Death Angels (35 page)

The collage was the only object in the apartment that revealed who lived there. Winter leaned over the table and looked at it. He counted the photos—eight in all, and Vikingsson the only person in each of them.

They had been arranged in a circle. He followed them clockwise, returning to the one on top: Vikingsson sat at some kind of counter that looked like a bar. He took up most of the photo. You could see behind his shoulders and five or six feet along the counter. Somebody had stood behind it and taken the picture with a wide-angle lens. Winter’s gaze meandered from Vikingsson to the area in back of him and off to the side.

Something about the place was familiar. The windows behind Vikingsson . . . Winter closed his eyes and saw the windows emerge from the past. The same bar. He saw himself sitting there and saying something to the man on the other side.

Take it easy, he told himself. It’s just a coincidence. The city is full of popular bars—and ones that aren’t so popular.

WlNTER COULD ALMOST SMELL THE ADRENALlNE lN THE CON
ference room. The mood had changed drastically since his departure for London, investigators now in motion, having found their direction.

Winter spent ten minutes telling them about London. “I want to know what each of you is thinking at this very minute,” he said. “Don’t worry if it comes out all jumbled up. Ringmar will write everything down. Okay—lights, camera, action.”

The semicircle they formed around Winter was like half a clock without the hour hand, as if they expected to solve the case before it came around again.

“Welcome back, boss,” Halders said.

Damn ass kisser, Djanali thought. He’s trying to sound ironic, but everyone knows he’s just sucking up.

“Sara?” Winter said.

“The marks on the floor indicate that the murderer was not only very strong, but beside himself with rage,” Helander said.

“Rage?”

“That’s our interpretation based on the way he moved around the room.”

“Hmm.”

“Something he had repressed finally got the chance to come out.”

“The bastard ran amok,” Halders said.

“Do you have people looking at Vikingsson’s past?” Winter asked, his eyes on Ringmar.

“You bet.”

“It seems to start quietly,” Helander continued. “Like a system or a pattern, and then it spirals out of control.”

“You can say that again,” Halders interjected.

“Hold your tongue, Fredrik,” Winter said, “and let us know when you have something constructive to contribute.”

Halders’s neck turned red, and he gave Djanali a sideways glance. She sat impassively and blinked her eyes.

“It’s the same story over and over again,” Helander said. “The murderer has a plan that gets out of hand, but the scary thing is that it gets out of hand exactly the same way each time.”

“What do you mean?” Möllerström asked.

“The patterns look the same, as if a robot had lost its mind, or was programmed to go crazy just like the time before.”

“
C’est la folie
,” Halders muttered, a naughty child who can’t keep his mouth shut.

Does he really know French? Djanali mused to herself. Maybe he’s taking an evening class.

“Except for the second murder in London,” Helander continued. “The photos I got from Erik show another pattern. It’s like a couple of sequences are missing.”

“He was interrupted,” Winter said.

“It shows.”

Everyone sat quietly and looked at the photos. It’s the way it keeps repeating itself that’s so horrible, Djanali thought. It’s revolting, but without this constant repetition, we would be totally lost. The art of monotony, that’s our specialty. She cleared her throat.

“Aneta?”

“We chatted with some of Vikingsson’s neighbors,” Djanali said. “People keep to themselves there. It’s your typical apartment building. But when we asked about his habits, somebody said he worked out a lot.”

“Worked out?”

“I don’t know if he meant anything special by it. But Vikingsson was carrying a big duffel bag the two or three times the neighbor ran into him.”

“Bertil?” Winter said.

“We just heard about the duffel bag today,” Ringmar answered. “We didn’t know about it yesterday or bring it up with Vikingsson.”

“I was referring to what you found in his apartment.”

Ringmar picked up a file folder from the table, flipped to one of the pages and read from a list. “No duffel bag,” he said.

“Nothing at all—not even a travel bag or a rucksack?”

“No—one of those roller bags that flight attendants use, that’s all. But we didn’t have time to turn the place upside down.”

“And now he’s home tidying up,” Halders said.

“Find out whether he has a gym membership,” Winter said to Halders.

“Okay.”

“Check out every health club in town if you have to.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Where is he now, by the way?” Möllerström asked.

“Somewhere over the North Sea,” Ringmar said.

“There’s something I wanted to bring up about the victims’ backgrounds, or however you put it,” Halders said. “We were supposed to look for whatever they might have in common, so we spent dozens of hours talking to their acquaintances and their girlfriends and boyfriends.”

“Possible boyfriends,” Winter corrected him.

“We’re pretty certain about that.”

“Go on.”

“Sure enough, there’s a place that Jamie, Per and Geoff all went to on a fairly regular basis,” Halders said.

“Not Christian?”

“We don’t know yet. It might be the kind of place that most kids their age go to.”

He said the name and Ringmar looked over at Möllerström.

“Halders mentioned it this morning,” Möllerström said.

“A lot of information came together last night,” Halders said. “But I haven’t had a chance yet to find out anything about Christian.”

