Room No. 10 (36 page)

He got up and quickly went to her and lifted her up and felt her tears against his cheek.

“There there, sweetheart.”

She quieted and snuffled and he carried her into the living room. She weighed nothing, a weightless daughter. She started to nod off right away as he rocked her back and forth in front of the big window that looked out onto the city that would soon awaken. He felt her hand move against his neck. It was weightless, too, like a feather.

•   •   •

The dreams didn’t want to come back. Winter got up out of the bed again and tried to sneak out into the kitchen without waking anyone. Elsa moved in her bed but didn’t wake up.

He sat down at the table with a glass of water. He wasn’t thirsty. Maybe the water would help him nod off. It had become more difficult to sleep.

The shadow on the facade of the building across the courtyard formed a pattern that could depict anything. A figure, two figures. He suddenly thought of Christer Börge. A figure on his way out of the church. Börge hadn’t looked in his direction, but Winter had sensed that Börge knew that he’d been sitting there. The way he didn’t move his head. As though he could only stare straight ahead.

Börge hadn’t changed so much that he became someone else.

Winter hadn’t sat next to Nina Lorrinder during their visit to the church. But he had exchanged a few words with her in there last time. He wondered now whether Börge had seen it.

•   •   •

The sun hung low above the hills. In the distance he could see the facade of the hospital. It cast a large shadow, but it didn’t reach this far. The room he was standing in was very bright in the sunlight. There was a worn-out expression that said that something was bathed in light, but he had never seen the image before him. Exactly how did things bathe in light? Today, in Paula’s apartment, everything was light; there were no differences. As he stood in the middle of the floor, it struck him that the sun out there had always been hidden during the three or four times he’d been here before. It had been that kind of autumn.

Had Paula felt threatened? Was she hiding from someone? When did the threat begin? Did it exist? He had thought about it as he had held his daughter’s little bird-body close. Maybe he had begun to think about it even as he had held her mother’s body in the same way. A long threat. No. An earlier one. No. Recent? No. A current one? No. Yes. No. Yes. Her loneliness. Paula’s loneliness. She didn’t choose it herself. Winter looked around in the shrouded apartment. Soon the shrouds would be removed and someone else would receive permission to live her life here. To live her life. It was a right.

He walked up to the window. He could see the house he’d lived in as a young man. The chief inspector as a young man. There had been winter and summer and winter again here, but he had hardly noticed wind and weather in those days. There wasn’t time for things like that in his life. His life flung him along toward the new challenges in his chosen career. That was his life. Crime. He had had a long way to go toward a method and an attitude. His whole world was discipline; he thought like a threshing machine; he was promoted. Yes, he was promoted. What had he thought when he became chief inspector? Didn’t they say that he was the youngest in the country? Thirty-seven years old. Had he cared? Yes. No.

He turned away from the window and walked across the plastic mat on the floor. It was, in turn, covered by a layer of plastic.

His cell phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Do you see anything I didn’t see?” Halders asked.

“There’s better light this time,” Winter answered.

“Blinding,” said Halders.

“No, the opposite. But I don’t know what I should be looking for, Fredrik. We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Letters,” said Halders, “photos.”

Words, pictures, things that could describe a life, a past. That’s what they always came back to. The before, as Elsa had said last week. Children created the concrete language that meant what it really meant. There was the now and the before and in Winter’s world, they existed simultaneously, and all the time.

He walked out into the kitchen as he spoke to Halders on his cell phone. The kitchen wasn’t shrouded in the same way as the other two rooms in the apartment.

“Maybe she kept a diary,” said Halders.

“It could be in the suitcase,” said Winter, “if there is one.”

“Everything we need is in that suitcase,” said Halders.

“And yet here I stand,” said Winter, “and you’ve stood here, too.”

“Look around again,” said Halders.

He looked around. The white paint in there was whiter than ever, applied in another layer, or several. Along with the sunshine coming through the window, the color made the kitchen blinding. Had the murderer been here? Had he sat at this table? It was the same table. Everything in this kitchen was the same as before the renovation.

