Room No. 10 (25 page)

They were sitting in a car on the way along the river. No matter where you were going, you ended up along the river. In the autumn sunlight, it looked oily and black. A ferry was gliding out toward Vinga, on its way to Jutland. The risk that it would come back with the junk in its belly was great. Or the chance, if you preferred. There were great profits to be had for the entrepreneurs. I packed my suitcase and in it I put . . .

They had talked about the drugs, and the more serious violence that the drugs brought along. Big money. Big violence.

Halders drove along Allén. The scene around them was still of the old-fashioned, safe sort. Scattered groups were smoking up on the grass, and the smoke spread over the canal along with the fumes of everything else that was gliding around in the air. But the sweet and spicy scent of hash floated above all the other smells, and Winter could smell it as he walked over the canal bridges on late afternoons.

“You lie down in Allén one day in the September sun, and light a little joint and have yourself a little fun,” Halders sang, keeping rhythm on the wheel.

“That was very good,” Winter said. “Did you write it yourself?”

Halders turned his head.

“Haven’t you ever heard of Nationalteatern?”

“Oh, them.”

“You have heard of them?”

“Of course.”

Halders smiled a mean smile but said nothing. He stopped for a red light. Two guys in old-fashioned dashikis looked up from what they were doing out on the grass and looked over at the police car. Halders raised his hand and waved.

“Don’t forget, sneaky sneaky ding-dong, like on pins and needles, one two three, the pigs are up and trawling,” he sang.

He turned to Winter.

“Trawling is our thing here in Gothenburg.”

“Trawl on, then,” Winter said.

“I don’t give a shit about that small-time crap,” Halders said, nodding toward the dashikis, who had lit their pipe. They began to disappear into the haze.

“Mm-hmm.”

“But the other stuff. That’s a different story.”

He stopped at the next red light.

A man walked by in the crosswalk. He had dark hair, sharp features, looks from the Balkans, maybe Greece, Italy, somewhere south of Jutland.

“Could be a mule,” Halders said, nodding toward the man.

Winter didn’t say anything.

“They’re going to take over,” Halders said. “In ten, fifteen, twenty years the city will be full of mules, and criminal gangs from faraway lands.” He turned to Winter. “And do you know what? A lot of them will have been born here in the city!”

“You know your future, Fredrik.”

“It’s necessary, man. You have to be able to see into the future. It’s called imagination. It’s the only thing that separates us from the psychopaths.”

“Will you and I be sitting here then, Fredrik?” Winter said. “In a government car on our way through Allén? In twenty years?”

“Twenty years? Well, why not? If we’re not dead, of course. Slain in a shootout with drug dealers from the north suburbs.”

“You said faraway lands before.”

“It’s the same thing.”

In twenty years. Winter might be able to think twenty years ahead, but he didn’t want to. The 2000s were more than a faraway land and a faraway time. They were like a planet that had not yet been discovered. If he made it all the way there, a lot would have happened on the way; a lot of water would have run under the Göta Älv bridge.

Halders stopped for the third red light.

A man walked by in the crosswalk. This one looked very Swedish. He moved stiffly and stared straight ahead, as though he were walking in a dream.

“That guy there,” Halders said. “He needs to buy himself an alarm clock.”

“Hey, that’s Börge,” Winter said.

“Börje? Börje who?”

“Börge, Christer Börge. His wife disappeared about a month ago. Ellen Börge. I interrogated him up at the station day before yesterday.”

“Why?”

The light was still red. Börge had passed them and was now on his way down toward Rosenlundsplatsen. Winter watched him. Börge still wasn’t turning his head to either side. He was walking quickly, but not in any particular direction. It was a feeling Winter had. At that moment, Börge had no direction.

“Why?” Halders repeated.

“There’s something I can’t put my finger on with that case,” Winter said, turning toward Halders as Börge’s coat disappeared behind the yellow branches.

“Case? There is no case, is there?”

“I think there is. I think there’s a crime behind it.”

“You think she’s dead?”

Winter flung out his hands.

The light changed and Halders accelerated.

“You must have something to go on, right? What makes you think it’s a crime?”

