Never End

by Ake Edwardson

Samic told him what had happened.

  'It's got nothing to do with me,' Vennerhag repeated.

  'You're as much in the shit as I am,' said Samic.

  'I was part owner once upon a time last century, and that's all.'

  The sun announced its arrival behind them. There were the beginnings of a glow on the horizon. They were alone on the road.

  'Where are we going?' Samic asked.

  'As far away from Gothenburg as possible,' Vennerhag said.

  'You stink of booze.'

  'Can you see the fuzz anywhere?'

  'No.'

  'Then shut up.'

  'What are we going to do?'

  'Nothing.'

  'That won't be good enough,' said Samic.

  'They don't know anything. There's nothing left in the place, is there?'

  'I certainly hope not,' said Samic.

  'And I don't want to know any more than is absolutely necessary.'

  'Do you have conflicting loyalties?'

  Vennerhag didn't answer, just kept on driving towards the sun.

  'Are we on our way to the islands?' asked Samic.

  'As far as you're concerned, it doesn't matter where you hide away.'

  'Won't it seem suspicious?'

  Vennerhag laughed out loud but there was no humour in the eyes that examined Samic in the rear-view mirror.

  'Here comes the bridge,' Samic said.

  They drove over it and Vennerhag turned briefly to look at the calm surface of the sea stretching away as far as the eye could see.

  'We'll have to hide the boat,' said Samic.

  'It's already been moved.'

  'Not to here, surely?'

  'Just shut up,' said Vennerhag, leaving the bridge and continuing in silence. He turned off after two miles and drove where the forest was thickest.

  Winter clambered through the window. Sara Helander was standing outside. She heard a car on the road.

  'If that's Lars and Bertil, tell them I'll try to open the front door as soon as I can find my way there,' said Winter.

  'What if you run into trouble?'

  'I won't,' Winter said.

  A feeling in the pit of his stomach warned him to be cautious, or perhaps he was worrying about what might have happened to Halders. Halders had not been in touch. He'd gone in but hadn't come out, as far as Sara had been able to see.

  The door was open, the hall empty and dark, there was no light anywhere apart from some pale daylight under the door at the other end. He went to the door and opened it: it led into a large room, and he could see the street through the windows. There was a hammering on the door. He went to unfasten the lock. Ringmar, Bergenhem and Sara Helander were standing outside.

  'It's all quiet in here,' said Winter.

  'Shall we take a storey each?' Bergenhem said.

  They did so and Winter retraced his steps, and tried another door.

  The staircase was steep. It was as dark as night. He switched on his torch and shone it down. The stairs led to a narrow corridor that led in turn to an empty room. He could see a curtain and a pane of glass. There was a CD player. The torch beam bored its way into the wall and shadows darted around the room, which smelled of stale sweat. Or something even worse, he thought. Fear.

  He found a light switch. He pressed himself against the wall and switched on the light, which was white and dazzling for a second.

  Vennerhag drove back with the sun in his face. The weather forecast on the radio said it was going to get even hotter, which sounded impossible.

  He'd turned off the air conditioning so that he could feel the morning breeze through the open window. It smelled of things he recognised but had forgotten the name of. He was thinking about a lot of things. He felt calm, but the situation was complicated.

  Ha, ha.

  He hadn't asked for it. Things had grown worse and worse, but that wasn't his fault, not in that way, unless silence in itself was wrong. Well, yes, of course it is. You don't keep quiet about things like that. Even if it's got nothing to do with you.

  He drove down the last of the hills towards the centre of town. He tried to think what he should do with her. With her. He hadn't had any help from Samic. Samic was dangerous for everybody, worse than he was. They could have him.

  Better to wait and see what happens. Must think. Sleep.

  Winter stood in front of the glass panel and understood. They'd find similar set-ups elsewhere in the house.

  It was here. There was an answer. The girls had been here, they must have been here and done whatever they did. Danced.

  Beier's forensic technicians would have plenty to occupy them here.

  The house was deserted. Why? Because of Halders? Yes. Halders had appeared and that was why they'd all disappeared. 'All'. Who was all?

  Where was Halders?

