Death Angels

by Ake Edwardson

  “You can say that again,” Halders interjected.

  “Hold your tongue, Fredrik,” Winter said, “and let us know when you have something constructive to contribute.”

  Halders’s neck turned red, and he gave Djanali a sideways glance. She sat impassively and blinked her eyes.

  “It’s the same story over and over again,” Helander said. “The murderer has a plan that gets out of hand, but the scary thing is that it gets out of hand exactly the same way each time.”

  “What do you mean?” Möllerström asked.

  “The patterns look the same, as if a robot had lost its mind, or was programmed to go crazy just like the time before.”

  “C’est la folie,” Halders muttered, a naughty child who can’t keep his mouth shut.

  Does he really know French? Djanali mused to herself. Maybe he’s taking an evening class.

  “Except for the second murder in London,” Helander continued. “The photos I got from Erik show another pattern. It’s like a couple of sequences are missing.”

  “He was interrupted,” Winter said.

  “It shows.”

  Everyone sat quietly and looked at the photos. It’s the way it keeps repeating itself that’s so horrible, Djanali thought. It’s revolting, but without this constant repetition, we would be totally lost. The art of monotony, that’s our specialty. She cleared her throat.

  “Aneta?”

  “We chatted with some of Vikingsson’s neighbors,” Djanali said. “People keep to themselves there. It’s your typical apartment building. But when we asked about his habits, somebody said he worked out a lot.”

  “Worked out?”

  “I don’t know if he meant anything special by it. But Vikingsson was carrying a big duffel bag the two or three times the neighbor ran into him.”

  “Bertil?” Winter said.

  “We just heard about the duffel bag today,” Ringmar answered. “We didn’t know about it yesterday or bring it up with Vikingsson.”

  “I was referring to what you found in his apartment.”

  Ringmar picked up a file folder from the table, flipped to one of the pages and read from a list. “No duffel bag,” he said.

  “Nothing at all—not even a travel bag or a rucksack?”

  “No—one of those roller bags that flight attendants use, that’s all. But we didn’t have time to turn the place upside down.”

  “And now he’s home tidying up,” Halders said.

  “Find out whether he has a gym membership,” Winter said to Halders.

  “Okay.”

  “Check out every health club in town if you have to.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “Where is he now, by the way?” Möllerström asked.

  “Somewhere over the North Sea,” Ringmar said.

  “There’s something I wanted to bring up about the victims’ backgrounds, or however you put it,” Halders said. “We were supposed to look for whatever they might have in common, so we spent dozens of hours talking to their acquaintances and their girlfriends and boyfriends.”

  “Possible boyfriends,” Winter corrected him.

  “We’re pretty certain about that.”

  “Go on.”

  “Sure enough, there’s a place that Jamie, Per and Geoff all went to on a fairly regular basis,” Halders said.

  “Not Christian?”

  “We don’t know yet. It might be the kind of place that most kids their age go to.”

  He said the name and Ringmar looked over at Möllerström.

  “Halders mentioned it this morning,” Möllerström said.

  “A lot of information came together last night,” Halders said. “But I haven’t had a chance yet to find out anything about Christian.”

  Erik looks totally exhausted, Djanali thought. I wonder how the rest of us would appear to a stranger who just happened to drop by.

  “Does Vikingsson have a car?” Winter asked Ringmar.

  “Not one that’s been registered, in any case.”

  “That doesn’t tell us much. We need to check the resident cards on the windshields of all the cars parked in his neighborhood. If we find one that nobody will own up to, it could be Vikingsson’s.”

  “Or it could be mine,” Halders said.

  “What?”

  “My car was stolen again, and this time I didn’t catch the S.O.B. who did it.”

  Winter longed for a cup of coffee and a cigarillo. “We’re going to call him in for questioning again,” he said.

  “Good,” Ringmar said.

  “We’ve got some new information to ask him about.”

  “He’s not home,” Möllerström said.

  “Find him,” Winter said. “He’s not off the hook, no matter what he might think. If worst comes to worst, we’ll try a photo lineup and hope we can get him arrested that way. And we’ve got to know more about his personal life. Friends, acquaintances, what he does at night. Clubs, bars, movies.”

  He thought about the photos on the wall in Vikingsson’s kitchen.

  He turned to Bergenhem. The guy looked sick. Winter couldn’t remember him ever being so skinny. Had he sent him on a fool’s errand? Or was he a bundle of nerves because his wife was about to have a baby? Winter was clueless when it came to that kind of thing.

  “Lars?”

  Bergenhem glanced at Winter as if by accident. “Yes?”

  “What do you have to say?”

  “I have a source, and it might lead to something.”

  He acts like he’s got a hangover, Winter thought.

  “The porn industry seems to be reeling from something, or was reeling from something up until very recently . . . something completely new.”

  “New?”

  “A kind of anxiety. And I don’t think it’s just because I’m going around asking questions. It’s like somebody has the answer but isn’t talking.”

