Never End

by Ake Edwardson

  'Oh?'

  'It's ... er, the murder of Angelika Hansson, that is. A young man who says he heard some strange noises as he walked past the park that night.'

  'Does the time fit?'

  'Yes.'

  'What did he hear?'

  'A hissing noise, he says. A repeated hissing.'

  'What did he do?'

  'Kept on going. Speeded up, in fact.'

  'No more curious than that?'

  'He thought it was a badger, and was scared.'

  Winter could understand that. He'd once been chased by a badger.

  'But now he doesn't think it was a badger any more?'

  'He's seen the news,' said Bergenhem.

  'And it was at the very spot?'

  'It seems so.'

  That evening they went to the park. Angela was licking away at an ice cream, Winter was in charge of the pushchair and Elsa was asleep, although she woke up when they were overtaken by a group of youngsters on rollerblades.

  'It was about time anyway,' said Angela, and picked Elsa up as she reached out for the ice cream. 'No need to arrest them.'

  'She wants an ice cream.'

  'I haven't got any cash on me.'

  'It's a good job there's somebody here who has,' said Winter, carrying Elsa to the kiosk only to find it had just closed. The youth in charge of it was just about to get on his bike and ride off, and Winter wondered whether he should order him to open up again. Elsa realised she wasn't going to get an ice cream, and was not pleased.

  'She needs something to capture her attention,' said Angela when they came back.

  'It was closed, though,' Winter said.

  'Think of something else, then.'

  He carried Elsa to the pond and dipped her feet into the water: the tears turned to laughter. He dipped them in again and mumbled into her ear, then looked over the water. It was all so familiar. He could see the little open area in front of the circle of bushes, and the trees, and the rock glinting in the last rays of the sun.

  He could see a shadow to the left, just where the police cordon blocked off the black opening. The shadow was motionless. Winter didn't move either until he felt Elsa squirming in his hands. He didn't take his eyes off the shadow, which had the shape of a person, even more so now as the sinking sun beamed further in like a searchlight. The shadow moved.

  Winter heard Angela say something just behind him, lifted Elsa out of the water and dumped her in Angela's arms without a word, heard the child's disappointed cries as he sprinted behind the hedge to the left of the pond, came to the pathway on the other side of the bushes and could see the opening and the cleft that was no longer lit up by the sun and he pushed his way past a young couple and darted through the shrubbery and saw the trees and all the rest of the nasty but familiar sights and his pulse was racing as he felt for his gun that was in a cupboard a long way away.

  11

  There was nobody there by the time Winter arrived. He could see the opening between the trees, and the rock, and twigs and bushes at the sides, and patches of dusky sky – but no shadow.

  The grotto was empty.

  The grass outside was bone dry again. There was no point in searching for footprints. But he ought to summon somebody who could search for any new objects that might have appeared there. You never knew. You just never knew.

  He circled round the clearing, then hurried onto the path behind and followed it for fifty metres. He went back again, and there was Angela with Elsa in her pushchair, and she was staring wide-eyed at him as he ducked underneath a sapling.

  'If you're going to play hide-and-seek with us, the least you can do is to tell us before you run off,' Angela said. 'Or maybe you want to hide and then go seeking yourself?'

  He brushed a few pine needles off his shoulders and reached for the packet of cigarillos that was no longer in his big, wide breast pocket.

  'Now's the time to give up,' said Angela, who had seen what happened.

  Winter contemplated the packet on the ground, and bent down. Several of the cigarillos had fallen out and were lying in a semicircle. He walked over to it, picked up the packet and then the cigarillos one by one – then he noticed a button lying next to the last but one. Just a button, white or bony white, a shirt button.

  They would have found it if it had been there when they first cordoned the place off after the murder of Angelika. And after the rape of Jeanette.

  Since then, anybody at all could have walked past and lost a button.

  'Have you got a tissue?' he asked, turning to Angela. He was still squatting.

  Angela produced a Kleenex out of her handbag. Winter took it and wrapped it round the button.

  'What is it?'

  'A button.'

  'You don't say.'

  'A shirt button,' said Winter. 'I think.'

  'Oh yes? Well, now we've seen how you go about your business,' said Angela, turning to Elsa. 'This is how detectives work, Elsa. Look and learn.'

