Sun and Shadow (28 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“For Christmas, you mean?”

“Hmm.”

“Working.”

“What? You’re going to be working over Christmas as well?”

“Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.” Bartram shifted his position. “All the more free time for next summer.” He looked out at the people, the packages, the lights. “I don’t like all this stuff anyway.” He turned to Morelius. “I’ve never liked Christmas.”

“I bet you’ll like it even less if you’re working in the middle of it,” Morelius said. “It’s not much fun having to sort out families when Mom and Dad have been overdoing the celebrations.”

Bartram didn’t respond, seemed to be lost in thought.

“I’d be happy to skip it,” Morelius said. “It feels pointless sometimes.”

“ ‘Our Lord, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence?”’ Bartram said.

“That sounds like a quotation.”

“It’s from the Bible.”

“You don’t say.”

“Don’t ask me which part. It’s the sort of thing that sticks in the memory but you don’t know why. Useless knowledge.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

Winter met the caretaker in the latter’s cramped office. He’d considered summoning him to the station for questioning, but decided to take the softly, softly approach. The man had given the impression of being nervous from the start, and that could be disastrous for his memory.

The office smelled of tools and tobacco. Shabby files were stacked on a desk that also seemed to serve as a chopping block. There was nothing of the century-old elegance of the rest of the building down here.

The man looked down at his desk as if he were searching for something.

It occurred to Winter that this might be the caretaker of his own building as well. He asked.

“What’s the address?”

Winter told him.

“Yep, that’s me. That’s part of my job as well. I look after three buildings in all, from here down to Storgatan.”

“You do?”

“Yep.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply “That’s what they’ve saddled me with this last year.” He looked at Winter and tapped ash into an old soda bottle that was half full of cigarette butts and dark brown tobacco juice. “Nowadays you have to be thankful that you’ve got a job.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Too much.”

“Still, I’m glad that you discovered that there was something wrong in that apartment.”

“In the end, yes.”

“You didn’t speak to anybody else about it?”

“What do you mean, anybody else?”

‘Anybody else who also thought the same thing.“

“No.”

All right, Winter thought. We’ll leave it at that for now. He might get wary on his guard for anything and everything.

The man flicked off more ash, half of which missed the neck of the bottle. A fire risk? Winter thought. There again, the caretaker was sitting in his own basement room. His own office. If this could be called an office.

“Do you have an office in my building as well?”

“Of course. There are three, from here down to the crossroads.” He inhaled again, and squinted through the smoke hanging in a cloud around him. “The second crossroads, that is.”

“Of course.” Winter could feel the irritation in his throat. No point in a discreet cough here. The old bastard lit another cigarette. Winter coughed even so. “Er ... the Valkers ... how often do you think you met them?”

The caretaker didn’t remove the cigarette from his mouth. He wiped his hands along his trousers to get rid of the oil on them. He examined his palms, which had been clean at the start. Then he turned to Winter, with a new furrow between his eyebrows.

“Not very often, I must say.”

“Were you working here when they moved in?”

“I’ve always worked here,” he said, and succumbed to a combined cough and laugh that turned into a nasty smoker’s hack and reminded Winter of the man at the next table when he’d breakfasted at Gaspar’s in Marbella.

The caretaker finished coughing and dropped the cigarette end into the bottle, where it hissed away and went out. He lit another one, and waited for the next question.

“But you did meet the Valkers sometimes?” We’ll take them separately later, Winter thought.

“I don’t know about
meet,
but I’ve come across them, obviously. I’ve never been in their apartment, though.”

“Never?”

“I suppose he managed to change washers himself.” The man took another drag on his cigarette, flicked ash in the direction of the bottle. “It’s the same with you. I look after the building you live in but I’ve never spoken to you. I’ve seen you, but that’s not the same thing.” He looked up at the ceiling and then back at Winter. “On the other hand, I’ve only been in charge of your building for the last few months.”

“Have you ever spoken to him? Christian?”

“No.”

“To her? Louise?”

“Yes. Once ... ,” he said, and a new furrow returned between his eyebrows. “She once asked me about ... hmm, it might have been the heating. I can’t remember now.”

“Is there anything about them that made you wonder? Or about one of them?”

“Such as what?”

“Their visitors.” Winter coughed again, turned away. “Did they have visitors, for instance?”

“People come and go in this building just as in any other. Who knows who visits who? And I don’t go running up and down stairs unless I have to, you could say.”

Winter could see his point.

“But they did have the occasional party now and again,” said the caretaker.

“Really?”

“Things got a bit lively there at times.”

“In what way?” Winter tried to encourage him.

“People coming and going, sort of thing. I sometimes had to change a bulb or something on the stairs in the evening, so I might have heard something then.” He reached for the cigarette packet again, but it was empty. “Could have been somebody else, of course.”

Winter nodded again.

“No, I can’t remember if it was them or not,” the man said. “Have you finished with me yet? I’ll have to go out to the newsstand to buy some cigarettes.” He waved the empty packet. “None left in here.”

Winter asked about dud bulbs on the stairs, about dates.

 

“Good Lord, you stink!” Angela said when she came to greet him in the hall.

“A witness chain-smoking like a chimney.”

“Do you normally allow that?”

“We were in his office. He’s our caretaker as well, incidentally”

“What was he a witness to?”

“Nothing here. But he looks after that other property as well,” said Winter, nodding his head in the direction of “that” apartment.

“But what was he a witness to?”

“Nothing more than he’s told us so far, it seems.”

“But you can call him a witness even so?”

He is that type, thought Winter. Takes all the credit for himself.

“Get those clothes off and have a shower,” Angela said.