  “Has anyone told you that?”

  “I might be able to come up with a name.”

  They all waited. Just a simple name, and everybody would finally be able to relax over that cup of coffee, close Ringmar’s folder and Möllerström’s database.

  “Somebody who has the answer,” Bergenhem repeated.

  Bergenhem drove back over the bridge and caught Martina by surprise. She stood in the kitchen looking down at the floor as if she expected her water to break and splash onto the tile. It wouldn’t be long now.

  He kissed her and put his arms around her. She smelled like apples and cotton. He placed his hand on her belly.

  “Aren’t you on duty?”

  “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

  She laughed. “Do you want something to eat?”

  “Do we have any pork chops?”

  “Pork chops?”

  “I want some fried pork chops. I feel like I haven’t had an appetite in weeks.”

  “You haven’t had an appetite in weeks.”

  “Fried pork chops with onion gravy and boiled potatoes and absolutely no vegetables.”

  “That’s not very PC.”

  “What’s not?”

  “To leave out the vegetables.”

  “I can go to the grocery store.”

  “If you want pork chops, that’s your best bet. We don’t have any.”

  He walked down to the familiar corner and turned left. Three teenagers whirled by on skateboards. They’re playing hooky too, he thought.

  The sky was breathtaking. Not a cloud in sight. He passed a school and heard a loud bell. It sounds just like it used to, he thought. Education reforms come and go but the bells never change. All those hours that I just sat at my desk waiting for it to ring. Waiting and waiting.

  He felt like he had woken up from a confused dream, the darkness dispelled by the cold.

  Was it that Winter had come back? Are you so fucking dependent on him? Who are you, anyway? Things may not be so hazy now, but you’re still asking yourself the same questions. It’s like you have to prov
e something to yourself and everyone else. I’ll show them . . . I’ll show them. Who are you, Lars?

  The store appeared on the right. The newspaper placards in the window were the color of coltsfoot blossoms. In two or three years the baby would run in with the first fistful, and they would put it in a vase and finally press it between volumes A and B of the encyclopedia.

  Who are you besides a rookie cop on his way to buy a pound of pork chops with a guilty conscience for something he hasn’t actually done?

  He thought of her as Angel, as Marianne, as Angel again. He didn’t know anymore who was attracted and who was doing the attracting. It’s like a drug, he thought. Is it over? Is what over?

  You’ve got things under control, he told himself. Nobody can say you’re not doing your job. You even wrote a report.

  Östergaard sat in the kitchen and tested Maria on her French. As far as she could tell, her daughter’s pronunciation was perfect.

  She was thinking of renting a house in Normandy for a couple of weeks the following summer. The form was already completed. The name of the village was Roncey, and it was near the town of Coutances. She had been there once, before Maria was born. The cathedral was the highest point but had survived the bombs—the only unscathed church in northern Normandy. It stretched out a finger to God. She wanted to go in and light another candle, seventeen years later or however long it had been: a servant of God from Gothenburg and her daughter.

  When they were finished with the pronunciation exercises, Maria read the paragraph out loud and translated it. Her French was better than her mother’s. They could order a meal at the village restaurant. Un vin blanc, une orange, merci. Buy picnic food for the deserted beach. When the tide ebbed, the oyster farms glittered in the sun. They would walk along the white sand, dig for French-speaking crabs with their toes.

  She looked up and Maria was gone. The television went on in the living room, a raucous guest.

  Un vin blanc. She opened the refrigerator and took out an open bottle. The sides of the glass misted over when she poured it. She took a sip. It was too cold. She put the glass down and left the bottle on the counter.

  It was Thursday night. The outdoor thermometer showed twenty-six degrees. Last week the crocuses had been out and now they were iced over. The question was how the summer lilac was faring.

  She heard the sirens again on Korsvägen Street. It’s like a training camp down there, she thought.

  Maria would be at handball camp all weekend, and Östergaard was looking forward to having some time for herself—a rare treat for a minister. She would go to a movie, read a book, make some fish soup, put on three layers of clothing, take the long hike around Lake Delsjön and come home with a warm glow on her face that would last all evening long.

  “Did you mend my track suit?” Maria shouted from the living room.

  “Yes,” she shouted back.

  “How about my white jersey, did you wash it?”

  “Yes, and if you want anything else, you’ll have to come in here.”

  “What?”

  “If you want anything else, you’ll have to come in here.”

  She heard Maria giggle, once more engrossed in the movie.

  The week had exhausted her. She hadn’t been able to set her own priorities or break away from all those sessions with the officers.

  A traffic accident on Tuesday, conversations afterward that could have sent a younger woman home in despair.

  Was it really a job for a woman? That was just like asking whether it was a job for a man. It wasn’t a question of muscles or how big you were. It was a question of humanity. Sometimes she wondered if it was a job for anyone.

  She got up and went into the living room. “I’m going to take a bath,” she said to Maria. “If anyone calls, tell them I’ll call back later.”

