Never End

by Ake Edwardson

'I hope it turns out all right,' Angela said again.

  They drove home as dusk started to fall, when the red of the traffic lights mixed with the red glow of the sunset. No running home this time. Elsa was asleep in her seat. Her head was on one side, and a stream of dribble hung down from her mouth and onto her jumper. Angela drove fast and well, better than he did. He relaxed into his seat. His body was warm from the sun and salt, dry, his skin stiff in a pleasant way.

  It was quiet in Vasastan, but not deserted. There were lots of people sitting at the pavement cafés.

  Angela parked in the basement garage. Elsa was still asleep when they put her into her pushchair.

  'Let's have a beer,' Winter said.

  They sat in the nearest pavement café with an empty table and ordered two glasses of draught beer. There was a smell of cooking, and of heat from the day wafting along between the high stone buildings.

  'Are you hungry?' he asked.

  Angela shook her head.

  'Well I am,' he said and ordered a grilled salmon steak. Angela changed her mind. The food was served, they ate, and Elsa slept in her pushchair next to the table. There were several parents there with children asleep in their prams. Three teenage girls walked past and started laughing when one of them said something into her mobile; Winter thought of his three girls, at that very moment, and for the first time that's exactly how he thought of them, his three girls, and he pushed his plate away and ordered another beer when the waiter came by; he glanced at Angela, but she didn't want any more.

  'I'm driving out to Påvelund tomorrow morning,' he said. 'To the Wägners'.'

  She didn't react, adjusted something next to Elsa's face. Several more teenage girls walked past.

  By 10.00 the next morning he was with Bengt and Lisen Wägner. It was Saturday.

  'I apologise.'

  'For God's sake, don't do that,' said Bengt Wägner. 'You can come and live here if that's what it takes to find out what happened to Beatrice.'

  'Who,' said Lisen Wägner. 'Who happened to Beatrice.'

  'Yes,' said the man, looking at his wife. 'Who did it.'

  They ushered him into her room. The morning sun was filtering through the Venetian blinds. There was no need to turn on the light.

  'I want to look at all the photos you have of Beatrice,' Winter said. He saw Lisen Wägner give a start, a slight but nevertheless obvious reaction. 'I'm sorry, I didn't put that very well. I mean the ones taken during that last year.' Oh, God. The woman looked even more worried. How should he word it, in order not to put his foot in it? Whatever he said turned out to be wrong.

  'Why?' Bengt Wägner asked.

  'I don't really know.' He turned to look at the man. 'I'm looking for something. So that I can compare. A particular place.'

  'You looked at everything when ... when it happened,' said Lisen Wägner. 'You took nearly everything away and went through it. All the photos as well.'

  'I know.'

  'Why didn't you find anything then?'

  Winter stretched out his arms.

  'If you didn't know what it was then ... why do you think you know now?'

  Winter told them as much as he could.

  'An exposed brick wall?' Bengt Wägner said. 'I can't think where that might be, but that doesn't mean Beatrice never went there, of course.'

  'I didn't see all the photographs,' said Winter. 'And I don't remember anything like that either. But things can take on a greater significance in the light of new events.'

  'Here's a boxful anyway,' said Lisen Wägner, who'd fetched the photos from the dressing room at the other end of Beatrice's bedroom.

  Winter sorted through the photos in the same way as he'd done in Angelika Hansson's room. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Outside, inside.

  Lisen Wägner came in with coffee and a warm Danish pastry smelling of vanilla. Winter adjusted the blinds as the sun moved, and it grew darker in the room. He could see Bengt Wägner through the window.

  Eventually he'd picked out five pictures in which Beatrice was sitting in something that could have been a restaurant or a pub, whether outside or inside. There was no sign of an exposed brick wall, nothing that resembled the backdrop in Angelika's pictures. One of her parents was in three of the photos, and both of them in one of the others.

  He looked out of the window and saw Bengt Wägner still hovering around the flower beds with his secateurs. Winter went out and showed Wägner the photographs. He recognised the location immediately. She often went there.

  'Are there any more photos?' Winter asked.

  'I have no idea.'

  'Is it possible that she might have kept any photos somewhere else?'

  Wägner seemed to be thinking that over. He put his secateurs down on the lawn. Lisen came out to join them, and Winter put the same question to her.

