“I don’t really know.”
“I see.”
“I’ll write up a draft tonight.”
“What are you going to use?”
“I don’t really know that either. Can’t we use this?” Winter held up the image of the dead woman’s face.
“Let me see,” Ringmar said, and reached for the photo. He studied the portrait and handed it back.
“Doesn’t really sit well. But I guess we’ll have to if nothing happens soon. Freshly deceased and a reasonably good picture. It’ll probably be the first time it’s been done in Gothenburg.”
Ringmar stood up and stretched his back, then raised his arms above his head and groaned. “It’s evening for me,” he said.
“Pull yourself together,” Winter said.
“And then there’s the press conference,” Ringmar said, and sat back down again with one leg crossed over the other. His khaki pants and short-sleeved gabardine shirt were infinitely more elegant than Winter’s shorts and washed-out hockey shirt.
“Press conference? Who ordered that? Birgersson?”
“No. They tried to get hold of you when you were on your way in from Ostra. Wellman.”
Henrik Wellman was district chief of CID. He was the one homicide inspectors had to turn to for money for any trips they had to make. Or new cars.
Above Wellman there was District Police Commissioner Judith Soderberg. After that, God.
“Is Henrik going to be there himself?” Winter asked with a smile.
“You have to understand him,” Ringmar said. “Young woman murdered, unidentified. Parliament isn’t back in session yet. The hockey season hasn’t gotten started. The press is all over this. A summer murder.”
“A summer murder,” Winter repeated. “We’re taking part in a classic summer murder. A tabloid’s wet dream.”
“It’s the fault of this goddamn weather,” Ringmar said. “If it hadn’t been for this unrelenting heat, it would have been a different thing. For the press, that is.”
“A fall murder,” Winter said. “If it is murder. It is murder, of course, but it’s not official yet. Well. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a conference with our friends from the press. I assume I’ll be the only one representing us.”
“At two o’clock. See you later.”
Ringmar stood up and walked out.
They needed a room now, a house or an apartment. If they couldn’t get a name, they needed a space to start in. The possibilities would fade quickly if they didn’t get an address to work from.
He took an envelope from the top left-hand drawer and opened it. Inside were more photographs from the dump site. He tried to imagine what had happened in the minutes leading up to the woman being deposited there. She could have been carried through the forest, across the bog. That was possible for a strong man. She didn’t weigh more than 120 pounds.
She had been carried. So far they hadn’t found any drag marks in the parking lot or on the path or in the grass. The parking lot. Had she been driven to the parking lot and hauled out of the car and carried over to the ditch? That was a possibility. The two stolen cars? Why not one of them? He would soon know. Somebody kills someone and walks down the street and steals a car and carries out the body and drives off? Would you do that if you had murdered somebody, Winter? Would you drive to Delsjo Lake?
He thought about the lake. Perhaps she’d come in a boat. He had people combing the entire lakefront. Almost seven miles of shoreline. How did one go about concealing a boat?
Could there have been some jogger out running around the lake at that hour? You never know with joggers.
There’s always a meaning behind the choice of disposal site, even if the murderer himself isn’t always aware of it. There’s a clue hidden somewhere in his choice. Something made him drive there of all places. Something in his past.
The dump site. We’ll start from there. I’ll start from there again. I’ll drive back there.
He put the envelope back in the desk drawer, closed it, and stood up so quickly that he felt dizzy for a split second.
Winter felt hungry earlier but the feeling was gone now. Still, he needed to eat something. He drove his car the short distance to the Chinese restaurant on Folkungagatan and ate a quick lunch and drank a quart of water.
8
Various wheels were spinning around in the amusement park. It struck him that he hadn’t been in there in many years.
The asphalt was soft beneath his tires. Car and road melted into each other, as if both were disintegrating. He passed a sign that measured the temperature of the air and road surface: 93°F in the air, 120°F on the road. Jesus Christ.
After the Kalleback junction he saw a police sobriety checkpoint on the other side of the road up the hill. A uniformed officer cordially waved drivers over to the curb. Another officer, with a video camera, stood at the roadside a little farther on.
Winter saw him in his rearview mirror. The camera was recording the oncoming traffic. But then he saw the guy train the camera on him. That meant he had been caught on the tape; he and the other drivers headed in the opposite direction were registered, even if they weren’t the ones the police were primarily interested in.
He turned right at the Delsjo junction and continued underneath the highway and past the recreation area. The sweltering heat kept people away-nobody in the parking lot or on the grass.
He was about to turn off to the spot where they’d found the woman when he decided to continue along the old road, underneath the highway that roared right alongside. After barely half a mile he reached an intersection and turned right into a combined parking lot and bus stop. He stopped the car and turned off the engine, got out and lit a Corps, and leaned against the side of the car.
The policeman with the video camera could be an opening. Hadn’t the traffic department been sending out night patrols for a while? Early mornings? Cameras that could see in the dark? Testing out heat-sensitive cameras?
And wasn’t this test supposed to be concentrating specifically on the eastern districts and arteries?
Winter grabbed the phone from its cradle on the dashboard and called traffic. He introduced himself to the watch commander and asked to be connected to the department chief.
“Walter’s busy.”
“For how long?”
Winter could see the shoulder shrug, could almost hear the sigh from the other end: why can’t this guy call somebody else?
“I asked for how long.”
“Who are you, did you say?”
“Inspector Erik Winter. I’m the deputy chief of homicide.”
“You can’t speak to somebody else?”
“We’re involved in a murder investigation, and it’s very important that I speak to Walter Kronvall.”
“Okay, okay, hang on,” the manly voice said, and Winter waited.
“Yeah, this is Kronvall.”
