Never End

by Ake Edwardson

  At the very start of the case he'd ordered a check on the dodgy places they knew about in the seamier parts of town and by the railway line running east. They reckoned they knew more or less all there was to know about them. And the girls who worked there. Some had only just started secondary school.

  Winter looked at the photographs of Angelika and Beatrice. Had they been there? Had they wiggled and waggled to kitschy disco music beside that brick wall?

  He thought, then something dawned on him. Something quite different. It wasn't a club, not a restaurant, not a strip joint, not a bar.

  It was a home. Somebody's private house.

  If so, that would mean they'd have to start searching in a new way. A new way that wasn't possible. It could be anywhere. Any house. Any dirty old man at all.

  'You said before that you didn't know exactly where it was,' Winter said.

  'Yes.'

  'But roughly?'

  'I know which part of town.'

  It was an entirely different part from what Winter had expected. Not at all where he'd tried to find a common ... starting point. Where the trails started. A different part of town altogether. Over the river and in among the houses. Over the hill, through the viaducts, under the motorways. A far larger area than the one he'd expected. If Andy was right, that is. He'd already decided to hold Andy for six more hours. He didn't think he'd be contacting the prosecutor after that, nor even during it. But what he thought now was of no significance.

  'Did you never go with Anne?' Winter asked.

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'She didn't want me to.'

  'And that was enough?'

  He nodded. 'And it wasn't all that often anyway.'

  'What wasn't all that often?'

  'Her doing it. Dancing.'

  'Was that all she did? Dance?'

  'What ... what are you implying by that?'

  'I'm just wondering why it's taken you so long to tell me this, Andy.'

  'It hasn't.'

  'Maybe you know more than you've told us so far?'

  'What? What else am I supposed to know?'

  Winter said nothing.

  'I don't know any more,' Andy said.

  'About the other girls.'

  'I've never seen them before.'

  'About where this ... establishment is.'

  'I don't know, I've told you.'

  'Why didn't she say where it was?'

  'Why should she?'

  'Was she never scared?'

  'Eh?'

  'Was she never scared, Andy?'

  'Let's forget Samic for the time being,' Ringmar said. 'In any case, I don't think he'll lead us to where we want to get.'

  'I suppose you're right,' said Winter. 'Will you speak to Sara?'

  'I already have. Provisionally. She didn't seem best pleased.'

  'Let her continue for another night, then.'

  'Is that an order?'

  'No.'

  'What would Birgersson say?'

  'No, probably.'

  'Well, then.'

  'What she does in her spare time has nothing to do with us,' Winter said.

  'So you are prepared to exploit your staff until they drop, are you, Erik?'

  'Of course.'

  Ringmar rubbed his brow. He had only a light tan, suggesting that he'd been hard at work, mainly indoors, crouching over databases and print-outs.

  'Mind you, Samic deserves being shadowed by everybody there is, and charged, and sentenced.' Ringmar scratched his stubble that was two days old by now, and would probably still be there when he went on leave two days from now. 'He's a nasty piece of work.'

  'Meaning what? Do you reckon we should jail people for not being nice?'

  Ringmar scratched his stubble again. Rehearsing for his holidays. No doubt it would start pouring down the moment he set foot outside the police station. That would be OK. The farmers could do with a drop of damp.

  'The way things are now, Kurt Bielke would be a better bet.'

  'Why's that?' Winter had a good idea why, but he wanted to hear Ringmar's view. 'What's he done?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Why are you linking the rape of his daughter with this business?'

  'Reasonable suspicion.'

  'Proof?'

  'Zilch.'

  'Evidence?'

  'Zilch.'

  'That sounds like a pretty convincing starting point.'

  'Might he have raped his own daughter, Erik?'

  Winter lit another cigarillo, the eighteenth today. The smell from the cigarillo mixed pleasantly with the evening air. The sounds coming through the open window were pleasant. The lights were pleasant, soft in the blue dusk. He could see two couples walking over the river and they looked pleasant. The river was flowing: pleasantly.

  But Bertil Ringmar's question was far from pleasant. His own thoughts five minutes previously had not been pleasant. Nothing they'd been talking about had been pleasant, nothing they were working on was pleasant. If there was a polar opposite to the concept of 'pleasant', they'd found it in their everyday work.

