Sun and Shadow (2 page)

Morelius reached for the microphone:

“Eleven-ten here. We’re closer, we’re in Korsvägen and will deal with it.”

“Okay, eleven-ten.”

The patrol car from the Lorensberg police district left the roundabout and drove up to the shopping center. A group of youths were huddled together in the car park. As the police pulled up, one of them ran over to the door that Bartram had just opened.

“It was me who called,” said a girl who looked no more than sixteen. She was waving her mobile phone as if it might confirm what she’d just said. Her hair was straight and shiny, molded to her head by the rain. Big, scared eyes. She smelled of alcohol and tobacco. Arms flailing. “She’s lying over here. Maria’s lying over here, but she’s better now.”

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Bartram said.

Morelius went with the girl to the group of youngsters. They were gathered in a semicircle around a girl who was slowly getting to her feet. As Morelius came up to her she staggered and he reached out an. arm to grab hold of her. She weighed nothing. She looked like the twin of the girl they’d been talking to, but her eyes were miles away. Certainly nobody at home here, thought Morelius.

She stank of alcohol and vomit. Morelius could feel the sticky mess under his shoes. Be careful not to slip. Seconds later the girl was staring at the police officer, her eyes suddenly focused.

“I want to go home,” she said.

“What have you taken?” Morelius asked.

“No-nothing,” she said. “Just a couple of beers.”

‘A couple of beers, eh?“ Morelius eyed the group of friends. ”What has she got inside her? This is important. If you know, speak up now, and I mean RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT.“ They looked frightened.

“It’s like she said,” a boy in a woolly hat and a tracksuit top piped up. ‘A couple of beers ... and some liquor.“

“Liquor? What liquor? Who’s got the bottle?”

They looked at one another.

“THE BOTTLE,” Morelius said.

The boy in the woolly hat put his hand inside his baggy top and produced a bottle. Bartram held it up in the glow from one of the streetlights.

“There’s no label,” he said.

“Er ... no.”

“What is it?” asked Bartram, as they all heard the sirens from an approaching ambulance. “What kind of piss is this? Is it moonshine?”

“Yes ... I think so,” said the boy. “I bought it off a friend.” He looked as if he were about to burst into tears. “He said it was completely okay.”

“Well, it’s not okay,” Morelius said. “He could feel the girl’s weight increase on his arm. She was about to pass out again. ”Where’s that damn ambulance?“

 

They were in the ER waiting room. The girl had been taken for treatment. Twenty minutes later a doctor appeared. Morelius could see from his face that she was all right.

A young boy was shuffling nervously in the waiting room. Morelius recognized him. Maybe he’d been one of those outside Focus. How had he got here?

“Alcohol in a young body, well ... not a good combination.”

“How is she?”

“Not too bad, under the circumstances. She’ll have to stay here overnight, though.”

“So the stuff she drank was ... okay?” Bartram asked.

The doctor gave him an odd look. “You mean the moonshine? Is that ever okay?”

“You know what I mean, for fuck’s sake.”

The doctor eyed him up and down.

“There’s no need to lose your temper,” he said. He stroked his hand over his white coat as if to brush off Bartram’s outburst. “No need at all.”

“I’m sorry” Bartram said. “It’s just that we care about the girl. Some of us police officers are like that.”

“We just want to know if she’s ... done any other damage to herself, apart from the usual, whether the stuff was more dangerous than liquor normally is,” Morelius said.

The doctor looked at them doubtfully, as if he thought they were putting him on.

“Everything seems to be normal at the moment,” he said. “But we leave nothing to chance here. Has her family been contacted, by the way?”

“Yes,” Morelius said. “Her mom should be here any moment.”

“Well ... in that case,” said the doctor, starting to leave.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Bartram said.

They watched the doctor disappear through the swinging doors.

“Arrogant bastard,” Bartram said.

“He no doubt thinks the same about you.”

Bartram muttered something inaudible and looked at his colleague. It was shortly after eleven and Morelius’s face seemed speckled in the bright light of the waiting room.

“So she’s the vicar’s daughter, is she? Are you sure? Hanne Östergaard, who heals our suffering souls.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.” Morelius had the girl’s purse in his hand. He’d examined her ID card. “Maria Ostergaard. An address in Orgryte. Our police chaplain is called Hanne Ostergaard and lives in Orgryte. And she has a daughter called Maria.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, no.”

“I’m not a hundred percent certain.” A woman hurried in through the door. “Now I’m certain,” said Morelius, and went over to Hanne.

“Where’s Maria?” she asked. “Where is she, Simon?”

“She’s still in the treatment room, or whatever it’s called,” Morelius said. “But everything seems to be all right.”

“All right? Everything seems to be all right?” Hanne looked as if she were close to hysterics. “Is there anybody here who can show me where to go?” A nurse had just come in through the swinging doors and the police officers watched as Hanne half-ran into the corridor leading to the treatment room.

The boy who’d been hovering in the background followed her. He glanced over his shoulder, then disappeared into the corridor.

“You were right, dammit,” Bartram said. “And you’re on first-name terms.”

Morelius didn’t answer.

“Not even vicars are spared,” Bartram said.

“From what?”

“From shattering events involving their nearest and dearest. You don’t have any children, to my knowledge.”

“No. But it looks as though this business is going to have a happy ending.”

“Thanks to us.”

“Maybe. A young kid has too much to drink and throws up. She’d probably have come around after a while and her friends would have helped her to get home. Happens all the time. Hasn’t it happened to you?”

“Me? Not that I remember.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Let’s go,” Bartram said.

