Room No. 10 (28 page)

Ringmar took a sip of the cooled poison and made a face.

“Let it stand,” Winter said.

“It’ll be the death of me,” Ringmar said.

“My cappuccino machine is coming next week,” Winter said. “I’m going to have it in my office.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.”

Ringmar smiled and lifted the mug again but set it down. A colleague from the city desk came in and pressed out his coffee and nodded and left again with the hot cup balancing between his fingertips.

They heard the wind outside. It had come up as they were sitting in Winter’s office. He had seen it in the trees outside the window, and he could see it now. The wind tore at the trees outside the entrance to the police station. They swayed with half-naked branches. The branches were like hands, slowly waving farewell. Winter followed their movements. Ringmar did, too. He turned to Winter.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Presumably.”

“Is it a symbol we ought to see?”

Symbol. The white hand. Where was the symbolism? In the hand itself? The fact that it was a hand? In the paint, the white paint? In the reproduction itself?

“The white hand,” Winter said, but it was as though to himself.

“I went down and looked at it this afternoon,” Ringmar said.

Winter nodded.

“As though I would learn something more this time.”

“The white paint,” Winter said.

“Yes?”

“It could be the paint.” He took his eyes from the trees and turned to Ringmar. “The color. White. What does it stand for?”

“Well . . . innocence. Something innocent.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Purity.”

“Yes.”

“What are you thinking now, Erik?”

“Is it the color, Bertil? Is that what we should concentrate on?”

“How far will we get with that?”

“Love,” Winter said. “Doesn’t white stand for love, too?”

“I suppose it depends on what you mean,” Ringmar said. “In this case, it could stand for anything.”

Winter nodded.

“It can stand for death,” Ringmar said. “White is also the color of death. At a funeral, you wear a white tie.”

•   •   •

Winter wiped a string of saliva from Lilly’s mouth. The child turned in her sleep. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her skin was soft, like a summer cloud.

Elsa was snoring faintly. He turned her carefully and the snoring stopped. But he knew it would come back. The polyps. It might mean an operation. There would probably be an operation.

Angela was lying on the sofa with her feet on the armrest.

“Do you want a whiskey?” he asked.

“Are you asking because you want one yourself?” she said.

“Me? Why would I want a whiskey?”

She put down her feet and sat up. “You can give me a glass of the red wine from last night. There’s a little left.”

He went out into the kitchen and poured the rest of the wine into a large glass and poured a Glenfarclas, two centimeters. There could be another two centimeters a little later, but no more.

He went back to the living room.

“Maybe tomorrow you’ll be home before the girls fall asleep,” Angela said, taking the wineglass.

“It was Bertil. We ended up sitting there with questions and answers.”

“Sure, blame him.”

“You know how it can be.”

“Twenty questions and answers?”

“If only it stopped there.”

“Siv called.”

“Oh?”

“She was in the apartment today. They switched out the stove.”

“Did it go well?”

“I guess we’ll have to see when we use it.” She lifted her glass. “But it seemed okay.”

He nodded. The stove in Marbella, the kitchen in Marbella. Just over a month left. He lifted his glass and thought about how he would be there in the apartment when Angela began her job. He wanted to be there already. No. Yes. No.

“I talked to Siv,” Angela said.

“Yes, you said that.”

“About December. She’s ready.”

“Ready?”

“Ready to help me with the children. When I’m working. And if you’re still working here.”

“I’m going to be there,” he said, “with you. My leave of absence has been approved, as you know.”

“It might be delayed.”

“No.”

“I know you, Erik.”

He didn’t answer.

“Better than you know yourself,” she continued.

“Would you be able to go down by yourself with the children?” he said after a little while. “If I am . . . a little delayed?”

“I’ve done it before, haven’t I?”

•   •   •

Möllerström transferred the call.

“She seems a little jittery,” he said.

Winter waited as Möllerström put it through.

“Hello? Hello?”

It sounded like a cry.

