Room No. 10 (2 page)

Winter heard a knock and looked up. Before he had time to say anything, the door opened and Chief Inspector Bertil Ringmar, third in rank in the homicide unit, stepped in through the door and closed it behind him and walked quickly through the room and sat down on the chair in front of Winter’s desk.

“Please come in,” said Winter.

“It’s just me,” said Ringmar, pushing the chair closer. It scraped against the floor. He looked at Winter. “I went up to Öberg.”

Torsten Öberg was a chief inspector, like Winter and Ringmar, and he was the deputy chief of the forensics unit on the floor above the homicide unit.

“And?”

“He was working on someth—”

The telephone on Winter’s desk rang and interrupted Ringmar in the middle of his sentence. Winter lifted the receiver.

“Erik Winter here.”

He listened without saying anything else, hung up, stood.

“Speak of the devil. Öberg wants to see us.”

•   •   •

“It’s hard to hang someone else,” said Öberg. He was leaning against one of the workbenches in the laboratory. “Especially if the victim is fighting for his life.” He gestured toward the objects on the counter. “But it’s difficult even without resistance. Bodies are heavy.” He looked at Winter. “That goes for young women, too.”

“Did she fight?” Winter asked.

“Not in the least.”

“What happened?”

“That’s your job, Erik.”

“Come on, Torsten. You had something for us.”

“She never stood on that chair,” said Öberg. “From what we can tell, no one has ever stood on it.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Did the desk clerk say that he jumped up and grabbed hold of the end of the rope?”

Winter nodded.

“He never climbed up on the chair?”

“No. It tipped over when the body fell.”

“She has a wound on her shoulder,” said Öberg. “She could have gotten it then.”

Winter nodded again. He had spoken with Fröberg.

“The desk clerk, his name was Bergström, Bergström got hold of the end and pulled down as hard as he could and the knot came loose.”

“Sounds like he knew what he was doing,” said Öberg.

But he hadn’t had any idea, he had said to Winter during the first short interrogation in a small, nasty-smelling room behind the lobby. He had only acted. Instinctively, he had said. Instinctively. He wanted to save lives.

He hadn’t recognized the woman, not then, not later. She hadn’t checked in; she wasn’t a guest there.

He had seen the letter, the sheet of paper. The suicide note—he had realized what it was the second before he took action. Someone who was tired of life. He had seen the chair standing under her, but also the end of the rope, and he had thrown himself forward and up.

“That chair has been carefully cleaned,” said Öberg.

“What do you mean by that?” Winter asked.

“If she wanted to hang herself, first she would have had to climb up on the chair and tie the rope around the beam,” said Öberg. “But she didn’t stand on that chair. And if she did, someone wiped it off afterward. And it wasn’t her.”

“We understand that,” said Ringmar.

“It’s a smooth surface,” Öberg continued. “She was barefoot.”

“Her shoes were by the door,” said Ringmar.

“She was barefoot when we got there,” said Öberg. “She died barefoot.”

“No clues on the chair,” Winter said, mostly to himself.

“As you gentlemen know, the lack of clues is as interesting as clues themselves,” Öberg said.

Winter could see that Öberg was proud, or something like that. He had something to tell them.

“There are no fingerprints on the rope, but I forewarned you of that, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Winter answered, “and I’m not unfamiliar with nylon rope.”

The rope was blue, an obscene blue color that recalled neon. The rough surface seldom captured any prints from fingers. It was hardly even possible to tell whether someone had been wearing gloves.

But there were other clues. Winter had seen the technicians working in room ten. They carefully swabbed the rope for traces of saliva, strands of hair, sweat. It was very difficult not to leave some trace of DNA behind.

A person who wore gloves might have spit on the glove.

Brushed back his hair.

But it wasn’t impossible to go free. Winter tried to keep a cool head these days, when the DNA dream of solving and resolving every crime could be a pipe dream, a daydream.

He knew that Öberg had sent all the tests to SKL.

“Gert found something more,” said Öberg, and there was a flash in one of his eyes. “Inside the knot of the noose.”

“We’re listening,” said Winter.