  'There's a lot of tension in that family, but that might be fairly normal,' Winter said.

  'Normal for whom?'

  'Normal for them.'

  'Or it might blow up,' said Ringmar. 'Explode.'

  'And the results, if it does?' Winter wondered.

  Ringmar didn't answer.

  'Should we maybe bring Bielke in and have a chat with him?' Winter said.

  'Better to see what he's up to.'

  'Why not do both?'

  'Or neither,' said Ringmar.

  Winter gestured to the heap of paper on his desk. He yawned, tried to keep his face straight, could feel the tension in his jaw, a warning of cramp.

  'I'll try to read through this little lot again tonight,' he said. 'Then we'll see. We can discuss it tomorrow.'

  'Will you be staying here?' Ringmar asked.

  'Yes, what do you mean?'

  'Well ...'

  'Instead of doing it at home, is that it?'

  Ringmar sort of nodded.

  'It's quieter here,' Winter said.

  'For whom, Erik?'

  Winter sat down, picked up a piece of paper with his left hand and looked up at Ringmar, who was still there.

  'I thought you were on your way home, Bertil?'

  Sara Helander was on her way home. Drop Samic? Oh no, not after last night. The date-rape swine was under arrest, would be charged within four days.

  She'd gone home, still thinking that she was an idiot, and thought about Samic. But perhaps even more about the woman standing beside him in the boat, looking expensive. Hair flying, and the half profile making it impossible to make out her features.

  There was something there. Something to do with Samic. She'd find out what it was. She was no fool. Nor was she foolhardy. But she ... needed something, needed to do something. Not some dashing heroic deed, that wouldn't be professional. But something ... clever. Leading to a breakthrough.

  It was nearly 9.00. The sky was a concert of shades. The sun was on its way to the other side of the world. Down Under. Her sister had been in Sydney. Waded through the junkies crawling around King's Cross. Hmm. It had been uplifting as well. Sunny, beautiful, like here. Distances that seemed bigger the further away you got from the cities. The red earth. The dead heart. She'd received a postcard from Alice Springs labelled 'A Town Like Alice', but hadn't got the point until she showed it to Aneta who explained about the book. Oh, I see.

  She went to the harbour known as Lilla Bommen. There were hundreds of people there now, in the boats, on the quay, in the pavement cafés, in front of the icecream stall. The Opera House was basking in the final rays of the sun that pierced the abandoned cranes on the other side of the river.

  She turned the corner. Not so many people. More boats lined up, all of them motor boats as far as she could see. A few sails in the distance. It was just as hot here. A couple were sitting on a bench, looking at the
water. People coming and going. Engines spluttering over the water. Pennants fluttering half-heartedly in the warm breeze: Swedish blue and yellow, Norwegian, Danish, one German. Something blue with a red, white and blue cross pattern in the top corner – wasn't that Australian? Had some tough customer sailed all the way from Down Under?

  She strolled along the quay, as if winding down after work. Which was what she was in fact doing, in a way. No. That wasn't true, no way. She looked for the motor boat she'd seen Samic steering, and hesitated between two, or three. Was it that one, or that, or that?

  She remembered a badge to the left of the name on the stern, some kind of decoration. There was a light above it, helping her to see it. It was like a flower, in a dark colour.

  One of the boats had a lily next to its name, Nasadika. It had a motor at the back and a ship's wheel. She knew nothing at all about boats. It looked expensive, but so did they all.

  There was a Swedish flag at the stern. She stood on the quay, looking down at the boat.

  'Can I help you?'

  She turned round and hoped the person who'd spoken to her hadn't noticed her start.

  'Er ... I'm ... I'm sorry,' she said, trying to adjust her feet and ensure that she didn't topple over backwards into the water.

  The woman seemed to be smiling. Her face was tanned, but not too much. Blonde hair. Perhaps it could fly in the slipstream. It might be the woman from last night.

  'You're sort of standing in the way of the steps,' the woman said.

  'Oh ... I'm sorry.' She moved along a few paces.

  'Thank you,' said the woman.