“Who talked to the painters?” Winter asked.

“Sorry?”

“The painters. The ones who were doing the renovations when Paula was murdered? Who talked to them?”

“Damned if I know, Erik. Wasn’t it Bergenhem?”

“Can you find out?”

“Of course. But if he got anything out of them, we would have known. Bergenhem doesn’t miss things like that.”

Winter didn’t answer. One ray of sunlight reached farther than the others and shone against one of the cupboard doors above the stove. The door looked like a piece of a sun.

“Do you mean that they saw something we ought to know?” Halders continued.

“They were here,” said Winter. “I don’t know how much they had to clear away before they really got to work. But they were here before us.”

T
he conference room was just as illuminated as Paula’s apartment. The November sun hung above Ullevi as though it had gotten the wrong season and the wrong point of the compass. No one had lowered the blinds. Halders had put on his sunglasses.

Djanali took her hand from her eyes, got up, walked over to the window, lowered the blinds, and shrugged her shoulders at Winter, who was still standing there. He saw an airplane on its way south through the friendly skies. People still had the sense to leave; their brains hadn’t frozen to their craniums yet.

This wouldn’t last. The sun would come to its senses again and head south, too.

Ringmar discreetly cleared his throat and Winter turned around.

“Feel free to speak,” he said.

“Well, thanks,” said Halders.

Even Ringmar smiled. And Halders was right. It was a crappy expression. In this context, everyone should always feel free to speak. Free speech was like a tradition in this part of the world, he thought. It was different down south.

“So take advantage of that freedom,” Djanali said, nudging Halders in the side with her elbow.

“We have someone who seems to be obsessed with hotels,” said Halders.

“Or rather, killing people in hotels,” said Bergenhem.

“That kind of goes without saying,” said Halders.

Bergenhem didn’t answer.

“Room number ten,” said Djanali.

“What?”

“Paula was in room number ten,” Djanali repeated, and turned toward Halders. “And . . . Börge . . . Ellen Börge had checked into room number ten.”

She looked at Winter, who was still standing by the window. He seldom left that position during these talks. It was good to stand a bit apart; the words sometimes worked better if they could fly a bit farther, and it might be the same with thoughts. The point was that the thoughts should fly. Sometimes it worked.

“Yeah, yeah, her,” said Halders. “I guess she’s still missing, from what I understand.”

“Is she still part of the background of this investigation?” Bergenhem asked.

“Has she ever been part of it?” Halders said. “Erik? Are you still thinking about her?”

“I haven’t for a while,” said Winter.

“That’s a coincidence,” said Halders.

Winter didn’t answer.

“She’s gone,” said Halders.

“Elisabeth Ney is, too,” said Djanali.

“What does that mean?” said Halders.

“I don’t really know. But she’s the one we’re talking about here, first and foremost.”

“You’re the one who mentioned room number ten,” said Halders.

“You’re the one who mentioned hotels,” said Djanali.

“How did he get in?” said Winter, and every head turned toward him. “Elisabeth’s murderer. He must have moved around the Hotel Odin. Presumably several times. How did he get in without anyone noticing him?”

“Maybe someone did,” said Bergenhem. “We haven’t questioned everyone yet.”

“A disguise,” said Halders.

“How?” Bergenhem asked.

Halders shrugged his shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter what anyone saw. It wasn’t him, anyway.”

“It was someone,” said Djanali. “That might be enough.”

“The long coat?”

“It works better in October, anyway,” said Ringmar, “compared to August.”

“It’s November now,” said Djanali.

“Of course, the question is also how she got in,” said Bergenhem.

“And what shape she was in then,” said Halders.

“She was murdered in there,” said Ringmar. “We know that much.”

“How could he arrange a meeting with her in there?” said Bergenhem. “Why did she go along with meeting there?”

“Maybe that’s not where she thought she was going,” said Ringmar. “He could have carried her, shoved her.”

“So their rendezvous was out in the stairwell?” said Halders, looking around. “Well, if that’s the case, it clears this right up.”

“Your sarcasm is really a big help to all of us, Fredrik,” said Djanali.