  'As a bookmark,' she said.

  'Yes, of course,' said her husband.

  'She sometimes used a photograph as a bookmark,' said Lisen Wägner. 'That was something she'd done ever since she was a little girl.'

  What books? Winter thought. There were about four or five shelves of books in her room, and maybe thirty more in the living room.

  Winter went back to Beatrice's room and started going through the books one by one. After half an hour Bengt Wägner came and asked if Winter would like to stay for lunch. He said he would.

  He had a metre of books to go when he got back to work. He opened every one, but found nothing.

  'There are some in the attic as well,' said Bengt Wägner. 'Children's books. A box full of them.'

  'Could you fetch them, please?'

  Wägner disappeared, then came back with an oblong box. Winter looked through the books; stories about young boys and girls. There was also a series of books with green covers for young adults. In the third book from the top was an envelope glued to the inside of the front cover. He looked at Bengt Wägner, who shook his head.

  'Never seen it before.'

  'When did this go up into the loft?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Who took it up?'

  'Beatrice.'

  'When?'

  'A long time ago, Erik.' Wägner looked out of the window at the shadows under the trees. 'It's a long time since she died.' He turned back to look at Winter. 'It might have been that same ... summer. After she left school.' He looked back at the shadows outside. 'As if something had come to an end. She'd kept masses of stuff from the time when she was ... growing up. And then that was all ... in the past.' The sun was shining in from the left and reflected in Wägner's eyes, full of tears. 'Time for something new,' he said, still gazing out of the window.

  Winter carefully cut open the envelope. Without touching it with his fingers, he tipped the contents into the plastic bag he'd put on the desk.

  There were two photographs.

  Winter recognised the location immediately. Beatrice was sitting at a table with plates and glasses in front of an exposed brick wall. There was a shadow up to the left. It was the same place, the same camera angle. A different young woman, though.

  'Don't show this to Lisen,' Bengt Wägner said.

  'Have you ever seen this photo before?'

  'No. And promise you won't show it to Lisen,' he said again.

  'I might have to.'

  'OK. But wait a bit.'

  'Do you recognise where this might have been taken?'

  'No.'

  'Not even somewhere that could be a little bit similar? Vaguely familiar?'

  'That wall is pretty distinctive. I'd have remembered if I'd ever been there. Wherever it is.'

  'Angelika Hansson, the most recent victim, had been there as well.'

  'Really?'

  'I have a photograph. Same camera angle. Same lighting. Same wall.'

  'Let me have a look.'

  Winter produced the photographs of Angelika. There was no doubt. No doubt at all.

  'Good Lord,' said Wägner. 'What does this mean?'

  'I don't know yet.'
/>
  'You'll have to find this place.'

  'Yes.'

  'I hope it's here in Gothenburg.' Wägner looked at Winter. 'I mean, she did go on a few package holidays with friends.'

  'I know.'

  'Maybe the other girl did as well. Angelika.'

  'Yes.'

  'So it might be there,' said Wägner. 'Cyprus, or Rhodes.'

  'We'll see.'

  'Why had she hidden the envelope?'

  'Is that how you see it? That it was hidden?'

  'That's what it looks like, yes.'

  'But she hadn't thrown the pictures away.'

  'Why should she want to do that?' Wägner said.

  'I don't know either.'

  'Can there really be a link between this and ... the girls, I mean... with ... their deaths?'

  'That's what I'm trying to find out,' said Winter. 'Or trying to exclude.'

  'So you'll be looking for this place?' said Wägner.

  'And the photographer,' said Winter.

  'I don't think they knew each other,' said Wägner. 'Beatrice and ... Angela.'

  'Angelika.'

  'I don't think they knew each other. Beatrice would have mentioned her.' He looked at the photograph of Angelika sitting in front of the brick wall. 'I'd have recognised her if I'd seen her before. There aren't very many black girls in Påvelund.' He looked again at the picture of Beatrice. 'It seems to be a nice place. She looks like she's having fun, at least.'

  'Do you think you can say when this picture was taken?'

  'Not off the top of my head.'

  'Roughly.'

