard to see what
the consequences would be,' said Winter.

'Nobody here is going to create panic,' said Bülow.

Winter was about to burst out laughing again.

'What creates panic is the indiscriminate spreading
of unconfirmed rumours, and I'm looking for facts,'
said Bülow.

'Haven't we had a conversation about that very topic
before?' said Winter.

'Is there a connection?' asked Bülow again.

'I don't know, Hans. I'm being completely honest
with you. I might know more tomorrow or the day
after.'

'That's Christmas Eve.'

'And?'

'Will you be working on Christmas Eve?' asked Bülow.

'Will you?'

'That depends. On you, amongst other things.' Winter
heard voices in the background again. It sounded as if
somebody was asking Bülow a question. He said something
Winter couldn't hear and resumed the conversation.
'So you don't want to say anything about a link?'

'I'd prefer you didn't raise that question just now,
Hans. It could make a mess of a lot of things. Do you
follow me?'

'I don't know. I'd be doing you yet another favour
in that case. Besides, I'm not the one who makes all the
decisions here,' said Bülow.

'You're a good man. You understand.'

The alarm clock woke him up from a dream in which
he had rolled a snowball that grew to the size of a
house, and kept on rolling. An aeroplane had passed
overhead, and he'd been sitting on top of the snowball
and waved to Elsa, who had waved back jerkily from
her window seat. He hadn't seen Angela. He had heard
music he'd never heard before. He'd looked down and
seen children trying to make an enormous snowball, but
nothing had moved, not even Elsa's hand as the aeroplane
had passed by and vanished into a sky where all
the colours he'd seen earlier had been mixed together
to form grey. He'd thought about the fact that when all
those brilliant colours were combined, the result was
simply grey – and then he'd woken up.

Angela was already in the kitchen.

'The snow's gone,' she said. 'As you predicted.'

'There'll be more.'

'Not where we'll be.'

'So you've made up your mind?'

'I want some sun.' She looked at Winter, held up one
of her bare arms. 'Believe you me, I want a bit of sun
on this pale skin of mine. A bit of sun in my head.'

'I'll join you on Boxing Day.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'Or the day after.'

'Shall we stay there over New Year?'

'At least.'

'Have you spoken to Siv?'

'I'll ring her now. I wanted to be certain what you
were going to do.'

She leaned over the table. There was a tea cup in
front of her; the radio was mumbling in a corner, words
full of facts.

'Erik? Were you serious last night? Or were you just
prepared to do anything at all in order to be allowed
to stay at home and spend Christmas on your own,
thinking to your heart's content?'

'I was as serious as it's possible to be.'

'I'm not sure how to interpret that.'

'Give me a date. I'm fed up of calling you my partner
or my fiancée,' he said.

'I haven't said yes yet,' she said.

Winter's mobile rang as he was shaving. Angela handed
it to him.