The Shadow Woman

“You mean something that could provide a natural explanation?”

“Something that isn’t associated with the murder.”

“Kids?”

“Is there anything to suggest that?”

“I, I don’t know, actually.”

“It could be worth checking out.”

“Could have been a couple of lovebirds.”

“Uh-huh.”

“People who carve their names in the bark and all that,” Borjesson said.

“The area is popular among people in search of intimate seclusion,” Winter said.

“It could be that kind of sign,” Borjesson said.

“Then what would it mean?” He slid a photo over to Borjesson. He looks proud to be here, Winter thought. He’s most actively involved in the investigation when brainstorming with the boss. I should do this more often. “What does this inscription or marking, or whatever it is, mean?”

“Aren’t they working on that in forensics?”

“I want to know what you think,” Winter said. He heard a helicopter whirring outside, caught its shadow as it lifted from the helipad to the west of them and flew past his window. The afternoon would wear on toward evening. The lines for tonight’s party would grow longer.

Mounted police would herd people into the pens at Lilla Bommen and Kungstorget. There the people would scream in each others’ faces until they fell down dead drunk. The police would dismount and bring in the dog buses to haul piles of unconscious bodies to soiled, empty rooms that lay four double flights of stairs below the room where Winter was now sitting and thinking about his first few years as a law-enforcement officer.

He had sat on a horse and seen the rabble below him, a sea of panic-stricken movement. That was the young cynicism that was so dangerous to pass along in the years that followed. To see people as a rabble.

Everyone’s just scared as hell, Winter thought, and opened his eyes. Borjesson was looking at him. Winter stood and walked over to the window, but he couldn’t see through the bright light from the sinking sun to the west.

He squinted and saw banners that cast reflections and shadows. The banners down there were being carried off to yet another confrontation between opposing groups of protesters.

There would be trouble again tonight. The party continued and so did the conflict.

“I think they’re connected,” he heard Borjesson say.

Winter turned around with blinded eyes. He blinked to get rid of the sunlight in his head.

“I can’t say what this is supposed to represent,” Borjesson continued, “but it seems like too much of a coincidence for this marking to appear there at the same time as the body.”

“Good,” Winter said. He could now see Borjesson’s face again. The boy looked like a man, or an adult anyway. He’d taken an idea and was running with it, wasn’t standing still. “I’m trying to find out if any satanic rituals have been held in that area.”

“Satanists?”

“They like the forest. Life in the outdoors.”

“It could be something like that.”

“Look at this marking again,” Winter said, and walked around the desk and stood next to Borjesson. “What do you think it looks like?”

The young homicide detective picked up the photo and held it at arm’s length.

“It could be an H.”

“Yes.”

“Or some Chinese character.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Chinese characters mean something,” Borjesson said. “I mean, beyond just a word. It’s like a thing. An object.”

“You studied Chinese?”

“In high school, for a couple of years. I did humanities at Schillerska High School.”

“And became a policeman?”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“On the contrary,” Winter said. “The force needs all the humanists it can get.”

Borjesson gave a short laugh and looked back at the photograph.

“I can compare it to the characters in my books.”

“How many are there?”

“Tens of thousands, but only a few thousand are in more common use.”

Winter stared intently at the symbol. He had to go back there again and study the contours of the tree. It looked as if the person who painted it on the trunk had followed them. The marking looked like it was part of the tree.

He would have to look at the thing itself, but even now he felt a raw power emanating from the photo, a maniacal force from another world of evil. A message.

Winter shook his head gently. They started again, the connotations swirling in his mind.

To him the marking looked like an H. That was also a coincidence. In his mind he had named the woman after the cluster of houses close by: Helenevik.

For him she had been Helene hours before he had made any serious attempt to study the symbol on the tree. Helene. It felt as if the fabricated name would help him find out who she really was.

She was dead and the dead have no friends, but he wanted to be her friend right up until she got her name back.

12

EVERYTHING IN WINTER’S OFFICE WAS BLACK AND WHITE, WITH no shades of gray. The Post-its on the wall opposite his desk were empty rectangles.

Lingering there alone in the silence, he was suddenly very tired-a sensation that seemed to spring from the stillness in the room. He closed his eyes, and his thoughts became vague. He saw a child’s face before him and opened his eyes again. He closed his eyes and looked at the face. The hair had no color, and the girl’s eyes were looking straight at him. It was a girl.

A reflexive jolt roused him just as he was about to tip over in his chair. Must have fallen asleep, he thought.

He no longer saw the girl’s face, but he didn’t forget her.

The phone rang.

“So you’re back at work.” It was his sister.

“Since this morning. Pretty early,” Winter said. “I was actually back a bit before that but not for real until now.”

“What’s happened?”

“ ‘Sounds like murder!’”

“What?”

“Somebo-There’s been a murder. It’s true. But I was quoting a song by a band I’ve been listening to, to try to find myself again.”

“Coltrane, of course?”

“The Clash. A British rock band. Macdonald-you know, the British inspector I worked with last spring-he sent me a few CDs.”

“But you’ve never listened to rock in your whole life.”

“That’s why.”