Room No. 10 (29 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Was it cozy? Homelike? Did she look like she felt at home there?”

“Well . . . I don’t know. There wasn’t much furniture.”

“Do you need that to feel at home?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s also a matter of money.”

“But she had a comfortable income, right?”

“I think so.”

“Did she talk about her job often?”

“Never.”

“Never.”

“No. Just as little as I talked about mine.”

“And just as little as I talk about mine,” said Halders.

“I thought police officers often talked about their jobs at home,” said Lorrinder.

“We prefer not to. But we think about it. Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?”

“Because you would rather drop it just like you drop your coat right on the floor when you come home.”

“You drop your coat right on the floor?”

“That guy,” Halders said without answering. He nodded toward a man who had just come out of one of the exercise studios and was now starting to walk toward them. He looked like he’d finished a session. There was something familiar about him, despite the fact that Halders had never seen him. “Could be him.”

“It
is
him,” said Lorrinder.

•   •   •

“The night has a thousand eyes that follow you every step you take.” Halders was singing quietly as he drove through the nighttime city. “The night has a thousand eyes, so it’s best if you stay right here.”

“Stay right here where?” Winter asked.

He had begun to get used to the strange company of Fredrik. Absurdity was only the beginning. Sometimes it was like being in a play by Beckett.
Waiting for Godot.
Eternally driving on their way from different nowheres. Crime scenes to the west, crime scenes to the east. Sometimes evidence sites, worse than crime scenes. What the hell was the point of it? Maybe better to keep it at bay with the harsh type of humor that Halders had. A little melody in the middle of the chaos, on the way to and from the abysses. Yes. The night had a thousand faceted eyes; they were shining and flashing and blinking out there. Neon dusks became neon dawns, and sometimes it felt like he’d been awake for a month when the daylight came.

“Stay right here in the car,” Halders answered.

“What will we do when we get there, then?” Winter asked.

“Call for backup,” said Halders.

“Are you joking?”

“Naturally.”

Winter had known Halders for a few months now. They didn’t fight anymore. They traveled through the nights together. They went up strange and frightening stairwells together, with weapons drawn. Bled together, but it was always someone else’s blood; it was impossible to avoid
that.
Blood was their workday. He saw blood every week: some weeks every day, some days every hour. What the hell was the point of that? The point was that he went up stairwells. That he drew his weapon. That he was standing there,
being
there. But it was almost always over. If only he had gotten there before. They seldom arrived in time.

“Is it here?”

Halders turned his head. Winter read from his notes and looked up. He hadn’t been born on Hisingen. This was far beyond Vågmästareplatsen, which was closer to downtown. A person who hadn’t been born on the island never really learned his way around. It was as though it moved every time he came there. The points of the compass were no longer valid.

Halders had stopped beside a five-story building. There were six or seven identical buildings around it in a spiny half circle. There was a number above each entrance, and each building had three entrances. Winter read the number in his notebook aloud. Halders started the car and drove alongside the buildings. It felt as though they were leaning over the car. It was the shadows. The shadows at night were different compared to the daytime ones; they were artificial shadows, and they could be dangerous. You lost perspective. One night, Winter had run in the wrong direction because of the false shadow, and that could have ended in a way he didn’t want to think about.

Halders parked beyond the entrance, possibly out of sight of the windows. Winter wasn’t thinking about that right now. He looked up at the windows. They were dark.

“I would have preferred the lights to be on up there,” Halders said.

“I would have preferred this to be over,” Winter said, and he drew his Walther and checked the bolt.

“I like you, Winter,” Halders said, smiling. “You’re already looking ahead.”

“What did he say when he called?”

“A fucking racket. Heavy fucking traffic.”

“It can’t get any calmer than this.”

“Makes a guy nervous, huh?”

“Maybe we should think about that backup you were just talking about,” said Winter.

“It doesn’t exist. Are you ready?”

“Are we both going?”

“One after the other. You first.”

“Why me?”

“I’m the only one of us with eyes in the back of my head,” Halders said.

They got out of the car, continued together along the facade of the building, and went in through the front door, which was apparently not equipped with a lock, or maybe the lock was not working. They didn’t turn on the light in the stairwell. They couldn’t hear any sounds from any of the apartments as they passed the doors on the way up. Winter hadn’t seen any lights in the windows next to this entrance. It was as though the entire stairwell had been evacuated. The guy who had called hadn’t said anything about that. He had only told them about the fucking racket, the fucking traffic. Traffic was down right now. There was an awful silence in the stairwell, the worst kind; it was like it was waiting for them. Winter had learned to recognize it. It would start to roar sooner or later.

“Next one,” Halders whispered.

Winter nodded toward the rough wall. The meager light in the stairwell came from the streetlights outside. This was a long way for the light to come. They stood beside the door, one on each side. There was a peephole in the middle of the door. Halders pressed the doorbell. The ring sounded very loud; the sound was enhanced by the darkness. It was a shrill ring, like in an old-fashioned clock. There was no melody to the ringing; even Halders’s singing earlier had been melodic compared to this ringing. Halders pressed again. Again, there was shrieking and rasping in the hall beyond the door. That was what
they heard. No voices, no steps. Winter bent down and carefully lifted the metal flap over the mail slot. He saw only darkness. After about ten seconds he saw the contours of the rug that lay inside the door. A faint light was coming from somewhere inside the apartment, presumably from a window. It was the same worthless light.

W
inter lifted his head and nodded at Halders.

Halders pounded his fist against the door.

“Police! Open the door!”

Winter listened for sounds from inside. It was almost always possible to hear something. No silence was completely quiet.

“Open the door,” Halders repeated. He tapped his fist lightly on the veneer of the door. It sounded thin, hollow. Another blow and Halders would be through. They were still standing in the gloom of the stairwell. No one stepped out of any of the doors to turn on the lights and ask what in God’s name was going on.