“Blood. Not much, but enough.”

“Good,” said Ringmar. “Very good.”

“One of the tiniest flecks I’ve seen,” said Öberg. “Gert loosened the knot, and because he is a thorough man, he took a thorough look.”

“I didn’t see any blood in that room,” said Winter.

“None of us saw any blood,” said Öberg. “And above all, not on the woman.” He turned to Winter. “Has Pia found any small cuts on her body?”

“No. At least not yet.”

“So if the rope isn’t Paula Ney’s . . .” Ringmar said.

“. . . then it’s someone else’s,” Öberg supplied, and his eye flashed again.

•   •   •

“I talked to Paula’s parents an hour ago,” Ringmar said; he moved his chair back half a meter, and the sound was louder now. They were back in Winter’s office. Winter felt a warmth, like the beginning of a fever. Ringmar moved his chair again; it scraped again.

“Can’t you lift up the chair?” Winter said.

“But I’m sitting in it!”

“What did they say? The parents?”

“She hadn’t seemed different on the last night, or the afternoon. Or the week before. Just irritated at the workmen, or the landlord. That’s what they said, anyway. The parents. Or the mom, rather. I spoke to her mom. Elisabeth.”

Winter had also spoken to her, yesterday afternoon. He had spoken with her husband, Paula’s father. Mario. He had come to Sweden at a very young age and found work at SKF, the ball bearing factory. Many Italians had found work there.

Mario Ney, Paula Ney. Her purse had been on the bed in the hotel room. Until now, Öberg and his colleagues had not found out whether anyone had gone through the contents in the purse. There was a wallet with a debit card and some cash. No driver’s license, but a gym membership card from Friskis & Svettis. Other little things.

And a pocket with four photographs, the kind that are taken in photo booths. They looked recent.

Everything in that bag indicated that it belonged to Paula Ney, and that it was Paula Ney who had been hanged in the dark hotel room that only let in a thin streak of sun at a time.

“When would Paula have moved back to the apartment?” Winter asked.

“Sometime in the future, as she put it.”

“Did she say that? Did her parents say that she said that?”

“It was the dad who said it, I guess. I asked the mom.”

Winter held up the letter, a copy of the letter. The words were the
same as in the original. Those ten lines. Above them: “To Mario and Elisabeth.”

“Why did she write this? And why to her parents?”

“She didn’t have a husband,” said Ringmar.

“Answer the first question first,” said Winter.

“I don’t have an answer.”

“Was she forced to?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do we know that she wrote this letter after she disappeared, or whatever we should call it? After she left her friend at Grönsakstorget?”

“No. But we’re assuming it.”

“We’re linking the letter to the murder,” said Winter. “But maybe it’s about something else.”

“What would that be?”

They were into one of their routines, methods, questions and answers, and questions again in a stream of consciousness that might move forward or backward, any direction at all, as long as it didn’t stand still.

“Maybe she needed to get something off her chest,” said Winter. “She couldn’t say it face-to-face. Face-to-faces. Something had happened. She wanted to explain herself, or find reconciliation. Or just contact them. She wanted to leave home, for a little while. She didn’t want to be with her parents.”

“That’s wishful thinking,” said Ringmar.

“Sorry?”

“The alternative is just too horrible.”

Winter didn’t answer. Ringmar was right, of course. He had tried to see the scene in front of him because it was part of his work, and he had closed his eyes when he saw it: Paula in front of a piece of paper, someone behind her, above her. A pen in her hand. Write. Write!

“Are those her words?” Ringmar asked.

“Was she taking dictation?” Winter asked.

“Or was she allowed to write what she wanted?”

“I think so,” Winter said, reading the first sentences again.

“Why?” Ringmar asked.

“It’s too personal.”

“Maybe it’s the murderer’s personality.”

“You mean that it’s his message to the parents?”

Ringmar shrugged.

“I don’t think so,” said Winter. “They’re her words.”

“Her last words,” Ringmar said.

“If more letters don’t show up.”

“Oh, hell.”

“What does she mean by saying she wants to ask forgiveness?” Winter said, reading the words again.