“Yes, this is Winter.”

“Yes . . . hi, it’s Nina Lorrinder.”

“What can I help you with, Nina?”

“I . . . I thought I saw him.”

“Who?”

“The guy who . . . who Paula was talking to at Friskis & Svettis. I thought I recognized him.”

“Where?”

“At church.”

“At church? Domkyrkan?”

“Yes. I went there last night during evening prayer. I just wanted . . . to sit there for a while. I wanted to think . . .”

She stopped talking. Winter could hear her breathing. It sounded as though she had run to the telephone.

“Yes?”

“I thought it was him. He was sitting diagonally across . . . on the other side of the aisle.”

“Yesterday evening? Was it yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you call right away?”

She didn’t answer.

Winter repeated the question.

“I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t sure enough. I’m not now, either.”

“What happened after that?” Winter asked. “When prayer was over.”

“I . . . kept sitting there. He got up and left. He walked past me. Then . . . I left, too.”

“Did you see him outside?”

“No.”

“Have you seen him at church before?”

“No. Not that I remember.”

“How often do you go there? To Domkyrkan?”

“It’s been a while now. I haven’t . . . I don’t know. After Paula died . . . she and I were, you know . . . it was something we did together . . .”

“Do you want to go there with me?” Winter asked.

•   •   •

It was peaceful; it was beautiful. Winter was no stranger to churches. It was a good space. The light was good. The world outside disappeared. The windows of the church let in their own version of the city out there.

It was the third evening prayer. He listened, but not too attentively. The first time, four days ago, he had been surprised that there were so many people in the church. Maybe more people had begun to seek out churches recently, during the past year.

Maybe it was just here, in Domkyrkan, downtown. An alternative to the shopping district on Drottninggatan just outside.

The man in white over there said something that Winter didn’t understand.

The congregation sang, stood up and sang. Winter observed the congregation. Lorrinder stood beside him with the hymnal in her hand. She wasn’t singing.

She was doing what he was, watching the other people in there. There weren’t enough people for someone to be able to hide.

The song ended. They sat down.

“He’s not here tonight either,” she said in a low voice.

Winter nodded. It was an experiment. They would keep coming here; maybe he wouldn’t, and they couldn’t force Lorrinder to come here day after day, prayer after prayer. But sometime. One fine day.

Then the time was up. People began to stand up in the pews.
Maybe that was it . . . that people had to bend forward to get out of the pews . . . Winter kept his eyes on the rows diagonally across the aisle, just ten meters away, maybe twelve, and a man who had been sitting by himself got up and Winter saw his profile before the man turned his back and left the pew from the other side and walked along the far wall toward the exit of the church. Winter could see the right half of his face now, but from farther away.

He had seen it before, had seen that man.

It must have been a long time ago. It was someone from a long time ago. Who is it? What was it . . . that had happened back then?

Winter turned in the pew, but the man had disappeared behind a pillar that obscured the exit.

“What is it?” Lorrinder asked.

“I thought I recognized someone.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t really know.”

Talked to him, Winter thought as they stood up. I’ve talked to him.

Interrogated him.

Yes.

It was him.

It was many years ago.

Outside, no one was left. The streetcars came one after another over on Västra Hamngatan.

“I’ll drive you home, Nina,” said Winter.

•   •   •

Halders visited Friskis & Svettis along with Lorrinder, at the same time that Nina and Paula used to work out two evenings a week for the past year.

“And before that?” Halders had asked as they walked up the stairs from Västra Hamngatan. “Didn’t you work out then?”

“Sometimes. But it was mostly me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Paula jogged a bit. I don’t actually know.”