“Rendezvous,” said Winter. “Do you know what that word actually means, Fredrik?”

“Yeah, what about it? . . . It means meeting. A planned meeting.”

“An arranged meeting, yes,” said Winter. “Most often in the sense of an arranged meeting between lovers.”

It was quiet around the table for a few seconds.

“She went there to meet her lover?” Djanali asked.

“Well, it’s a thought,” said Ringmar.

“She was gone for just over twenty-four hours,” said Halders. “Where was she during that time? If she had a lover, shouldn’t she already have been with him? Maybe that’s where she was. We couldn’t find her. Presumably she wasn’t wandering the streets. She was somewhere.”

“Maybe in that storeroom,” said Bergenhem.

“Without being discovered?” said Halders.

Bergenhem shrugged.

“No,” said Ringmar. “We’ve checked the maids’ routines. They come and go pretty often. At least a few times a day.”

“As long as someone didn’t ask someone else to keep away,” said Halders, lifting his hand and rubbing his thumb between his index and middle fingers. “Maybe hinting at a little lovers’ tryst.”

Winter nodded.

“Anyway, we need to talk some more with those two who used the storeroom. The stairwell was their territory. Maybe they remember more now.”

“Speaking of territory,” said Djanali. “We started by talking about hotels. So: Why hotels?”

“Exactly,” said Halders.

Everyone suddenly looked at Winter, as though he were standing there with the answer at the ready. Don’t you think I’ve thought about that? he thought. There’s a reason for it.

“There’s a reason for it,” he said.

“You just need to tell us which one,” said Halders.

“Give me a few days,” said Winter.

“You have a month,” said Ringmar.

Winter’s leave of absence wasn’t a secret. Halders had slowly taken part in leading the investigation. He would continue to do so until the prosecutor took over for him. But for that they needed a reasonable suspect. Winter would be happy to leave a suspect behind when he got on the plane. He didn’t want to keep leading this investigation via cell phone from Nueva Andalucía.

“Has anyone we’ve questioned worked at a hotel?” Djanali asked. “I don’t mean just those from these hotels. Hotels in general.”

“Not that we know of.”

“Maybe we don’t know enough,” said Djanali.

“The johns and the Social Democrats at Revy,” said Halders, as though those two types of people were cut from the same fabric. “Are we really finished with them?”

“Of course not,” said Ringmar.

“But you know how long it takes.”

Halders looked like he was planning to say more, probably something bitter, probably about politicians, but he refrained.

“The connection,” said Bergenhem, “we have to try to see the connection.”

“Well, there’s an obvious connection here,” said Halders.

“Yes?” said Bergenhem.

“The family connection. We’re working on two murders in the same family, in case no one had noticed.”

“And?” said Bergenhem.

“The head of the family,” said Halders. “Where do you usually start looking for the perpetrator?” He turned to Bergenhem. “Do you remember that lesson at the police academy? Or did you have the shakies and sickies that day?”

•   •   •

Mario Ney looked like he had the shakies and sickies in the room where Winter had met him several times. It looked like Ney was starting to fall apart.

They had tried to piece together a potential alibi for Ney, but one didn’t exist. That didn’t have to mean anything; it might even be to his advantage. He hadn’t sought out company during the recent chaotic times. He had sought his own solitude, at first along with Elisabeth, then alone here in the apartment. Winter had looked for answers in the man’s face, in his words, in his manner of moving. He expressed sorrow, sorrow and despair. Other feelings would come later. He might become suicidal; maybe he already was. The Ney family might disappear from the earth. Someone wanted that to happen.

“I have some questions to ask,” said Winter.

Ney looked out through the window. He had been doing so since Winter had walked into this room, a room that smelled closed up, a sweetish smell that might also be sweat, fear, despair.

“She looked like she was sleeping,” said Ney.

His eyes were still fastened on nothing outside.

He turned his head.

“My little Elisabeth. Like she was sleeping.”

Winter nodded. He had let Ney see his wife’s body. It wasn’t an obvious decision. They hadn’t let Ney see her neck, only her face.