Winter tried to find Börge again, but he had vanished.

“Him,” he said, nodding toward the empty branches.

“Do you think he did it? Killed his wife?”

“I don’t know. There’s something I
could
understand here, but that I don’t understand.”

Halders laughed.

“That might not be because of him,” he said, “it might be because of you, man.”

“I wish I were like you, Fredrik.”

“I know just what you mean. Lots of people wish that.”

“Happy and unconcerned and ignorant.”

“Imagination is better than knowledge,” Halders said.

“That’s Einstein,” Winter said. “You quoted Einstein.”

“I didn’t know that,” Halders said, and smiled. “But there you go.”

“I wish I were like you,” Winter repeated.

“Flattery doesn’t work on me.”

“You’re a lucky person, Fredrik.”

Halders stopped for the fourth light.

“So you brought Börge in for questioning, Einstein? What did Birgersson say about that?”

“He’s the one who suggested it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“But I had talked about it earlier myself.”

“I guess you really sucked up to the boss.”

“Haven’t you ever gotten to conduct an interrogation, Fredrik?”

“So Birgersson is that interested,” Halders mumbled, without answering Winter’s question.

“I guess he suspects something, too,” Winter said.

Halders didn’t say anything. He was driving on Första Långgatan
now. A streetcar whistled by on its way west. Halders rolled down his window. Winter felt a cool breeze. The level of sound increased. There was scratching from their police radio, mumbling, talking, but nothing was directed at them.

“Did you get anything out of him, then?” Halders asked as he turned right, down toward the river, and stopped at the fifth light. Semi trucks from the West Germany ferry roared by on Oscarsleden. “Did a light bulb come on while questioning Mr. Coat?”

“Just that he loved his wife.”

The light turned green and Halders made a flying start and drove west. Winter watched the ferry pass under the Älvsborg bridge. His perspective distorted the image. It looked as though the smokestacks were going to crash right into the span of the bridge.

“Did he say that? During the interrogation?” Halders turned his head. “That he loved her?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s the guilty one.”

“It was the second time he said it,” Winter said.

“Then he’s doubly guilty.”

•   •   •

It was quiet in the cafeteria, giving a sense of reverence. A man had shuffled down in his hospital pajamas, surrounded by his family. They conversed in quiet voices and Winter couldn’t hear any words. Some teenagers came in from the street and sat down without ordering anything. They looked around with big eyes, as though they had chosen the wrong door somewhere.

Mario Ney was back in thirty minutes. Winter had worked on his notes during that time. By now they had questioned all the guests who had been at Hotel Revy at the time of Paula’s death. There weren’t very many, and all of them could be crossed off the investigation. Some of them would land in other investigations. The hotel was going to close down, and no one knew yet what would come in its place. For Winter’s part, they could just as soon tear down the whole thing. But not yet.

Ney sat down in front of him, but it was clear this was temporary—he was sitting on the edge of the chair. Winter could have decided on a different meeting at a different time with Ney, but there had been something about the man that made Winter decide on now. It was an expression on Ney’s face. Winter recognized it, but in a different way than with Elisabeth. It was the restlessness of someone who is suffering from knowing something. Who wants to get rid of it.

“Where are we going?” Ney asked.

“Do you still want a glass of wine?”

“Yes. But if you . . .” Ney said, but he didn’t finish his sentence.

“I always want a glass of wine,” Winter said. “I’m just going to get rid of the car.”

•   •   •

The bar was near Winter’s apartment. He had put the car in the parking garage after he let Ney out on the next block.

They each ordered a glass of wine of high quality. A girl of about twenty served them. She set down a glass of water for each of them without being asked. Winter didn’t recognize her.

“I’ll get this,” Winter said when the woman had left the table.

“You mean the police will?”

“Won’t be approved, unfortunately.”

“Do you work like this often?” Ney asked. “You’d become an alcoholic.”

“I’m working on it,” Winter said.

“Watch out. It can go quicker than you’d think.”

Winter nodded.

“I’ve seen it with people around me,” Ney said.

“Around you where?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Ney answered, letting his gaze float out around them.