  Maria nodded with her eyes on the TV. Östergaard glanced at the screen. Four people were talking at the same time. Everybody looked upset. A family.

  She took the glass of wine into the bathroom and plugged the tub, adjusting the temperature of the water until it was the way she liked it. Throwing her clothes into the laundry basket, she drank some wine, then set the glass on the edge of the bathtub. She turned around and looked in the mirror on the door of the medicine cabinet.

  She inspected herself. You’re not thirty-five yet and this is your body, she thought, cupping her breasts. They were taut in her hands. She ran her fingers over her stomach—she still had a waistline but had gotten a little heavier. Heavier than when? she wondered and turned sideways. Her butt looked a little flabby, but that was only the angle.

  The roar of the water died down as the bathtub filled up. She turned the faucet off and lowered one foot in. It was delightfully hot.

  She lay there for a long time. The skin on the front of her fingers and the bottom of her feet turned into rolling sand dunes. The French beach flashed through her mind again. She finished the wine and closed her eyes, her forehead perspiring.

  The most painful experience had been visiting Christian’s mother. A mailbox that looked like a birdhouse stood outside their door. Her husband had flown to London immediately after getting the news.

  They had adopted Christian. Did that make any difference? For a second it had felt that way. She asked Winter in the car afterward, but he was unwilling or unable to answer. He drove silently with his eyes fixed on the road. The only sound was the swish of the windshield wipers, battling something wet that was neither rain nor snow. The buildings of the Old City were colorless in the northern haze.

  “This was the beginning of the end,” Winter had said suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now is when it all comes together,” he said, putting some jazz in the tape deck. “Get ready.”

  Winter took the ferry to Asperö Island as the sun was setting. He got off at Albert’s Pier and walked up the hill. Taking the path to the right, he continued to the top. Bolger sat outside his cottage. “Goddam beautiful, isn’t it?” he shouted, waving as Winter approached.

  The archipelago lay below them, beyond the pine forest. They could see the docked ferry through the glow over Styrsö and Donsö islands. Winter caught sight of another ferry—Stena Line—winding its way between the rocks on Dana Fjord.

  “And it’s all mine,” Bolger said. “My kingdom come.”

  “Has it really been a whole year?”

  “Weren’t you here last summer?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I wanted you to see how lovely it was.”

  “Very.”

  “When I first invited you, I mean. It’s most beautiful in late March.”

  “In what way?”

  “No green haze to block the view. Only water and cliffs and sky.”

  “No sailboats either?”

  “Above all, no sailboats.”

  “I heard that you were worried about Bergenhem’s safety again,” Winter said.

  “Just relax and enjoy the view.”

  “Has he stumbled across something big, Johan?”

  “Nothing bigger than all this.” Bolger stretched out his arms.

  The sea wind filled Winter’s nostrils, and the bushes in front of the cottage bowed under a sudden squall.

  “Do you come out here a lot?” Winter asked.

  “More and more.”

  “And you spend the night?”

  “Sometimes, if I don’t feel like starting the motorboat.”

  The boat, open at the top and made of the same timber as the cottage, was floating in the shadow of the pier.

  “He’s going out with a stripper,” Bolger said. “She’s among the most popular ones.”

  “I’m sure he’s got his reasons, and you told me all that before. When I was in London.”

  “Okay—he’s your man,” Bolger said.

  “Who is she?”

  “A stripper, that’s all.”

  “Is that why you wanted me to come out here?”

  “
Weren’t you the one who said you needed a little fresh air to clear your head?”

  “Who is she?” Winter insisted.

  “This chick has been a junkie, and they’re capable of imagining anything.”

  “Do you know her well?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re worried.”

  “This kind of thing is never safe, Erik.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “Find out what he’s up to.”

  “I know what he’s up to.”

  “I forgot. You know everything.”

  “What?”

  “Where is . . .”

  “What did you say?”

  “Mats is . . .”

  “What are you mumbling about, Johan? What about Mats?”

  Bolger looked up at Winter. “Never mind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing, I told you.” Bolger got up. “Come on in and we’ll have something to drink.”

  Winter watched the evening descend over the water and glimpsed the lights of two boats out on the fjord. They approached each other and merged for a second like a powerful lamp.

  They drank coffee and schnapps. The only light came from the fireplace.

  “What time does the ferry go back?” Bolger asked.

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “You can sleep over if you like.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t have the time.”

  “Something has been going round and round in my head,” Bolger said.

  Winter drank his coffee and felt the sting of the locally brewed schnapps. He took a bite out of a sugar cube.

  “Now that I’ve thought about it a little,” Bolger continued, “I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of the victims had been at my bar.”

  “And you waited all this time to tell me?”

  “I never actually saw them, but most kids their age show up once or twice a month. It’s become something of a meeting place on Thursday nights.”

  “I see.”

  “It could be worth checking out.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I might even have served one of them. It never occurred to me before.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Let me see their photos again.”