Erik looks totally exhausted, Djanali thought. I wonder how the rest of us would appear to a stranger who just happened to drop by.

“Does Vikingsson have a car?” Winter asked Ringmar.

“Not one that’s been registered, in any case.”

“That doesn’t tell us much. We need to check the resident cards on the windshields of all the cars parked in his neighborhood. If we find one that nobody will own up to, it could be Vikingsson’s.”

“Or it could be mine,” Halders said.

“What?”

“My car was stolen again, and this time I didn’t catch the S.O.B. who did it.”

Winter longed for a cup of coffee and a cigarillo. “We’re going to call him in for questioning again,” he said.

“Good,” Ringmar said.

“We’ve got some new information to ask him about.”

“He’s not home,” Möllerström said.

“Find him,” Winter said. “He’s not off the hook, no matter what he might think. If worst comes to worst, we’ll try a photo lineup and hope we can get him arrested that way. And we’ve got to know more about his personal life. Friends, acquaintances, what he does at night. Clubs, bars, movies.”

He thought about the photos on the wall in Vikingsson’s kitchen.

He turned to Bergenhem. The guy looked sick. Winter couldn’t remember him ever being so skinny. Had he sent him on a fool’s errand? Or was he a bundle of nerves because his wife was about to have a baby? Winter was clueless when it came to that kind of thing.

“Lars?”

Bergenhem glanced at Winter as if by accident. “Yes?”

“What do you have to say?”

“I have a source, and it might lead to something.”

He acts like he’s got a hangover, Winter thought.

“The porn industry seems to be reeling from something, or was reeling from something up until very recently . . . something completely new.”

“New?”

“A kind of anxiety. And I don’t think it’s just because I’m going around asking questions. It’s like somebody has the answer but isn’t talking.”

“Has anyone told you that?”

“I might be able to come up with a name.”

They all waited. Just a simple name, and everybody would finally be able to relax over that cup of coffee, close Ringmar’s folder and Möllerström’s database.

“Somebody who has the answer,” Bergenhem repeated.

Bergenhem drove back over the bridge and caught Martina by surprise. She stood in the kitchen looking down at the floor as if she expected her water to break and splash onto the tile. It wouldn’t be long now.

He kissed her and put his arms around her. She smelled like apples and cotton. He placed his hand on her belly.

“Aren’t you on duty?”

“You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

She laughed. “Do you want something to eat?”

“Do we have any pork chops?”

“Pork chops?”

“I want some fried pork chops. I feel like I haven’t had an appetite in weeks.”

“You
haven’t
had an appetite in weeks.”

“Fried pork chops with onion gravy and boiled potatoes and absolutely no vegetables.”

“That’s not very PC.”

“What’s not?”

“To leave out the vegetables.”

“I can go to the grocery store.”

“If you want pork chops, that’s your best bet. We don’t have any.”

He walked down to the familiar corner and turned left. Three teenagers whirled by on skateboards. They’re playing hooky too, he thought.

The sky was breathtaking. Not a cloud in sight. He passed a school and heard a loud bell. It sounds just like it used to, he thought. Education reforms come and go but the bells never change. All those hours that I just sat at my desk waiting for it to ring. Waiting and waiting.

He felt like he had woken up from a confused dream, the darkness dispelled by the cold.

Was it that Winter had come back? Are you so fucking dependent on him? Who are you, anyway? Things may not be so hazy now, but you’re still asking yourself the same questions. It’s like you have to prove something to yourself and everyone else. I’ll show them . . . I’ll show them. Who are you, Lars?

The store appeared on the right. The newspaper placards in the window were the color of coltsfoot blossoms. In two or three years the baby would run in with the first fistful, and they would put it in a vase and finally press it between volumes A and B of the encyclopedia.

Who are you besides a rookie cop on his way to buy a pound of pork chops with a guilty conscience for something he hasn’t actually done?

He thought of her as Angel, as Marianne, as Angel again. He didn’t know anymore who was attracted and who was doing the attracting. It’s like a drug, he thought. Is it over? Is what over?

You’ve got things under control, he told himself. Nobody can say you’re not doing your job. You even wrote a report.

Östergaard sat in the kitchen and tested Maria on her French. As far as she could tell, her daughter’s pronunciation was perfect.

She was thinking of renting a house in Normandy for a couple of weeks the following summer. The form was already completed. The name of the village was Roncey, and it was near the town of Coutances. She had been there once, before Maria was born. The cathedral was the highest point but had survived the bombs—the only unscathed church in northern Normandy. It stretched out a finger to God. She wanted to go in and light another candle, seventeen years later or however long it had been: a servant of God from Gothenburg and her daughter.

When they were finished with the pronunciation exercises, Maria read the paragraph out loud and translated it. Her French was better than her mother’s. They could order a meal at the village restaurant.
Un vin blanc, une orange, merci
. Buy picnic food for the deserted beach. When the tide ebbed, the oyster farms glittered in the sun. They would walk along the white sand, dig for French-speaking crabs with their toes.

She looked up and Maria was gone. The television went on in the living room, a raucous guest.