  'I'm looking for a boat belonging to a friend of mine,' said Sara Helander. 'I'd just established that it's not round here.' She pointed towards the guest marina. 'I think I'd better start looking over there instead.'

  The woman nodded and climbed nimbly down onto the deck. She might be forty, or she might be fifty-five. No younger, maybe older. She looked fit. Sara Helander got a good look at her now, her face. Her face in profile. She recognised it from the picture taken at the graduation party that Winter had shown her. She had a handsome nose that somebody ought to have remembered. They'd asked around.

  I recognise her, Helander thought. I recognise her now.

  Was it tension or excitement she was feeling?

  The beach party had been changed to the evening. Winter felt as if Christmas had come early as he cycled southwards with Elsa in the child seat. Angela was pedalling away ten metres ahead of them. He was thinking mainly about wind and sun as they rode round the bay and parked alongside thirty more bikes, then clambered down to the beach.

  Somebody had started the barbecues, and one of the men handed Winter a beer. Anders Liljeberg, the first time he'd seen him for months. He hadn't seen several of the people milling around since the early summer, and he was glad to be here now. He drank his beer and settled down on the sands. Angela took Elsa to the water's edge. He leaned back and let all the voices buzz over him. He could smell the barbies. He could smell the sand. He raised himself on an elbow and finished off the beer. Angela and Elsa were splashing about in the water. Liljeberg had donned his grass skirt. It looked dark brown through Winter's sunglasses. Liljeberg started dancing his version of the samba, and others joined in. Winter stood up and took off his shirt. Somebody passed him another beer. The music was Caribbean, and the evening was just as hot as the music.

  30

  The music flowed over them. From where she was lying she could see the contours of the buildings opposite, the outline of the rooftops. Something round that might be a tree. The music was soft: an acoustic guitar, viola, cello, a piano.

  'It's beautiful,' she said.

  'A map of the world,' he said.

  'Hmm?'

  'That's what the CD's called. A Map of the World. Pat Metheny. Film music, I think.'

  'I haven't seen it in your collection before,' she said.

  'I bought it today. This is the first time I've listened to it.'

  'What do you think?'

  'It's good. Not something I'd have discovered myself, but Winter had recommended it.'

  Aneta Djanali didn't answer. She moved slightly to the right, a bit closer to Halders who was lying still on his back in bed.

  The children were asleep, had been for hours. He'd slept, twenty minutes maybe. It seemed like it at least. She hadn't slept.

  How had they got into this position?

  Why not?

  They still had their clothes on. It wasn't ... like that. Not yet, at least, she thought as a new track started, just the guitar now.

  What would she have done if Fredrik had unfastened the top button of her blouse?

  He would never do that. She wasn't even completely sure that he would want to. But maybe he would. Maybe he'd been on the point of doing it. Should she do it? Or should they continue being almost like brother and sister? With the difference that grown-up brothers and sisters didn't go around together all day and all evening and half the night, as they were doing now.

  Did he love his wife? He did in the beginning. He must have done. Then they'd lost each other.

  She raised her right wrist and checked the fluorescent hands of her watch: 2 a.m. It was starting to be morning out there. She moved her head slightly to see better. The night was weak now, the light stronger. It was taking over. It had been the other way round for some hours and Fredrik had quoted Dylan Thomas, as he had done another evening, possibly wrongly, possibly correctly: Do not step gently into the good night. 'It's the only bit of the poem I know,' he'd said, 'but I remember it from the sleeve of a record Chris Hillman made a few years ago.'

  He was wheezing beside her now, the man who got his literary education from the sleeves of country records.

  He had loved his wife and perhaps still did, when he was on his own; but that was not something he'd spoken about. There were the children to consider. He'd talked about the children, then. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much. It was the children he cared most about now. The children were here, in their rooms on the other side of the hall. He kept going in to see them, when it was time for bed, and when they were asleep.

  She'd sometimes thought that was all that mattered for Fredrik Halders. He didn't show it, didn't speak about it. He was one of those men who long for company but are scared of actual contact. Who hide behind words that are hard and slippery and sure and empty.

  Who can do away with themselves, she now thought as the first signs of the sun appeared over the rooftops. Who suddenly want to leave, fast, right now, want to run away, as quickly as they can.