They didn’t hear anything from inside. There was a rushing sound outside; it could be the wind or the building’s ventilation system.

Winter thought of the agitated voice on the telephone:

“They’re screaming in there! There’s a woman screaming!”

Halders placed his ear against the door.

Winter felt the door handle, pulled it down.

The door opened when he tugged at it.

“Shit, it’s not locked,” said Halders.

“Take it easy.”

Halders nodded. He slowly opened the door. Winter felt his pulse, as he felt the weapon in his hand. It felt like now. This was now. This was nothing you could practice for, not in any real way. There could be anything at all in the darkness, inside the apartment. To go in there could be to say farewell to this world. That was what he was feeling right now. He hadn’t had that feeling very many times yet.

“I’m going to turn on the light,” Halders said. “Be prepared.”

The hall suddenly lit up, as though there had been an explosion. Winter shielded his eyes with his left hand. They waited for ten seconds and then stepped in. There were clothes lying on the floor, outerwear, innerwear. Shoes.

They walked carefully from room to room. There was no one in the apartment.

There were red stains on the floor in the kitchen. There were newspapers lying on the floor. The red stuff had run down onto the newspapers like paint. The papers lay there like a protective layer, as though the red stuff were paint. Winter could see a headline, but it didn’t tell him anything. He could see pictures.

“What the hell is this?” Halders said.

Winter didn’t say anything. He bent down. He looked at the stains. It could have been paint. He could have been a painter.

“There’s a lot,” Halders said, and he turned around and looked at Winter. “Do you feel sick?”

“No.”

“You’re pale, kid.”

“What happened in here?” said Winter.

Halders turned around again.

“Whatever it was, it’s over now.”

“There was no blood in the stairwell,” Winter said.

“We don’t know that yet, do we? Forensics hasn’t been here yet, have they?”

What would they look for? Winter thought. What kind of crime had taken place here? If it is a crime.

“Someone could have cut himself on the arm when he was cutting a ham,” Halders said. “Or butchered a few chickens. What do you think?”

“Where’s the knife?”

“He forgot to toss it,” Halders said.

“Where is he, then?” said Winter.

“He doesn’t remember,” Halders said.

Winter didn’t say anything about Halders’s absurd comments.

“We’ll have to have a chat with the witness,” Halders said.

“He doesn’t live here, does he?” said Winter.

“On the other side of the courtyard.”

“What was he doing in this stairwell?”

“Was going to visit a friend on the floor below, dispatch says. Guess the friend wasn’t home. But our witness heard a fucking commotion from in here.”

Winter nodded. Now there was only fucking silence there. Sometimes it could seem as though screams remained in a room he came to, but that’s not how it was this time. Whoever had been here had taken their screams with them.

Halders looked around again.

“Fucking weird,” he said.

“I guess we’ll have to go talk to that guy,” Winter said.

“I’ll call for another car,” Halders said. “We can’t leave until someone else is here.”

“I’ll look around a little more,” said Winter.

He went out into the stairwell and read the nameplate on the door. Martinsson. No first name. He knew absolutely nothing about Martinsson, him or her or them. There hadn’t been time for that. He knew nothing about what had happened here. It was fucking weird, as Halders had said. Without a victim, they knew nothing.

He went into the hall and continued into the closest room. The double bed was unmade. It looked like two people had lain in it; there was a depression in each of the two pillows. It could have been this morning, yesterday, the day before yesterday.

There was blood in the bedroom. He saw it the second time he looked. At first it looked like part of the pattern on the pillow. It looked as though it had ended up there on purpose. You had to look at least twice to tell.

What had happened here?

He went back to the kitchen.

They waited for forensics, and then they walked across the courtyard to the building on the other side. Winter heard a dog barking
from a grove of trees at the north end of the row of houses. It looked like a forest for children. The trees stood close together, but there didn’t seem to be many of them.

The barking continued as they walked in through the entrance. Winter could still hear it as he walked up the stairs.

They rang at another door. Winter read the nameplate: Metzer. It sounded German, or maybe French, or maybe Italian. Quite a few people from other countries lived in this part of town, southern Europeans, Finns. The Finnish colony was large. They had big parties with lots of akvavit, but his colleagues in patrol seldom had to come out here. The Finns took care of their own drunks; they were probably the best in the world at that, they and the Russians. The Swedes were worse at it, even though the country was in the middle of the vodka belt.

Winter remained standing a few stairs down. The man who might be named Metzer opened the door. Winter didn’t know the name of the guy who made the call. Halders had taken it. Halders and Winter had been in the vicinity. They were investigating a gang that was suspected of smuggling narcotics. Yes, they could go an extra kilometer. The gang wasn’t there anyway.

“Metzer?” Halders said.

Winter couldn’t see the man. He was still standing inside the door. There was a draft through the stairwell, a breeze from below, as though someone had opened the front door and was holding it open. Winter could hear the dog barking again; it came up with the wind. The door must be open down there.

“May we come in?” Halders said.

Winter heard only a mumble from the door. He still hadn’t seen the man’s face, just Halders’s back.

“I just have to check something,” he said, and he started to go down the stairs.

“Did you forget something?” Halders asked, and he turned around.

“You go in,” Winter answered. “I’ll be right back.”

The door was open downstairs. He could see that someone had propped it open; the chain was tight.

A boy with a dog on a taut leash was standing in front of the building. The boy looked at him without saying anything. The dog was quiet now, but it wasn’t calm. It was straining to get to the small collection of trees, as though there were a magnet there.

“Did you see anyone open the door?” Winter asked.

The boy shook his head. He might have been eleven, maybe twelve.

“Do you live here?” Winter asked.