There were lots of people everywhere inside the gym. Most of them were exercising, or were about to start. It smelled a little bit like sweat, but mostly it smelled like different kinds of lotion. This isn’t the wrestling gym of my youth, Halders thought. It smelled like sweat there, decades of accumulated sweat. Here it was more like the bodies around him were emitting sweat for the first time but didn’t really want to let it out, as though it might be dangerous to sweat. In the large studio inside the glass, many people were exercising in many different ways, carefully, exaggeratedly, shyly, narcissistically, ergonomically correctly, or completely incompetently. Halders could have stood at the very front in place of the beautiful boy and shown them what it should really look like. Not now, but ten years ago when he was in perfect shape.

He had spoken with the staff earlier. He had talked to them along with Lorrinder, too. They had left a description of the man that Paula had spoken with. It was vague, verging on invisible, despite the fact that Lorrinder thought she had recognized him in Domkyrkan. Halders hadn’t hooked up Lorrinder with a portrait artist yet. Maybe he ought to, even if it was old-fashioned and seldom led anywhere.

None of the staff remembered Paula Ney. No one remembered Lorrinder, either.

“We have quite a lot to do,” said a woman with a red sweatband. She was dressed in a tight leotard. Halders avoided lowering his gaze to her large breasts by fixing it on her sweatband. It wouldn’t look good if she thought he was staring at her breasts. “It’s not easy to remember a face.”

No, Halders thought. It was mostly about bodies here. He felt uncomfortable here, and he would feel even more uncomfortable in a leotard. He had neglected his workouts.

“What does someone have to look like for you to remember them?” Halders asked.

She looked at him and smiled. That was answer enough.

As they walked toward the café he asked:

“Would you recognize him if you saw him now?”

“I think so,” Lorrinder answered.

“Was he in good shape?”

“I didn’t see him in workout clothes. Or maybe it was just during the workout.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe she talked to him when there wasn’t a class going on. I mean, before or after.”

“Where did they stand?”

“Well, it was only a few times, a couple of times.”

“Show me where.”

“Once in the café. I’ve told you that.”

“And where else?”

“Here. In the hall. There.” She pointed over toward the other end, where there were a few chairs and a small table. The hall continued on toward several entrances or exits. Halders could see the aerobics continuing in the studio behind the glass wall. Feet, arms, legs in the air, back and forth, up, down. Hands. If he wanted to, he could look at it as hands flapping around in the air and . . . nothing else. Hands that turned white in the bright light. He was nearly blinded in there. When he had blinked and closed his eyes and looked again, it was still hard to see clearly. He wondered whether Nina Lorrinder had really seen someone in there, or whether she just thought so. She had had a great deal of uncertainty, in some ways unnecessarily great. Her memory ought to be sharper. Maybe it was just a wish he had: Paula knew someone and that would help them find her murderer. Not because it would help Paula. She had left all sounds and groans and jumps and arm motions and blinding lights behind.

It could also be that Lorrinder wanted to help because she wanted to help. Halders had seen that hundreds of times. Someone wanted to help, but there wasn’t anything to help with. All they got was disinformation; it delayed the investigation, the search. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. He should be back in Paula’s apartment, continuing to search for what they still hadn’t found.

“How many times were you at Paula’s house?” he asked.

They were standing next to the puny table and the spindly chairs. Everything here was for slight bodies. Perhaps it was an encouragement. You can be like us. You come in here as fat-asses and leave as models. We have been like you, you shall be like us. The saying suddenly popped into Halders’s head. He had seen it in a cemetery somewhere in southern Spain. It was on one of his first vacations with Margareta, before the children were born. It had been very hot; the rental car hadn’t had air-conditioning. He had stood for a while and looked at the writing above the gateway that led into the cemetery. We have been like you, you shall be like us. Inside, the black sarcophaguses towered toward the incredibly blue sky. An old man had walked by and explained the words, though Halders hadn’t asked. The old man had spoken English like an American. That was no surprise. He looked like he was straight out of a Western. Halders had thought of the words over the gateway on the way back to Granada. They were scornful words.

“I was almost never there,” said Lorrinder.

“What?”

“At Paula’s place. You just asked me about it. I was almost never at her place.”

“But when you were there. What was it like?”