'OK, OK, I'll keep quiet.' He smiled a third time, got the barman's attention and ordered another beer. He looked at her glass and she shook her head. 'Sure?'
'I thought you were going to keep quiet.' She took a drink. 'All right, another mineral water with lime. Cold but no ice.'
'Shaken or stirred?' the man asked. The barman was waiting with an amused smile.
Sara Helander looked towards the entrance. Johan Samic was there, talking to a couple that had just come in. She was exchanging pleasantries with the man at the bar, but wasn't neglecting her work. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea to look as if she had company.
Samic contemplated his customers. People were queuing up on the pavement outside. It was 10.55. A quartet started playing inside the restaurant. A proper old-fashioned smoochy number. The last thing I'm going to do is dance to that! she thought.
The man's beer arrived. The music suddenly grew louder.
'Do you dance?' he asked.
'No, I sit on chairs.'
He took a sip of beer. Perhaps he looked slightly embarrassed. You don't have to be so damned bitchy, Sara.
'It's not exactly my kind of music,' she said.
'Not mine either.' He took another drink. 'I prefer rock.'
She nodded.
'Oh, I've forgotten your drink,' he said, picking up her glass which she hadn't yet touched. He held it up. 'Shaken or stirred?'
'Shaken,' she said, as she watched Samic walk to the doorway where he stood with his hands behind his back. The man next to her gave her glass a little shake and put it down again.
'Maybe I ought to introduce myself,' he said, holding out his hand. 'Martin Petrén.' She shook it, automatically and somewhat diffidently as Samic was walking among the tables, perhaps on his way out.
'What's your name, then?'
'Pardon ... what?'
Samic had turned and was on his way in again.
'I've just introduced myself.'
'Er ... yes, of course ... S ... Susanne Hellberg.'
'Cheers, Susanne.'
He raised his glass, and she thought she'd better do the same. He was pleasant and not unattractive. Maybe some time when she wasn't on duty—
'Well, look who it isn't!'
She felt a hand on her shoulder, lost her hold on her glass, which was halfway to her mouth. A hand shot out and grabbed it before it smashed onto the bar or the floor.
She hadn't seen Bergenhem arrive. That was skilfully done.
'Nice to see you,' he said, still holding the glass. 'This is a pleasant surprise.' He wasn't smiling.
The man who'd introduced himself as Martin Petrén had put down his glass and was getting to his feet.
'Aren't you going to pay?' Bergenhem asked.
'Wh ... what?'
'Hold on to this but for God's sake don't drink it,' said Bergenhem to Sara Helander, giving her the glass and leaning over the man who was about the same age as him. Everybody was thirty this enchanting evening.
'I saw what you did,' said Bergenhem quietly. 'I'm a police officer. I have my ID, you can be sure of that. I promise to show it to you later. We can leave here quietly and calmly and discuss this somewhere else. Maybe I'm making a mistake, but nobody is taking any chances. Nobody.'
The man looked round.
'I don't know what you're on about,' he whispered.
'There's a tablet dissolved in that glass. I watched you drop it in. You might have more tablets in your pocket, or you might not. Shall we go?'
The man didn't move. Bergenhem bent further down over him, spoke even more softly. 'Shall we go?'
'Now look. What the he—'
'I'm going to stand up now, and you're going to do the same.'
Sara Helander watched the men stand up. She hadn't heard everything Bergenhem had said, but she got the gist.
'Pay for both,' said Bergenhem. 'Come to your car then, but take your time.' He looked at the glass she was still holding in her hand. 'Bring the glass with you. Don't drink out of it.'
'I get it,' she said softly. 'Am I an idiot or am I an idiot?'
'Let's go, mate,' and they walked away, walked, like two friends, one with his arm round the other. Or two good-looking poofs, Sara thought as she paid and asked if she could take the glass with her if she paid for it. She wanted to go down to the canal to drink her water. The barman shrugged and refused payment for the glass, she'd 'already paid for it, really'.
Bergenhem was waiting in the car park. It wasn't far.
'Who is he?' she asked.
'Give me the glass,' said Bergenhem. He put it in a special holder and covered it.
'Where is the swine?'
'The uniforms took him straight in.'
'Good Lord, are you sure about this, Lars?'
'Yes. But not of what it is. Hardly vitamins, in any case.'
'GHB?'
'Probably. Or Rohypnol ... we'll have to see.'
'I'm not even fit to go round doling out parking tickets,' she said.
'Now that's a dangerous job.'
'You know what I'm saying, Lars. I've made an absolute mess of this job. I'm a triple idiot.'
'On the contrary,' said Bergenhem. 'Between us, we've copped one of the dregs of society in the act of spreading his poison. We lured the swine into a trap and caught him red-handed.'
She looked at Bergenhem.
'Is that what you're going to put in your report?'
'Of course.'
'You're an angel, Lars.'
'You can buy me a drink sometime.'
'Whenever you like.'
'Be careful about accepting drinks yourself, though.'
'I shall nev—'
'We'd better be getting on with the job,' said Bergenhem, tapping the glass. 'I'll have to take this shit in.'
'Do you really think I can go back there?'
'Nobody saw anything unusual.'
'Are you absolutely sure?'
'We're professionals, aren't we?'
'Well, you are at least.'
'I said we. Get yourself back there.'
It was the same barman.
'How was the moonlight?'
'Beautiful.'
'Another glass of mineral water?'
'Yes, please.'
'Anything to eat?'
'Not at the moment.'
Half an hour passed. More and more people arrived. Sara Helander stayed in the crowded bar, turning down offers of drinks. A new barman appeared. He didn't have time to favour his regulars.
She moved a bit to one side and caught sight of Samic again. He was wearing a smart, light-coloured summer jacket that he didn't have on before. He walked through the tables and out into the street. If he took a taxi that would be fine. They weren't planning to follow him by car tonight.