It was peaceful in the bar. It was another blue hour. Winter didn’t recognize the bartender. The man had a black circle around his eye, and he wasn’t just wearing it because it was twilight. He had definitely been hit, but probably not in here. It wasn’t that kind of place.

“I have to apologize for being brusque earlier,” Ney said. “At our house, I mean.” He looked at Winter. “And I’m not just saying that because you’re buying me a drink.”

“I can buy you two.”

“Do you understand what I mean?” Ney said.

“I understand if you overreacted. It’s normal.”

“Is it?”

“When something like this has happened, everything is normal,” Winter said. “And nothing. Nothing is normal anymore.”

He looked around the bar again. Its corners had started to grow darker in the last few minutes. The contours began to dissolve, as though he had already had a few glasses. Everything became dimmer, and would continue to do so until someone got the bad idea of starting to turn on lights. They could sit in twilight until then. The wineglasses still stood on the table. It’s as though neither of us wants to lift the glass, Winter thought. That’s not why we came here.

“But why?” Ney said. “I just don’t get it. Why?”

“That letter . . .” Winter said.

“Don’t talk about that damn letter,” said Ney.

“But we have to.”

“I don’t want to. Elisabeth doesn’t want to. No one wants to.”

Winter lifted his glass and drank without bothering to smell any of the wine’s bouquet. This made the wine lose its taste. Ney drank. He didn’t seem to be smelling the bouquet either. They could have been drinking swill from a box. Winter had never done that. Wine belonged in glass bottles. Someone who drank from a box might as well also drink wine from a paper cup for the sake of consistency.

Ney put down his glass.

“I don’t understand this guilt she’s feeling,” he said, without meeting Winter’s eyes. “Because it seems to be something like that. Like she wants to beg for forgiveness. She
is
begging for forgiveness. She had nothing to beg for forgiveness for. Nothing.”

“Nothing that once happened to all of you? Your family?”

“Like what?” Ney asked.

“Something she was thinking about,” Winter said. “That she couldn’t let go. Something you might not remember yourself.”

“I can’t do this,” Ney said, looking straight at Winter now. “I can’t remember anything like that. There isn’t anything. What could there be that . . . would make Paula write a letter like that? In such a . . . situation. Oh, my God.”

“She went away on a trip,” Winter said. “A long trip.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Why did she go?”

“She was young. Younger. Oh, God. She was still so young.”

Ney suddenly looked frightened of his own words. It was as though they had attacked him. He had recoiled as though he’d been hit. It was as though someone Winter couldn’t see were standing there. There was a sudden cold draft from the door, maybe from the window. Ney’s eyes turned inward. His face closed like a heavy door.

“For a long time, you didn’t know where Paula was,” said Winter.

“We knew where she was,” said Ney.

“Oh?”

“We knew she was traveling in Europe.”

“Italy? Did she go to the place where you grew up?”

Ney didn’t answer. That was answer enough.

“Sicily?”

“There’s nothing left there,” said Ney. “Nothing for her to see.”

“But did she go there?”

“It doesn’t exist,” said Ney. “There’s nothing she could find there.”

“Find? What was she searching for?”

“Searching . . .”

Ney seemed to be searching for words, himself. He looked as though his own background was so far away that he couldn’t remember it or put it into words. I’ll have to be careful here, thought Winter. If Paula traveled to Sicily, it might not have anything to do with her death. Why am I even thinking that it does? Is it because of her father’s silence? And her mother’s? She is silent, too, in her own way.

“Paula didn’t even know Italian,” Ney said, as though that were a crucial factor in deciding not to go to Italy.

“But didn’t Elisabeth say that Paula spoke Italian?”

“Just a few words,” Ney answered.

The trip, Winter thought again. What happened during that trip? What happened after it? Ten years after it?

•   •   •

What happened in this apartment? Winter walked from room to room. Paula had lived in her apartment for the past seven years, and that was a very long time. Who had come here? Not many people. Paula and her loneliness. She’d had her parents. Her family. Her job. A few friends. Was that a lonely life? If it was, then Winter was lonely, too. That was what he had. It was enough for him. It wasn’t loneliness.