Never End

by Ake Edwardson

  'There are a lot of names,' said Möllerström.

  But there was one particular name that stood out. It was linked to a dance restaurant – the kind with live music and old-fashioned ballroom dancing – south of the river. The name was one of the most familiar in the Gothenburg restaurant world, had been for ages. One of several, and they'd worked their way down the list and come to the name and they would ask the person in question before they went back to the list. Bergenhem had no great hopes.

  'What is a dance restaurant nowadays?' asked Möllerstrom.

  'A place where people eat and dance,' Bergenhem said.

  'Isn't that something from another age?'

  'Eating and dancing?'

  Möllerström grinned.

  'Proper dancing. Makes me think of the Royal Hotel back home.'

  'We'll soon find out,' said Bergenhem.

  They drove through the hordes of tourists. Many of them looked tired and lost as they passed in front of the car. Visitors from faraway towns. Möllerström thought again of the Royal Hotel in the town where he had grown up.

  The oil storage tanks were gleaming on the other side of the river. The place they were looking for was in one of the sand-coloured-brick buildings in one of the dockland streets.

  Inside it smelled of dust and stale smoke, and the premises looked like a dance restaurant: a large dance floor in a semicircle around a stage, beyond it chairs and tables in another semicircle, and furthest back, a horseshoe-shaped bar. The tables had white cloths and on every one was a flower in a bud vase.

  There was nobody behind the bar. There were musical instruments on the stage. A woman was pushing a grey rag on a stick over the floor. She dipped the rag in a bucket of water. A few rays of sun came in through one of the windows and lit up her face as if she'd been on the stage ten metres away, starting to sing the first love song of the evening. She turned her head away from the sunlight and stared down at the floor, which was black-and-white checked. It was dark in the big room, but as light as it would ever be. A beam of sun suddenly fell on a saxophone in its stand on the stage, and it glistened like gold.

  'Dance restaurant,' said Möllerström.

  A door opened to the left of the bar, a man came out and walked over to them. He stretched out his hand and introduced himself. He was tall, taller than either Bergenhem or Möllerström, bald head and trimmed sideburns. He was wearing a white T-shirt under a dark jacket, and smart black trousers. There was something familiar about him. Bergenhem shook hands and introduced himself and Möllerström.

  'Pleased to meet you,' said Johan Samic.

  Bergenhem explained why they were there.

  'You've come to the right place,' Samic said.

  Bergenhem waited. Möllerström looked surprised.

  'We had that place in its final years,' said Samic. 'That's not exactly a secret.'

  'We haven't said anything about it being a secret.'

  'Barock was a decent club,' said Samic.

  What the hell does he mean by that? wondered Bergenhem.

  'We turned it into a respectable place.'

  'Wasn't it respectable before?'

  Samic smiled.

  'Can we take a look around?' Bergenhem asked.

  'No.'

  'No?'

  'I don't like any old Tom, Dick or Harry wandering in before we're open and looking around,' said Samic.

  'We're investigating some serious crimes,' said Möllerström.

  'I know, but what's that got to do with my restaurant?'

  'We've just explained.'

  'Exactly. So what are you doing here?'

  'We've got a few more questions to ask you,' Bergenhem said.

  'Well?'

  'Maybe we'll ask them round at our place.'

  'Round at your place?'

  'At the police station.'

  'Very funny.'

  'OK, let's go. Are you ready?'

  'What the—'

  'You can't refuse to come, Samic. I'm sure you know that.'

  'OK ... for God's sake, it's just that I have a lot to do right now, but do wander around and poke your noses in wherever you like.' He looked round. 'The toilets are over there.' He pointed with his thumb. 'You have my permission to visit the ladies' as well.'

  'Arrogant bastard,' said Möllerström as they drove past more groups of tourists. Or maybe it's the same people going round and round in circles all day, he thought.

  'He seemed familiar,' Bergenhem said.

  'The type, you mean?'

  'More than that. The man himself.'

  'You didn't show him the pictures of the girls. Nor the wall.'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'It wasn't the right time.' Bergenhem turned to face Möllerström, who was driving. 'He'd have sworn blind he didn't recognise any of them no matter what.'

  'You reckon?'

  'There was something familiar ...' Bergenhem breathed in the wind that was blowing into his face. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't unpleasant either. 'I'll have to have another look at Winter's photos.'

  Richard Yngvesson listened to what Winter was saying. The technician was sitting at his computer, which was connected to a mixer board and other equipment that Winter didn't know the name of, nor what it did.

  'You don't need to go to Swedish Radio,' Yngvesson said. 'A pity you found it necessary to mention them.'

  'Sorry about that.'

  'I didn't know you lot were so ignorant.'

  'Come on, Richard. Is it possible to get anything from that tape?'

  'What do you want?'

  'Anything at all that makes sense. A sentence or a word. A voice that sounds natural. Anything other than that row, whatever it is.'

  'The problem is that there's no stereo tracks for me to work on,' Yngvesson said. 'The answering machine's only mono, so everything's in the middle.' He turned to face Winter, who'd sat down beside him. 'Do you follow me? There's just one signal for everything.'

  'I've got a vague idea about what mono is,' said Winter.

  Yngvesson pressed a few buttons, changed a few connections and put the cassette into something that looked nothing like a tape recorder. The sound started.

  The technician listened intently.

  'What we need to do is to try to filter this sound image,' he said. 'Give it a good wash.'

  'Is that possible?'

  'Of course.'

  'Good.'

  'Don't expect too much. The main thing is cutting out the bass so that it isn't so deep, and increasing the descant in the middle register.'

  'When can you start?'

  Yngvesson looked at a list on the notice board next to his computer.

  'In a week.'

  'The hell you can.'