 

They drove toward the center of town, past Chalmers and Vasa Hospital. The rain had gotten worse. Streetlights seemed fainter now, as if wrapped up in the night. Bartram stopped at a red light. Two women crossed the street but neither turned to look at the patrol car and smile. Morelius adjusted the radio. They listened in to the spasmodic calls. A bewildered old pensioner who’d been reported missing in Änggården a few hours ago had turned up again. A heated discussion taking place in an apartment in Kortedala had calmed down by the time their colleagues arrived. A drunk leaning against a stationary tram in Brunnsparken had fallen over when it moved off. Could that be classified as a traffic accident? Bartram thought to himself.

Morelius was thinking about Hanne Ostergaard and the conversation he’d had with her a couple of weeks ago. Bartram hadn’t asked any more questions, and he was grateful for that.

 

Erik Winter turned off the light and left his office. It had stopped raining. He cycled home through Heden, giving way to somebody in Vasagatan who seemed to assume there was nobody else in the road. Water splashed all over his trousers, probably other crap as well. It was too dark to see. He had thought of stopping in at the covered market, but decided to pass. His mobile rang. He stopped and took it out of the inside pocket of his raincoat.

“I can’t make up my mind about the sofa,” Angela said when he answered. “I just had to get some advice without delay.”

“I hope you’re not lifting anything?”

“No, of course not.”

“I think you should bring it with you if you can’t make up your mind. I’ve got loads of room, after all.”

“But where would we put it?”

“Can’t this wait until tonight?”

“I wanted to be as well prepared as possible.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s a big decision, this.”

“I know.”

“Have you really thought it through? Maybe we should buy a house ...”

“Come on, Angela.”

‘All right, all right. It’s just that everything’s so bewildering. Everything.“

Maybe that’s the right word, Winter thought, brushing some drops of rain off his shoulder. Bewildering. For the first time in his adult life he was about to start living with somebody else. He and Angela had been conducting an affair for years, but now they were going to live together. He had the feeling that she was the driving force behind the decision. No, that wasn’t fair. He would have to accept some of the responsibility as well.

There was no alternative. Either they would live together or ... it would be over. But they’d gone beyond that now. He wouldn’t dare to call it off. The loneliness would be too great, no doubt about it. It would make things worse. Lonely into the new millennium. New Year’s Eve: a disc in the CD player and a glass of something. That would be it. Bleak prospects lit up by all the fireworks.

Soon there would be only three months left before the year 2000. And he was going to be forty, and before long not the youngest detective chief inspector in Sweden anymore.

Winter got back on his bike.

“See you at eight,” Angela said, and he switched off his phone.

 

It was night in the apartment, no lights burning anymore. A standard lamp had been on all day, but the bulb had gone. As dawn broke, autumn sidled in through the venetian blinds and a roller blind in the bedroom let in patches of light.

The fridge was humming away. There were wineglasses on the kitchen table, and an empty wine bottle. On the work surface next to the cooker was an oblong dish with some dried-up lumps of tagliatelle. Next to it was a pan with the dregs of some mushroom sauce. The sauce had turned black. Three slices of tomato were slowly decomposing on a wooden chopping board.

Three dinner plates were in the dishwasher, with some side plates and more glasses, cutlery, another saucepan.

The tap was dripping; it needed a new washer. The sound could be heard throughout the apartment, day and night, but the couple on the living room sofa didn’t hear a thing.

Items of clothing were strewn around them and traced a line from the kitchen and through the hall to the living room: men’s socks, a couple of pairs of trousers, a pair of stockings, a skimpy sweater. Near the sofa were‘a blouse, a shirt, some underwear. The sounds of the night drifted in through the window. Trams. A few cars. A sudden gust of wind. A laugh from somebody on the way home from a restaurant.

The man and woman were naked. They were holding hands. They were turned toward each other. There was something odd about their heads.

 

Was that right? Was that how it should be? Was that the image? He tried to conjure it up, tried to envisage it.

He was in the kitchen. He walked through the hall. The clothes were on the floor. He put his hand over his eyes as he approached the sofa. Then he looked. Nobody there. He looked again and there they were, facing each other. Her face was so familiar.

Their heads. Their HEADS.

He rubbed his eyes. Now he could hear the street noise as he opened the car door. He could feel the rain on his face as he got out of the car and stood in the street in front of the building.

He wished he could put the clock back. The people strolling down the street didn’t know, they knew nothing. Nothing. They didn’t know they were living in paradise.

Winter stood in the hall without switching on the light. Angela would be home in an hour, if not sooner.

How long had he been living here? Ten years? Was it really ten years? Something like that. How many women had he brought back to his apartment during all that time? He preferred not to think about it. He could hold up both hands and count his fingers: that would probably be enough.

He walked through the rooms illuminated by the light from the city streets. He smiled. Soon he’d have to wade through piles of underwear in the hall. A stocking draped over the back of the sofa. He knew Angela. You need a bit of untidiness in your life, she’d said. You’ll bring chaos, he’d said. About time, was her reply.

What if she says no in the end? he’d thought not very long ago. Grown tired of him?

The trams came and went in Vasaplatsen down below. The wall opposite the big window in the living room was white in the evening glow. Just to the side was the shiny red dot on the CD player. Winter went over to it and took out the Springsteen box he’d been sent at great expense last autumn by his London friend, DCI Steve MacDonald. He’d done it so that Winter would be impressed by how much the postage had cost and listen as seriously as he could. Winter liked jazz and MacDonald accepted that, but he’d damn well see to it that Winter got a decent education in all the good things he’d missed during his sheltered youth, growing up with John Coltrane.