  'She looks just like she did ... towards the end.' Wägner turned to face Winter with a pained expression on his face. His voice sounded thick. 'Did you hear what I just said, Inspector? She looks just like she did. It's a good job Lisen isn't here.'

  Winter said nothing. Wägner's voice returned to normal.

  'It could have been newly taken, if you see what I mean.' He looked at Winter again. 'I think we'd better talk to Lisen after all. She's better than I am at ... details.'

  15

  'I recognise the dress,' Lisen Wägner said. Her face was heavy with sorrow as she studied the photographs. 'She bought it a few weeks before ... it happened.'

  'Are you sure about that?' her husband asked.

  'Yes.'

  'Two weeks before?' asked Winter.

  'About that.' She seemed to feel the doubt coming from both men. 'I can't forget it.' She looked at her husband. 'I've thought about it a lot. About that dress.' She looked at Winter. 'As if it were the last. Her last.'

  'It's several years ago,' said Bengt Wägner.

  'That makes no difference.'

  'In that case she must have collected the pho—'

  Winter was interrupted by Lisen Wägner: 'Just before she was murdered.'

  Winter gazed at the window, avoided her eye. He didn't want to use that word in there.

  'There's a date on the back,' said Bengt Wägner. He sounded surprised as he eyed the white surface.

  Winter had seen the date. Beatrice had collected the photographs the week before she died. If her mother remembered correctly, then, these photos can't have been taken more than a few days beforehand. But she must have had a full roll. There must be more pictures from that roll.

  'Where do you usually have your films developed?' he asked.

  'The photo shop at Mariaplan.'

  'Beatrice as well?'

  'I suppose so,' Bengt Wägner said.

  Lisen Wägner had sat down. Her tan was fading. Winter could see the daughter's features in the mother's face.

  Winter looked at the photograph in his hand. Beatrice had been in a room where there was an exposed brick wall and tables and crockery. Probably a bar, or a restaurant.

  She had been there a few days before she was murdered. She had saved the occasion as a secret souvenir.

  Why?

  Angelika Hansson had also been there. It must be the same place. When had Angelika been there? There was no date on her photograph. It must have been developed in another shop. Winter pictures. Not ... hidden away. But it was the same background, the same place. He had found a link.

  Winter sat in his office. It was still Saturday, still hot. Bergenhem was sitting opposite him, browner than before. Looking even stronger.

  'So, she saw Angelika with a young man several times,' said Winter as he read the document. 'Cecilia, her friend.'

  'Twice,' said Bergenhem. 'Once at a café and once from a tram.'

  'And he still hasn't contacted the police,' muttered Winter to himself.

  'No. She's been shown a few pictures but that hasn't helped.' Bergenhem started rolling up his shirtsleeves. 'I expect the lad must be abroad.' He'd finished with his sleeves. 'Otherwise he'd have seen our appeals.'

  Perhaps he's dead, Winter thought. He knew Halders had wondered the same thing.

  They needed a name and a face. Cecilia had tried to describe him. He was roughly the same age as Angelika. 'He looked sort of pale. Dark, but pale. Kind of Southern-European looking.' Winter picked up the photographs from the graduation party he'd found at the Hanssons'.

  There had been four people whom Lars-Olof Hansson didn't recognise. Three were men and one was a woman. Though one of the three men looked more Angelika's age.

  He looked sort of pale.

  Winter had felt his flesh creep when he first set eyes on the figure in the picture, and he felt it again now.

  Something was happening.

  He showed Bergenhem the photograph.

  'I'll phone her straight away,' Bergenhem said, and did so.

  'That's him,' said Cecilia. She was wearing a thin blouse and khaki shorts, and had brought the sweet scent of sun cream with her into Winter's office from the rocks she'd left when Bergenhem called her on her mobile. Her hair was stiff from the salt water and the wind. 'That's him,' she said again.

  'Take your time,' said Winter.

  'I don't need to.'

  'There's no rush.'

  'I've seen enough. There's no doubt. One hundred per cent certain.' She studied the photograph, the location, the balloons, as if she were looking for her own face. 'I was there myself, but I'm not in this picture.'

  'You didn't see him at the party?'

  'No.' She looked at the picture again. 'He looks a bit like that older bloke.' She looked at Winter. 'They could be father and son.' She turned to the photo again. 'I ought to have recognised him.'