  'You're not the only person we're dealing with here, Winter. You seem to think that as soon as you come storming in, we can drop everything else.' He looked almost angry. 'There are other things going on here, you know.'

  'Which murders are you referring to?'

  'There are—'

  'Give me the cassette.'

  'Eh?'

  'I'm taking it to somebody at Swedish Radio.'

  'Hang on a minute—'

  'I can't make head nor tale of people sometimes,' Winter said. 'Here I am working on a complicated case, to say the least, with young girls being raped and murdered while Gothenburg basks in the summer sun, and you sit here rabbiting on about something that is evidently more important.'

  'Are you giving a speech?' asked Yngvesson. 'Tell me when you've finished so that I can start work.'

  'On what?'

  'On your murder,' said Yngvesson, turning to one of the computer screens and gaping at Winter as if in a mirror.

  'Plural,' said Winter. 'It's several murders.'

  Yngvesson listened to the cassette again.

  'Three minutes,' he said.

  'Yes.'

  'It took her three minutes to die.'

  'Unusually long for an answering machine.' />
  Yngvesson shrugged.

  'When do you think you can come up with a result?'

  'I'd rather not talk about results.' Yngvesson did something with his keyboard. 'Give me three days.'

  'Three days?'

  'Back off now, Winter. You should really be waiting for a week, possibly two, and you've got it down to three days. OK?'

  'OK.'

  'Three minutes, three days,' said Yngvesson. 'But be prepared for it to take longer.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'I'll put it into the computer and let a few programs get to work on the sound image. There's software that can clean up the sound and analyse it. If there's some kind of background noise, for instance, a constant hum or something, such as an air-conditioning fan, I can remove those frequencies.'

  'Hmm.'

  'It's not something you can rush. I have to work on the sound a little bit at a time. Do you understand?'

  'I understand.'

  'What I've heard so far is partly treacle, what we call treacly sound that's muffled and vague. I'll try to raise the descant and see if I can winkle out what I assume you're interested in.'

  'I'm interested in everything,' Winter said.

  'The voice,' said Yngvesson. 'Aren't you trying to hear words? Or at the very least a voice? Bits of words, or whatever else we can produce?'

  'Of course.'

  'There are voices here, but it's not possible to hear anything intelligible apart from the girl's cries for help now and again. You could say most of it's a sort of whisper. And then there's the other stuff ... the grunting or whatever you might call it.'

  'That's it,' said Winter. 'That's the stuff I'm mainly interested in.'

  'All right. I'll concentrate on the middle register, do a bit of work on the compression. Amplify the faint bits. Try to dampen the loud ones.'

  Winter made no comment. Yngvesson listened to the tape again.

  'Right, let's see if we can manage to dig out a few bits of words. It sounds as though the mobile was inside something. Presumably it was in her handbag, is that right?'

  'I've no idea. We haven't found the phone.'

  'That makes it more difficult. If it was in her handbag, that is. It also sounds as if they were at varying distances from the microphone.'

  Winter could picture the scene. The handbag, the ground, the man, the girl, the struggle, the blows, the hands, the dog lead. Death. The lead? Why had he thought of the 'dog lead'? He hadn't thought of 'the belt'. He could see a dog lead round the girl's neck. What was the difference between a lead and a belt?

  'There's something positive here as well,' said Yngvesson. 'She had a hands-free set.'

  'You reckon?'

  'She must have had. It sounds as if the microphone was outside the handbag. At the end here at least. The sound is clearer, if you can call it that. The mike has picked up clearer sound.'

  'We didn't find anything to support that. No earphones.'

  He wondered where they might be now. Would anybody use that mobile phone again?

  He played Brecker at top volume and watched the clouds disperse, maybe for good. The music had chased them away.

  He phoned Angela.

  'The sun's coming out. Look.'

  'Is that why you rang?'

  'Isn't that a good enough reason?'

  'Here's Elsa.'

  He spoke to his daughter. Angela returned to the phone.

  'We've been invited to a party on Saturday, by the way.'

  'Where?'

  'At Agneta and Pelle's.'

  'Ah. A beach party, I suppose?'

  'You can make it?'

  'Saturday? I certainly hope so.'

  25

  Bergenhem was reporting on the visit.

  'Samic?' Winter said.

  'Does the name mean anything to you?' asked Bergenhem.

  'No.'

  'He's been around quite a while.'

  'I'll check up on him.'

  'We don't have anything on him. I ran a few searches.'

  Winter lit a cigarillo. He didn't have the strength to go to the window. Bergenhem had changed into shorts in his office.

  'I've just had another look at those graduation party photos,' Bergenhem said, taking out his copies, leaning over the desk and pointing. 'Look at this.'

  Winter looked at the dark-haired man standing next to the boy.

  'That could be Samic,' said Bergenhem.

  'It could be anybody at all.'

  'Yes ...'

  'You have to be certain.'

  'I'm not.'

  'What are the similarities?'

  'Something about his face. There again, this bloke has hair whereas Samic is going bald.'

  'Wig?'

  'Or a toupee.' He looked at Winter. 'Surely that can be established?'

  'How?'

  'Aren't there any experts who can tell us if hair is real or false?'

  'By looking at a photograph?'

  'There are experts at everything,' said Bergenhem.

  Apart from finding murderers before panic breaks out among the general public, Winter thought. He also thought about the reporter Hans Bülow. Winter had read the article that morning. Seen the picture of the boy in the photographs; the one who might be the father of Angelika's child. Nobody had phoned in as yet.

  'I'll go there,' said Winter.

  'To Sarnic's place?'

  Winter nodded. He studied the photograph again.

  He had it in his inside pocket when he shook hands with Johan Samic half an hour later. A waiter was lifting chairs off the tables. There was a clinking noise from the bar where the barman was preparing ice and cutting up lemons.