Through the window Winter could see a stack of cans, a pile of papers, candy, a small counter, and a small cash register.
They walked back in the sunshine and got into the car. Macdonald drove down the street and it took two minutes. They passed a construction site. The cement mixer Winter had heard was on. The three construction workers turned toward the car. Macdonald stretched his arm through the open car window. One of the men raised his hand.
They were through, and they stopped at an intersection.
This was the end of the world. If Winter had been anywhere that might be the End of the World, this was it. The ironic name; that was part of it. A wild name, here and there. Dallas. Dallas, Texas. Dallas, Moray. Dallas, Scotland. It made him think of the film
Macdonald turned right onto a gravel road and drove up to the house and stopped the car. There were several buildings on the plot of land. Chickens were running around in the yard. Winter saw three hunting dogs in a kennel. The dogs hadn’t barked a single time. There were two modern Ferguson tractors with muddy back wheels alongside the wall of a barn.
A golf bag was leaning against one of the tractors.
Winter saw the club handles sprawling against the cow shit on the tires. Maybe not a common sight on a farm in backwoods Sweden. But here. People played golf the way the Swedes took nature walks. Along the roads in Scotland, Winter had seen many golfers, men, women, in tweed, in rags, old, young, healthy, disabled, in wheelchairs, like something out of P. G. Wodehouse’s golf stories. And now-golf clubs and manure. A man stepped out of the barn. He had on a cowboy hat.
“This is it,” Macdonald said, turning off the ignition, and Little Milton was cut off in the middle of another relationship problem.
Lucinda Williams was cut off in the middle of an attempt at consolation. Blue is the color of night. Halders turned off the CD player when the telephone jangled out a ring that he’d forgotten to turn down.
“The guys are here now,” said Aneta.
“Good.”
“Something else has happened.”
“What?”
“Forsblad’s sister just called.”
“She has your number?” asked Halders.
“I gave it to her.”
“Hmm.”
“The important thing is what she said. She said that she wants to talk to me about ‘things you don’t know.’”
“She probably wants to back her brother up,” said Halders.
“She also asked if I had seen Anette in the past few days.”
“And?”
“If I knew how she looked,” said Aneta.
“What does that mean?”
“That means that I’m going to her place to hear what she has to say,” said Aneta.
“Have you looked for her? Anette?”
“No one answered at any of the numbers.”
“Ask one of the guys to drive you to Alvstranden,” said Halders.
“I will.”
“And to wait there for me while you’re chatting with the gal.”
“I’ll ask.”
“Who’s there?” asked Halders. “Let me have a word with someone.”
“Bellner is standing next to me and eavesdropping,” said Aneta. “Ask nicely.”
“Of course, what do you think?” said Halders, waiting to hear Bellner’s voice.
“Listen up, Belly, if it isn’t too much fucking trouble,” Halders said when Bellner had said hi in his pleasant voice.
Susanne Marke looked jumpy, or maybe it was the light, which never seemed to be natural this close to the river and the city lights on the other side. The light moved across her face like nervous twitches of her skin. In the window behind her, Aneta could see one of the Denmark ferries passing. It looked like it was only ten yards away.
“Anette called me,” said Susanne.
Aneta was still standing in the hall. Bellner and Johannisson were going to wait in the stairwell, at least for the first few minutes. The door was standing open.
“Are you alone?” asked Aneta.
“Alone? Of course I’m alone.”
“What did she want?”
“Her dad had hit her,” said Susanne. “Again.”
“Her dad?”
“Yes.”
“And… again?”
“Didn’t you realize that’s what’s going on?” said Susanne.
“Why didn’t you say so before?” asked Aneta, who was still standing in the hall.
“She didn’t want to. Anette.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Anette now?”
“Down by the sea,” said Susanne.
“Alone?”
“Yes, what the fu… what do you think?”
“Where’s her dad, then?”
“In town.”
“Where in town?”
“I don’t know. But he’s not down there. That’s why she drove there.”
“Drove there? How?”
“In my car,” said Susanne. “She borrowed my car.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t along in the car?”
“No, no.”
“It’s important that you tell the truth, Susanne.”
“The truth? The truth? What do you know about the truth?”
“I don’t understand,” said Aneta.
“You think that Hans was pursuing Anette, but you don’t know anything.”
“Tell me the truth, then.”
“Hans may have his different sides, maybe he can seem stra… seem wei…”
Aneta watched the light come and go on the woman’s face.
Why has Anette herself been so quiet?
There’s something else. Something more. A different silence.
“I called down there. She didn’t answer,” said Aneta.
“She’s there,” said Susanne.