“What she writes,” said Ringmar. “That she wants to ask forgiveness if she made her parents angry.”

“Is that the first thing a person thinks of in a letter like this? Would she think of that?”

“Would a person think at all?” said Ringmar. “She knows that she’s in a bad situation. She’s ordered to write a suicide note.” Ringmar fidgeted in his chair again but didn’t move it. “Yes. It’s possible that thoughts of guilt would pop up then. Same with thoughts of reconciliation.”

“Was there any guilt? I mean, real guilt?”

“Not according to her parents. Nothing that was . . . well, anything more than the usual between parents and children. There’s no old feud, or whatever you’d call it.”

“Although we don’t know that,” said Winter.

Ringmar didn’t answer. He got up and walked over to the window and looked out through the slits in the blinds. He could see the wind in the black treetops in front of Fattighusån. There was a weak light over the houses on the other side of the canal; it was something other than the clear glimmer of a high summer night.

“Have you ever been involved in something like this before, Erik?” Ringmar said without turning around. “A letter from . . . the other side.”

“The other side?”

“Come on, Erik,” Ringmar said, turning around, “the poor girl knows she’s going to be murdered and she writes a letter about love and reconciliation and forgiveness, and then we get a call from that damn flea-ridden hotel and all we can do is go there and find out what happened.”

“You’re not the only one who’s frustrated here, Bertil.”

“So—have you ever been involved with something like this before? A suicide note like this one?”

“No.”

“Written by a hand that is then painted? Painted white? As though it were . . . separate from the body?”

“No, no.”

“What the hell is going on, Erik?”

Winter got up without answering. He felt a sharp pain in his neck and across one shoulder blade. He had sat deep in concentration over the letter for too long and had forgotten to move his forty-five-year-old body, and that didn’t work anymore; he could no longer handle sitting still for very long. But he was still alive. He had his hands in front of him. He could lift them and massage his neck. He did so, lowered his hands, and walked over to Ringmar, who was still standing at the window. Winter opened it a few centimeters. He could smell the scents of the evening; there was a sort of freshness to them.

Ringmar was furious. He was professional and furious, and that was a good combination. It invigorated the imagination, urged it on. A police officer without an imagination was a poor hunter, mediocre at best. Police officers who managed to turn everything off when they stepped out of the police station and went home. Perhaps it was good for them, but it wasn’t good for their work; an officer with no imagination could turn it all off after working hours—and then wonder why he never got results. Many were like that, Winter had thought many times during his career at the CID; there were plenty of barely competent second-raters who couldn’t think farther than to the top of the hill. In that way, they were related to psychopaths, lacking the
ability to think past their own noses: is there anything on the other side of the hill? Nah, I can’t see anything there, so there can’t be anything there. I think I’ll pass this car.

“I don’t know if it’s a message to us,” Winter said. “The hand. The white hand.”

“What was it about her hand?” said Ringmar.

“What do you mean?”

“Is there some . . . history surrounding her hand? Why did he paint her hand with that damn enamel paint?”

The paint came from Beckers; it was called Syntem, and it was an antique white semigloss enamel paint for indoor carpentry, furniture, walls, and iron surfaces. All of this could be read on the liter can that stood in room ten. It was the technicians’ job to establish that the paint had also been used on a human body. There was no reason to doubt it, but they had to be certain. One thing was already certain: Paula Ney had never touched the paintbrush that lay next to the can, which was nearly full. The paint that had been used had been used to paint Paula’s hand. Then the shaft of the paintbrush had been carefully wiped off.

“Nothing . . . abnormal about her hand, according to her parents,” Winter said.

Good God. Her parents hadn’t seen her hand yet. Fröberg and Öberg weren’t done with it. Winter had had to keep it from her parents and simultaneously tell them about it, ask questions about it. What a fucking job this is.

“I have all the family photos in my office,” Ringmar said.

“We won’t find anything there,” Winter said.

Ringmar didn’t answer.

“What was he going to do with it, then?” said Ringmar. “The hand?”

“You make it sound like he was carrying it with him.”

“Well, doesn’t it feel like that?”

“I don’t know, Bertil.”