  Winter looked round. The dust would have stories to tell for forensics: marks, stains, prints, fibres.

  He went back up the stairs and into the big room, which was also a hall with a staircase leading up to other floors.

  Ringmar appeared at the top of the stairs.

  'Come up here, Erik.'

  Ringmar waited for him at the top. A new hall, morning light coming through the door to another room.

  It was a bar, and the trappings were familiar. The wall seemed to be built of real brick, but when Winter touched them he could feel the plastic. There was a table and some chairs, and peculiar decorations on the walls.

  'Just like in the photographs,' said Ringmar.

  'We've Sara to thank for this,' said Winter.

  She had come into the room and heard what he said.

  'Don't thank me until we've heard from Halders,' she said. 'I ought to have stopped him.'

  'Stop Halders?' said Ringmar.

  Bergenhem appeared in the doorway. 'I've been all round the place and it seems deserted, to say the least,' he said.

  'OK, let's go and pick up Bielke,' said Winter.

  They rang the doorbell and Bielke's wife answered, wearing a white dressing gown. Her expression was sleepy.

  Bielke didn't say a word in the back seat of Winter's car. A patrol car was behind them. Bielke turned round once.

  'Now you've overstepped the mark,' he said when they were in the interrogation room with no windows. Winter was accompanied by Ringmar. 'This is an abuse of power.'

  'We want to ask you a few questions,' Winter said.

  Bielke didn't seem to be listening.

  'We have some new information.'

  'I'm saying nothing without a solicitor present,' said Bielke, whose face looked angular in the bright fluorescent light. His tan was criss-crossed by white diagonal lines.

  'OK. We'll pause until he gets here,' Winter said.

  Bielke's solicitor looked as if he'd seen it all before. It was 8.00 in the morning, but he was dressed as if for dinner. Perhaps he wondered about the weariness in the eyes of the two detectives.

  Nevertheless, Winter detected uncertainty in the young man, in his movements, his eyes.

  Winter started the interrogation again: 'I'd like to have some details about your movements last night,' he said.

  Bielke waited.

  Winter specified the times.

  'It's impossible to ask—' the solicitor began.

  'If you're going to keep interrupting you'll be out of that door,' Winter snapped.

  'Wh ... what?'

  'You are interfering with the interrogation. You may ask questions if you want when I give you permission to do so, but you will do that when I've finished or you will be out.'

  The solicitor looked at Ringmar, who nodded with a friendly smile.

  'Is it legal to proceed like this?' asked Bielke, looking first at Winter and then at his solicitor.

  Winter asked another question.

  Bielke was resting. His solicitor had left, but promised to come back.

  'You need to get a bit of sleep, Erik,' Ringmar said.

  'You're right.'

  'Go ho
me.'

  'I'll sleep here. Two hours.'

  'Three,' said Ringmar. 'We'll keep him for another six.'

  'I want him put on remand,' Winter said.

  'Molina will no doubt want more on him than we've got,' said Ringmar. 'And that's an understatement.'

  Mr Prosecutor Molina always wants more than we've got, thought Winter.

  'Send Bergenhem and a few of the boys round to his house.'

  'It'll be your decision.'

  'It is my decision. I've just made it.'

  'What are they supposed to be looking for?'

  'Angelika's camera,' Winter said.

  'What?'

  'The dog lead, the belt, cameras. Anything we need to nail that bastard.'

  'I think he's sick,' said Ringmar.

  'That's an understatement.' Winter looked at Ringmar. 'One hour from now Cohen will sit down with him and his solicitor, if he dares to come back.'

  'Right.'

  Cohen was an experienced interrogator whom Winter always relied on when he couldn't ask the questions in person.

  'We have to press him for more information about Fredrik,' Winter said. 'I briefed Cohen about that.'

  'I don't think Bielke knows what's happened,' said Ringmar. 'I don't think he saw Fredrik in there.'

  'Fredrik may have seen him.'

  33

  It was Aneta Djanali who collected Hannes and Magda from school. Margareta's mother would arrive later in the afternoon and stay with her grandchildren, who were parentless for the time being. Djanali thought about that word: parentless.