Winter put his pigskin briefcase on the floor, beside the shoe rack, took off his overcoat and jacket and hung them up. He started unbuttoning his shirt, went into the bathroom, and put all his clothes except for his trousers in the big wash basket Angela had brought with her.

He closed the door, got into the shower, and was just going to turn on the water when Angela shouted something. He shouted back that he couldn’t hear a word, and she opened the door.

“I’m looking for a form from the maternity clinic,” she said. “I think you put it in your briefcase. That was a while ago, but I need to check something.”

“It’s probably still in my briefcase,” he said. “In the hall.” She went out, he drew the shower curtain again, and turned on the water. The pungent smell of tobacco smoke started to fade away and eventually disappeared altogether as he rubbed the shampoo into his hair. He tried to clear his mind, and was rinsing away the lather when he heard a shout from the hall. He turned off the water.

“What?”

No reply. He shouted again. Still no reply.

“Angela?”

He opened the curtain, took the bath towel from its hook, and quickly rubbed his hair, shoulders, and stomach. He dried his feet and fastened the bath towel around his waist, then opened the door. He could see his briefcase standing open on the floor outside the bathroom.

“Angela? Did you shout?”

No answer. He hurried into the kitchen and then into the living room. Angela was on the sofa, staring at him with a piece of paper in her hand. She held it up and Winter could see the return address of the Spanish national police force in the top-left-hand corner.

Oh shit! He’d been carrying that damned letter around instead of throwing it away as he’d meant to.

“I had to look through the pile you had in your case, and this letter was lying face up,” she said. “So don’t think I’m in the habit of snooping through your private papers.” She waved the letter in the air again. “But now I’d like an explanation of what the HELL this is, Erik.”

Winter could feel the water dripping from his hair. Or was it cold sweat? Despite the fact that it was nothing. The letter was nothing. There was nothing to explain.

“It’s nothing,” he said. He took a step toward her. There was water on the floor.

“But I’ve read it, I’m afraid. It wasn’t very long. But long enough.”

‘Absolutely nothing happened,“ he said.

“She seems to have a different idea about that.” Angela looked at the letter. “Alicia. Do you have a photograph of her as well? Maybe it’s hanging on the wall of your office?”

Winter went up to Angela and tried to touch her. She knocked his hand aside.

“I promise you, Angela. Nothing happened.”

“Oh, shut up!” She punched the air. “You’re talking to a witness who’s seen it all.” She burst into tears, quietly, with a soft, constant whimper he’d never heard before. “How could you, Erik? How could you?”

He sat down on the sofa beside her. It felt as if all his blood had rushed to his head. Damn it. He should have told her right at the start, but there was nothing to say. Why say something that could cause pain when there was nothing to discuss? It would be pointless. Destructive.

He started to say something but she stood up and headed for the hall.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“But I must ... we must ...”

She turned and threw the letter at him, it soared like a swallow for a couple of yards, then flopped down on the polished wooden floor, and he watched one corner sucking up the water that had dripped off him. She just stood there.

“I haven’t said anything because there’s nothing to say,” he said holding out his hands so that she could see how pure and guiltless they were.

“Your conscience is clear?” she said, and maybe that was a laugh he could hear. “Do you take me for an idiot?” She looked down at the letter, which was wet through by now.

“No.”

Bergenhem woke up with a headache. He seemed to have been resigned to it even in his sleep, and made himself ready.

He heard a little cry from the foot of the bed and saw Ada trying to climb onto their double bed. He could hear her struggling. He could also hear Martina working in the kitchen, and the screech of a lone seagull flying past the window.

Martina came into the bedroom and gave Ada a little shove so that the girl did a forward roll onto the bed and squealed in delight.

“Is it the usual again?” Martina asked.

“Yes.”

“You have to go to the doctor.” She reached out to prevent Ada from falling off the bed. “You said you would if it kept coming back.” ‘ She put Ada in the middle of the bed and Bergenhem sat up, took the girl’s hands, and lifted her up. It was like lifting a pillow.

“I know, I know.”

“Is it still behind one of your eyes?” She reached out to touch him. “The left one?”

“Stop it,” he said, pushing her hand away, perhaps too brusquely. He looked at her and took hold of her hand. “I’m sorry. But I seem to get so damned edgy with this.”

“You’ve been ... edgy for a long time.”

“I know, I KNOW”

“Is there anything else?”

“Meaning what?”

“Is there something wrong between us?” she said, and he could see that she was trying to avoid looking at Ada.

“No, no.”

“Can’t you go to the doctor’s? You’ll have time tomorrow before nine.”

“All right. I’ll go.”

He reached for Ada and lifted her up, and again she squealed in delight. When he looked up at her everything turned black for a tenth of a second and he put her down again, fumbling almost like a blind man.

“What’s the matter, Lars?”

“I suddenly felt dizzy.”

“Good grief, you really must go to the doctor’s.”

“I bet it’s just migraine.”

“You’ve never had migraine before.”

“What sort of a comment is that? Say that to somebody who’s getting MS.”

“That wasn’t funny.”

“Well, stop nagging me.”

He got out of bed and strode from the room.

“Coffee’s ready,” she called after him, but he didn’t answer.

Angela had put on her overcoat, pulled on her leather boots, and left the apartment, and he wouldn’t have been able to hold her back by force.

He picked up the letter. It felt like a wet leaf. The letter heading was a disaster. Just as the conversation had been a disaster. The quarrel.

She came back after seven minutes, but she wasn’t carrying a bag of Danish pastries. She kicked off her boots and went to the living room, where he was still standing with the letter in his hand. She hadn’t taken her coat off, as if to signal that this was going to go on all evening. Backward and forward.

“Rereading it, are you?”