Samic walked northwards towards the water, on his own. Sara could hardly see him among the crowds of people flocking back and forth between the river and the town centre. He crossed over the main road and turned right towards the marina. Lights from the Opera House glistened in the water. The pavement café that formed a semicircle round the building was packed.
Then she saw Samic on the other side of the basin. He was standing still and appeared to be thinking. Behind him was a café closing for the night. It was 1.30. Suddenly there was a woman in front of Samic, talking to him. Sara couldn't make out her face at this distance. After five minutes they started walking towards the far end of the quay. Sara walked quickly round the basin, keeping her eye on the pair. It was easier now as places were closing and there were fewer people around.
She saw Samic and the woman turn the corner. They were twenty metres away. She paused and thought. There was nobody between her and the corner. She took a few more paces. The sound of music drifted from one of the cafés. She didn't hear the engine but saw the boat emerge from behind the corner and set off northwards along the river. Quite a large motor boat that could be beige or light blue or yellow, but just now looked orange and black in the glow from the street lights.
Samic was at the wheel. He didn't look back. The woman was standing beside him, hair fluttering in the breeze.
When Lars-Olof and Ann Hansson came home early next morning, having spent the night with friends in the archipelago, they could see that something was wrong. As they stood in the hall, they noticed that it still smelled of night, a cool scent.
The window of Angelika's room was broken and standing half-open. Paper and books and smashed ornaments were scattered over the floor. The desk drawers were wide open. Angelika's clothes were in a mess in the wardrobe, and its door was ajar. Her bed was in disarray. The uncovered mattress was lying sideways. Ann Hansson fainted. Her husband phoned Winter.
Winter and Ringmar stood in Angelika's room. Winter noticed that the fresh flowers, formerly in a vase on the bureau, were now spread out in a semicircle.
'Somebody was looking for something,' Ringmar said.
'Can you guess what?'
'Photographs.'
Winter agreed.
'Didn't bother to tidy up afterwards.'
'He knows what we're looking for,' Winter said.
'Could be an ordinary burglar.'
'There's a television set here,' said Winter, pointing. 'And a telephone on the bedside table over there.' He gestured towards the bureau. 'I'll bet her jewellery is still in the top drawer.'
29
Winter tried to read something in Andy's face. It was a map showing different directions.
'On which side of the river?' Winter asked.
'I'm not with you.'
'There's a bar there, isn't there? That Anne went to sometimes?'
Andy's face indicated that he thought it was nothing to do with Winter, that it was irrelevant.
'It's very important,' Winter said.
'Eh?'
'Can't you get it into your head that this bar is relevant to her death?'
You little shit-heap.
Ringmar could see what Winter was thinking. His face was a map now too.
Winter put the photographs on the table. Andy took his time.
'I don't recognise either of them,' he said.
'They're both dead,' said Winter.
Andy was silent.
'In the same way as Anne.'
'I don't recognise them even so,' Andy said.
'Is there anything else you recognise, then?'
Andy turned to look Winter in the eye.
'What do you mean?'
'The place. The surroundings.'
'No.'
'Take as much time as you need.'
'I don't recognise it.'
Winter didn't speak, just sat. He could hear faint noises of summer. They were in an interrogation room containing nothing of all the things outside. There were no colours in there. Sounds were muffled, filtered through the air conditioning, flattened to a buzz that could be anything.
Winter felt for the packet of cigarillos in his breast pocket. He could see the sweat on Andy's brow despite the low temperature in the room.
Perhaps it would happen now.
'I don't recognise it,' Andy repeated.
Then he said it.
'I've never been there.'
Winter was holding the packet halfway out of his pocket.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I've never been there.'
'Where?'
'There,' said Andy, waving his hand at the photographs on the desk.
'Where is it, Andy?'
'Where ... where they used to go.'
'They?'
'Yes, they. There are several of them, aren't there?'
Winter waited. A car set off on an emergency call-out, he could hear it. A voice shouted, more loudly than usual. Or maybe it was at normal volume in the thin air.
'You know where it is, Andy.'
No response.
'Where is it, Andy?'
He looked at Winter. His face changed, then changed again.
'What does it matter?'
'Have you still not got it into your head?'
'I'm just thinking of ... of her.'
Winter nodded.
'Do you understand?'
'You can help her now.'
'It was so ... innocent.'
'What was innocent, Andy? What?'
'The ... the dancing.'
'The dancing,' Winter repeated, as if he'd been waiting to hear those words all afternoon. As if everything had been leading up to those words: the dancing.
A dance for a murderer?
'Tell me about the dancing,' Winter said.
'It was just an extra job on the side.'
'Tell us about the extra job on the side.'
'I don't know exactly what it is.'
'Just tell us about the dancing, then.'
'A bit of strip,' Andy said. 'It was ... nothing much.'
'A bit of strip? Striptease?'
Andy nodded.
'She was a stripper. Is that what you're saying?'
'Yes ... that's what she told me anyway.'
Winter held his eye. Why hadn't Andy said anything right at the start? From the first minute he knew what had happened to Anne. Dancing naked wasn't the end of the world, not even to old men like ... like him, like Winter, an old man of forty-one, knocking forty-two. It wasn't the most desirable summer job, but it didn't mean eternal damnation.
But had it meant eternal death for Anne? And for the others? Had the other girls also had summer jobs as strippers?
Winter wasn't shocked to hear that young girls of about twenty earned extra cash at strip clubs. It wasn't exactly news. It was rather an increasingly wearisome fact. He felt more angry about the unknown prostitution young girls could be led into. Not so much in the clubs, they had a pretty good check on those. But over the net. The Internet, which was supposed to spread happiness and socially useful information to mankind.
Never End Page 27
