Sun and Shadow (22 page)

They had met Steve briefly in Gothenburg just over three years ago, but they hadn’t met his wife. Or the twins. Perhaps they should wait until there were three youngsters. At the beginning of April. Three.

“What do you think of Elias?” asked Angela as he marched into the kitchen. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“Should I do it?”

“Yes, please.” She handed over the knife and Winter started chopping the onions. Half of them were still waiting to be done.

“What do you think? Elias? Or Isak? Emanuel?”

“Why not Esau?”

“Be serious now.”

“Well ... a bit biblical ... but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You believe in God.”

“Occasionally.”

“You’ve always said that we have to have something to give us strength.”

“Yes.”

“Isabella.”

“An excellent name.”

“Olivia.”

“Also excellent.”

“Leo.”

Winter blinked away the tears as the onions were chopped.

“Hmm ... maybe. You seem to have stopped feeling sick now.”

“It normally stops after twelve weeks or so, and we’re well past that point. Now comes a quiet, peaceful period. For the mother, at least.”

“How’s your stomach? How’s Elias?”

“Feel for yourself,” she said, getting up from the chair she’d only just sat down on. “Come with me.”

She went to the bedroom and Winter put down the knife and followed her. Angela lay down and exposed her stomach, which had grown bigger still. Winter sat down on the bed. It could be the first time. He hadn’t felt anything so far. Everything was so hard to grasp. Was it real? She’d been feeling fetal movements for weeks now, maybe five. Kicks. Winter thought about football again, could picture the guys at Heden.

“Put your hand there.”

He did as he was told. He could feel something moving. It was real.

Morelius and Bartram stopped at a red light. Morelius saw a movement in a car way over to his right out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw an elderly man fastening his seat belt. Bartram had seen him as well. Morelius gave the man a friendly nod.

Bartram grinned. “If he’d kept still we wouldn’t have noticed.”

“No.”

“One thing this job gives you is split vision,” Bartram said.

“What else does it give you?” said Morelius, moving away as the lights changed.

“Eh?”

“What else does this job give you, apart from split vision?”

Bartram didn’t answer. He was busy watching the Christmas decorations going up in the streets and at the entrances to the arcades.

“Here we go again,” he said.

“What?”

“The hell that is Christmas is once more upon us.”

Morelius stopped at a pedestrian crossing. A young woman was wheeling a wide stroller with two children in it. She waved in acknowledgment, and Morelius raised his hand in return.

“Poor her, having to push those two around when she goes Christmas shopping,” Bartram said.

“Poor you, when you have to go Christmas shopping,” Morelius said.

Bartram didn’t answer.

“You don’t seem to hear what I say today, Greger.”

“I hear.”

“But you don’t answer.”

“I don’t go Christmas shopping. I never wander around the center of town when I’m not on duty. Especially in this seasonal hysteria.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you get annoyed by all the drunks and other scum drifting around? Don’t you think: there’s somebody who’s sure as hell wanted? Don’t you think: there goes the bastard, and where are the damn police?”

Morelius agreed. It wasn’t only when he was on duty. Whenever he walked down the Avenue he noticed the staff entrances where they’d been to pick up shoplifters. He saw the entrance to a pub or outside the post office where everybody peed after dark. That’s where somebody had his shoulder broken. That’s where that woman ran amok. That’s where that guy was shot. That’s where the fight took place ...

“I don’t like Christmas,” Bartram said.

“Is there anything you do like?”

Bartram didn’t answer. He was staring straight ahead. Morelius turned into Götaplatsen. The sun was strong, the sky blue. The high pressure was persisting, which was unusual. There were little drifts of snow in corners on the steps. Gangs of youngsters were standing around outside the library. People streamed into the Park Avenue Hotel for lunch. A line of twenty taxis were outside. Some of the idiots had left their engines running for half an hour. The exhaust fumes hung in clouds around the cars. Morelius was tempted to stop and make them switch off.