  'How long do you think it will take?' Grandma had asked when they made contact, with traces of hope in her voice.

  How should she reply to that?

  Djanali felt dizzy as the children came towards her, as if everything was happening somewhere else, as if she were seeing everything through a filter. As if a train were moving through the landscape, and she was sitting in it, looking out.

  'Where's Daddy?' asked Hannes.

  How should she reply to that?

  'He's ... on a mission,' she said.

  'When's he coming back, then?'

  'We're not sure. That's why I'm here to fetch you and Magda.'

  The boy and his sister seemed satisfied with that. They all clambered into the patrol car. I don't want to drive them myself, Djanali had told Winter.

  They got out when the car pulled up outside Halders' house. She went in with the children and checked the time. Their grandma would arrive in two hours. 'Are you hungry?' she asked them.

  She took some hamburgers and rolls from the freezer and Hannes showed her where the ketchup was kept, pointing with a tiny index finger. On the next shelf down was an onion and a head of lettuce starting to turn brown at the edges.

  She fried the grey meat until it turned brown, and prepared the hamburgers. No onion for Magda.

  'Are you from Africat?' the boy asked, speaking with his mouth full.

  'Africa,' said his sister, looking somewhat embarrassed. 'It's called Africa.'

  'My mum and dad come from a country in Africa called Burkina Faso,' Djanali said. 'It used to be called Upper Volta.'

  'It's on top of Lower Volta!' said Hannes, giggling.

  His sister gave him a nudge. Djanali felt the nudge herself. Fredrik, Fredrik, please come in through that door and say something idiotic about Ouagadougou. Anything at all, at any time. We'll get married a second later. Buy a house in a mixed-race area. Live here. Move to Upper Volta. Commute to Ouagadougou. Come in through that door. Phone me on your mobile, you big darling idiot.

  'What's it like?' Hannes asked.

  'In Burkina Faso? There's a lot of sand.' She looked at her untouched hamburger that was starting to go dry on her plate. 'I've only been there once, ten years ago.'

  'Why not more often?'

  'Well ... I was born here. Here in Gothenburg. I'm Swedish.'

  'Are there any lions?' asked Hannes.

  'Not so many. There are more camels than lions.'

  'Is it a desert?'

  'Quite a lot of it is desert.'

  'Have you heard about the aeroplane that crashed in the desert?' Hannes asked.

  'It's a joke,' said Magda.

  'No,' said Djanali, turning to Hannes.

  'Well, the captain sent all the passengers out looking for food,' said the boy with a grin the width of his face. 'They'd all survived the crash, of course. He sent them all out, and they came back saying that they had good news and bad news.' He looked at her. 'Are you with me?'

  'I'm with you.'

  '"OK," said the captain, "let's hear the bad news first." "There's nothing to eat but camel shit," the passengers told him. "What about the good news, then?" the captain said. And the passengers told him: "There's lots of it!"'

  She laughed.

  'Dad told us that one,' said Magda.

  The children went off to do their own thing. She washed up, and the sun was in her eyes so she pulled down the blind. In the living room she could hear the faint hum from Hannes' computer, the metallic ghostly voice from some game or other.

  She turned to the collection of CDs. Hmm, Fredrik certainly had good taste, she thought, then adjusted that to: has good taste. HAS. American singer-songwriters, with a few dashes of alternative country.

  She sat down with lots of covers in her hand. Outside, the garden was dormant in the afternoon heat. The birds were asleep in the trees. Maybe the children were mercifully asleep as well? The computer in Hannes' room had gone quiet.

  She played Buddy Miller – maybe Fredrik would hear it and come bounding in through the verandah door: Who the hell is playing my record, the bastard?

  Winter had dozed on and off for an hour and a half, dreamed violent dreams that he'd forgotten when he woke up but which pounded away at his brain like a fever.

  Fredrik Halders' face was the first thing he saw even before he'd opened his eyes. When he did, the wall in front of him was empty and piss-yellow.

  He sat up, rubbed his face hard and checked the time. He reached out for the telephone on the narrow table in the overnight room and rang home.