  'Do you want Elsa to grow up to be an investigator?' said Winter, crouching down again, this time by the pushchair. Elsa made a sound. 'She said detective,' Winter said.

  'No. She said perspective.' Angela looked at him with a smile. 'I think she means that you've got to put your job in perspective.' She looked towards the bushes. 'Is this the way it's got to be when we go for a walk in the evening?'

  'I thought I saw somebody,' said Winter.

  'Oh for God's sake!'

  'It's more complicated than you might think.'

  'You can say that again.'

  'There was somebody standing there. It wasn't just your ordinary ... passer-by.'

  'Don't forget the button, Erik.' She'd seen his eyes glaze over. It had turned cold in among the trees. Elsa was trying to clamber out of the pushchair. He helped her. 'Sorry, Erik. I know it's important ... and serious. Awful. But I couldn't resist teasing you a bit.'

  'That's OK.'

  He picked Elsa up. They went back to the pond.

  'Do you think that ... that he's returning to the scene of the crime?'

  'Yes.'

  'You think that's what always happens.'

  'That's my experience. Others think the same.'

  'And the shadow that you saw could ... have been him?'

  Winter shrugged. 'The moment I saw him I had the distinct feeling that it was ... important. Important for the case.' He turned to look at her with Elsa on his shoulder. 'I don't know any more, for fuck's sake.'

  'Fuck,' Elsa said. It was one of the first words she had pronounced correctly.

  'What's a private life? You tell me,' Halders said to Aneta Djanali in the passenger seat beside him. They were parked outside the Hanssons' house. Djanali could smell the salt of the sea through the open window.

  'When does a life stop being private?' asked Halders, turning to look at her. 'I can't keep my various lives apart any longer.'

  'No.'

  'I've become the philosopher now as well.' He gave a laugh. 'Private philosopher.' He laughed again, shorter, drier. 'Amateur philosopher.'

  He ought to be at home, Djanali thought. Why doesn't Winter take him off the case? Or Birgersson? It would cause less of an upset if Birgersson did it.

  'I know you reckon I ought to be taking time out at home just now,' Halders said. 'That's what you're thinking.'

  'Correct.'

  'I know you mean well, but you're wrong.' He opened the car door. 'There are lots of ways of dealing with sorrow.' He put a foot into the road. 'If I find the kids don't want to go to school any more, or develop other problems, I'll run a mile from all this. But only then.' He was outside in the street now, and bent down towards Djanali. 'Are you coming, or aren't you?'

  Lars-Olof and Ann Hansson were sitting at opposite ends of the sofa. Djanali and Halders were facing them, in armchairs. She looks shattered, thought Aneta when Angelika's mother turned to stare out of the window, seemingly to study the various shades of green out there.

  Lars-Olof Hansson stared down at the
table.

  Behind the couple was a sort of bookcase and a recently taken photo of Angelika. Her student cap was brilliant white, contrasting with her black skin. She's even blacker than I am, Djanali thought.

  Lars-Olof Hansson had noticed what Djanali was looking at, and turned to face her.

  'That was taken just five or six weeks ago.'

  Djanali nodded.

  'That's about the age she was when we adopted her,' said her father. 'Five or six weeks.'

  'Shut up!' shouted his wife leaving the room in a huff.

  He's so full of sadness, Halders thought. There are so many ways of dealing with sorrow.

  When he spoke again his voice sounded hollow. He looked at Djanali. 'Were you born here?'

  'I was, actually,' Djanali said. 'In East General Hospital. But my parents are from Africa.'

  'Where exactly?'

  'Upper Volta. That's what it was called when they came here. It's called Burkino Faso now.'

  'Hmm.' Hansson was staring down at the table, then looked up at her. 'Have you ever been there?'

  'Yes.'

  'What was that like?'

  'Well ... I'd expected to feel more than I did,' Djanali said. This interview is turning out a bit different from what I'd expected. But what the hell? 'I'm glad I went, though.'

  'Angelika wanted to travel as well,' said Lars-Olof Hansson, just as his wife re-entered the room.

  'That's enough, Lasse.' She gave him a look like nothing Djanali had ever seen. He suddenly looked completely helpless. Like a drowning man, she thought.