“What was it like inside there?” Bartram said.

“Eh?” Morelius turned right after the hotel and found himself behind a bus in Engelbrektsgatan. “Inside where?”

“What was it like inside the apartment? Aschebergsgatan. The double murder.”

“You’re asking me now?” They’d hardly spoken about it at all since it happened. It was like that sometimes. He hadn’t said anything. Bartram had stayed outside on the landing. “What do you want to know?”

“What did it look like?”

“What do you mean, look like?” He glanced toward Bartram on his right, but Bartram didn’t turn to look at him. They’d gone as far as the Scandinavium. No calls were coming over the radio. A gang of ice-hockey supporters were parading around with banners before that night’s match. “What did they look like, do you mean?”

Bartram nodded without looking at him. Morelius didn’t say any more. They were negotiating the roundabout at Korsvägen. I’ve been around this thing eighteen million times, he thought. Over there I was in another squad car once. I lugged teenage drunks from the Liseberg pleasure gardens, and then their friends hauled them back again. I’ve bought newspapers and Snickers bars at the newsstand over there. Now we’re driving up Eklandabacken. I’m at the wheel. The car’s going straight ahead like it’s on rails.

“What’s the matter, Simon?” Bartram had turned to look at him, then looked ahead again. “Look out, for CHRIST’S SAKE!” They were about to ram a taxi outside Panorama. Morelius stamped on the brakes. They stopped a few inches short. The cabdriver stared at them. His passenger, who’d been getting out, did the same. “Did you fall asleep?”

Morelius reversed, overtook the taxi, and continued. Everything was the same as before. The street was still there. The car was going straight ahead. Bartram looked at him. Morelius turned down toward Mossen. The radio crackled into life, but the call was not for them.

“The heads had been exchanged,” said Morelius.

“What?”

“Their heads had been exchanged. Didn’t you know that? It’s not public knowledge, but surely every cop in town knows about it.”

“Not me. Nobody’s told me.”

“He had her head, and she, his.”

“Jesus.”

“They were holding hands.”

Morelius came to another roundabout. He checked carefully this time before proceeding.

Patrik acknowledged that he would have to do something. He’d phoned the police and been put through to somebody called Möller, or something. He’d been asked for his own name.

“It’s about that ... murder,” he said.

“I thought we’d spoken to all the newspaper boys,” Möller said when he’d explained who he was.

Now Patrik was sitting in front of a large, short-haired police officer who didn’t seem all that old, and another who did. He felt a bit like a celebrity. Important. But it wasn’t fun. When he’d arrived, the younger man had looked at him as if he were made of glass, all the way through.

This was the guy Ria had been going on about. The one he’d seen on the tram. The skirt he was with was a babe. He seemed to be a hard case. Expensive shirt. He looked like somebody from a gangster film. They’d rented
L.A. Confidential
because Ria liked the cover, and he could easily have been in that. The right style.

“So you saw somebody leaving the elevator?” Winter asked.

“Yes.”

“A man?”

“Definitely”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I caught a glimpse of him from the side as he left the building. His profile.”

“How much of the profile?”

“Er ... at an angle from behind. But enough to see that it was a guy.”

“How old, would you say?” Ringmar asked.

“Well, about your age,” said Patrik, looking at Winter.

“All right. What happened? Start from when you entered the building.”

Patrik told them his story. It was the same as he’d told Maria.

They asked about dates, days, times.

“What about his clothes?” asked Winter. “The overcoat. Long, short?”

“Longer than short. Er ...”

“Below the knee?”

“I think so.”

“What else?”

“Eh?”

“What else did you see besides the overcoat?”

“That’s just it. There was something else ... but I can’t remember. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Something else.”

“What do you mean, something else?”

“Not connected with the overcoat.”

“His hair?”

“I can’t say anything about his hair, as I said before. When I sort of got to his hair he was, like, in the shadow in the entrance hall. I can’t say anything about his hair. Not the color or anything.”

“Would you have noticed if it had been long?” Winter asked.

“Hmm ... maybe.” He scratched his cheek. “Yes, I think I would.”

“Was he tall?”

“Normal.”

“Normal?”

“Like, he wasn’t a dwarf. Not a seven-footer either. But I was a few steps up, and the light was bad.” He looked up at the ceiling. It had been a different ceiling. He could see the lamp in front of him. It was weak... “That’s a point! The light wasn’t as bright as usual. I noticed it at the time, and I remember now. There must be several bulbs in it and one must have been a dud, because when I came the next day it was good again.”

“Good again? You mean the light was brighter?”

“Yes. The caretaker guy must have replaced the bulb. Fixed it.”

“When can he have done that?” Ringmar asked.

“That day. The same day. I’m quite sure that the light was crappy on only one morning.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“Yes. Quite sure. Sort of sure.”

“Okay.”

“You’d better talk with the caretaker guy,” Patrik said.

“We’ll do that,” Winter said. He could see a trace of a smile on Ringmar’s face. “Thank you. But let’s get back to the clothes. If it wasn’t the overcoat, was it his trousers? Was there something about his trousers that you recognized?”

“I can’t remember what it was now. It was, sort of, something I reacted to. I don’t really know how to put it.”

“Take your time, Patrik.”

“I don’t think I’m going to remember right now.”

“You can keep on thinking about it when you get home as well, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Where do you live, Patrik?” Winter asked.

“Eh?”

“If you deliver newspapers in the Vasaplatsen area, you must live near there as well.”

“Kastellgatan. I live with my dad in Kastellgatan. That’s on the other side of Haga.”

‘All right. Do you think you’d recognize this man if you saw him again?“

Patrik shrugged. “I mean, the light was a bit odd. And I saw him from behind. I’m not sure.”

“But it wasn’t somebody you’d seen before?”

“What do you mean? Somebody I’d seen before. On the stairs?”

“We can start with that. Somebody you’ve seen on the stairs when you’ve been delivering papers.”

“Not that I can remember. Thing is, I hardly ever see anyone there.”

“Hmm. Maybe we’ll ask you to help us to check everybody who lives there. So that we’ll know if it was one of them.”

‘All right ...“

“Then there is the question of whether you might have seen him before,” Winter said. “Somewhere else, that is. Not in the building or on the stairs. Some other place, some other occasion.”

“Yes, I’m with you.”

“Think about that.”

Patrik was already thinking. Thinking, thinking. He looked at the police officers who were asking all the questions. The older one seemed as if he were asleep, but he’d suddenly turn his head and look out of the window at the bare branches and blue sky outside. The guy had a profile ... holy ... was it the pro—

“It might be the profile,” Patrik said.

“What do you mean?”

“The profile. That business about something being familiar. It might have been the profile that I might have recognized. That I’d seen before. The head.”

“You’re making progress all the time, Patrik.” The younger cop smiled. “You’ve remembered quite a few things while we’ve been sitting here.”

“Brick wall time now, though, I think.”

“Maybe for now,” said Winter. “But keep thinking when you get home, as we discussed.”

“Of course.”

“One more thing,” Ringmar said. “Didn’t you hear the music coming from the apartment when you pushed the newspaper through the letter box?”

“Of course. As I told the caretaker.”

“Say that again?!” Winter said.

“It was me who told him about it. About the metal.”

Winter looked at Ringmar, who made a resigned gesture. They hadn’t had a report about that. Hadn’t anybody checked with the newspaper boy?

“Had you been hearing it for a long time?” asked Winter. “When you were delivering the papers?”

“A few days. I can’t remember exactly how many.” He turned to Winter. “I’ll have to think about that.”

“Did you recognize it?” asked Winter. “The music?”

“Not really. I mean, it sounds a bit different when it’s been traveling through the hall and the mail slot and all that shit. Sort of.”