  'To Uganda,' he said. And that was all he was capable of saying about Angelika Hansson's origin, or Aneta Djanali's.

  'We have a few problems working out how Angelika was making her way home that night,' Halders said.

  'What do you expect me to do about that?' Lars-Olof Hansson was standing now, leaning against the wall by the verandah door. 'I've told you everything. Everything I know.'

  'Why was she on her own in the middle of Gothenburg for several hours?'

  'You are the ones who should be telling me that.'

  'Nobody we've spoken to was with her for nearly four hours that night. Or evening.'

  'I've told you everything I know,' said Lars-Olof Hansson.

  'But what was she doing?' asked Halders.

  'I don't know, I've told you already.'

  'Might she have had a job?'

  'What do you mean, a job?'

  'A job. A summer job.' Halders persisted.

  'She'd have told us if she had.'

  'Did she ever go out on the town by herself?'

  'Would it be so bizarre if she did?'

  'Did she?'

  'I didn't follow her.'

  Halders waited. He could see there was more to come.

  'She thought a lot about ... about her origins,' he said. 'She became a bit ... confused, I suppose you might say.' He looked at his wife, but she didn't respond. 'It seemed to get worse. Yes. I suppose she might have gone off and thought a lot about that. I don't know.'

  'Was she depressed?'

  'I don't know.' He thought about it. 'I haven't a bloody clue.'

  'What about boyfriends?' Djanali asked. Ann Hansson looked up. Djanali turned to face her. 'You must have thought about that these last few days.'

  The woman nodded. Her face lost all vestige of character, just like that of her husband a few minutes before. Precisely the same kind of helplessness.

  Djanali waited. She wanted to be able to offer her leads, prompt her. But she didn't have any.

  'There weren't any boyfriends,' Ann Hansson said. 'Not that we knew about, at least.'

  'Did you talk about it?' Djanali asked.

  'Talk? Me and ... Lasse?'

  'You and Angelika.'

  'Well ... what can I say ...? Of course we talked about it. But she hadn't had a ... steady relationship,' said Ann Hansson, beginning to weep, silently, for the first time since they'd visited her. 'This business of the ... preg–, pregnancy – it's absolutely incomprehensible. It's like ... like a nightmare inside a nightmare.'

  'This is no nightmare,' said her husband. 'This is reality.' He looked at his wife. 'Come on, we've got to face up to it.'

  Bergenhem was in Winter's office. It was 10.30 in the morning. The air conditioning was clattering away. Bergenhem was tanned after many hours spent on the sun-drenched cliffs to the north-west of Gothenburg. He looks stronger than he's done for ages, Winter thought. Calmer.

  'I suspect she did have a boyfriend,' Bergenhem said. 'I spoke to a mate of hers, Cecilia, who just got back from Paris yesterday, and she reckoned she'd seen Angelika with a bloke. Several times.' Bergenhem consulted his notebook, then looked up. 'Twice, in fact. You've got the report, written up immediately after the interview.'

  'Just one bloke, then.'

  'Yep. She'd seen Angelika and this guy twice: once at a café where they'd arranged to meet, and once when she passed them in a tram.' Bergenhem looked up. 'That time at the café the young man was on his way out, and she just said hi to him.'

  'She's only seen him those two times?'

  'Yes.'

  'Never on his own? Or with anybody else?'

  'It seems not.'

  'What had Angelika said about him?'

  'They never discussed it.'

  'Hmm.'

  'She'd asked, of course, but Angelika had kept schtum.'

  'In what way? Did she laugh it off? Or look worried or frightened or annoyed or disappointed – or what?'

  'I don't know,' Bergenhem said.

  'Find out.'

  'Yes. Of course.'

  'And this friend of hers – she didn't recognise the guy at all?'

  'No.'

  'Are you planning to question her again?'

  'Later this morning. I just wanted to have a word with you first.'

  'OK. Bertil and you can talk to her.'

  Bergenhem nodded.

  'I want this guy tracked down, and soon,' Winter said. 'He's out there somewhere.'

  But they couldn't find him. They had several conversations with the girl but got no further, and it looked as if the only chance they had of finding the missing boy was if Angelika's friend Cecilia happened to see him again in town.