“We’re headed toward the end of the century and the end of the world as we know it.”
His cell phone vibrated in his inner pocket as he stepped out of the elevator.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Erik. I thought it was about ti-”
“Hello, Mother.”
“What’s going on over there? We just had the newspapers delivered, and it looks just terrible.”
“Yes.”
“First that murder. And then those people shooting at each other. And now a kidnapping too!”
“There’s no kidnapping.”
“There isn’t? Someone’s kidnapped a boy and is hold-”
“They’re father and son,” Winter said.
“Father and son? I don’t understand.”
“No.”
“Father and son? How awful.”
He had reached his office. The phone on his desk rang.
“Hang on, Mother,” he said, and lifted the receiver and put the cell phone down. “Winter,” he said.
“Janne here. We’ve received a few more phone calls and letters in response to the poster. You want the copies and transcripts now or are you coming over here?”
Winter considered his office chair. He felt that he needed to sit down for a moment and think about his murder investigation. Mollerstrom would put together a nice package of all the witnesses’ statements. “Send it up,” he said. He hung up the receiver and retrieved his cell phone.
“Here I am again,” he said to his mother, who was sitting in a house in Marbella. He couldn’t hear his father in the background, but he guessed that he was close by, with a glass in his hand and a weary gaze directed out at the dusty palm trees and the foreign wind. Winter didn’t really know how the place looked, apart from the photographs that his mother had sent and he’d only glanced at. The house was white and stood next to several other houses in the same style. In one picture his mother sat on a veranda built out of white stone. It looked lonely. The sun behind her was on its way down, the sky so blue that it looked black against the whiteness. His father may have taken the photo, since he wasn’t there on the veranda. His mother looked as though she were searching for something in the eye of the camera. She was smiling, but he had looked at the photograph long enough to see that it wasn’t a happy smile. She looked like someone who had reached a goal and become confused or disappointed.
“I heard from Lotta that you’d been to see her,” she said. “It made me so happy. And her too, I can tell you.”
“Yes.”
“It means so much to her. She’s more alone than you know.”
Then why don’t you come home? he thought.
“She’s coming down to see us in October with the girls.”
“That’ll do her good.”
“It’s her fortieth birthday. Imagine.”
“A big day.”
“Your big sister.”
“Mother, I-”
“I don’t dare ask you to come down here anymore. It’s a crying shame, Erik. We’d so like for you to come down. Your father especially.”
He didn’t answer. He thought he heard something close to her, a voice, but it might have been a Spanish wind or a Spanish seabird.
“I don’t know what to do about it,” his mother said.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I can’t do more.”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Can’t you call next time? On the weekend?”
“I’ll try.”
“You never call. It’s pointless my even asking. It’ll be just the same as it always is. How’s Angela?”
The question came suddenly. He didn’t know what to say.
“You’re still seeing each other?”
“Yes.”
“It would be nice to actually get to meet her one day.”
Ester Bergman stood outside the store and studied the big notice board. They had put it up quite recently. It was the only one she had seen in the area.
Her bag was heavy since she had done the shopping for several days. It had become more difficult for her to find what she was looking for since the store started to stock so many new products that people from other countries bought. Strange vegetables and cans.
She tried to read. The local parish was going to have a sing-along. She’d go and listen, if she had time. The property management company was organizing a party for one of the other courtyards, but it didn’t seem to be open to everyone. She wondered why. The police had put up a poster about someone who’d gone missing. It occurred to her that people seem to go missing a lot, and then she thought about the red-haired girl and her fair- haired mother, who were so quiet and still whenever they walked past. Where are they now? she thought again. I miss that little girl. I enjoyed watching her when she played in the sand.
Where had they moved to? She regretted that she hadn’t at least spoken to the girl. That’s the sort of thing you regret, she thought. There are a lot of things you can regret when you get old. I regret never having had children. It’s strange to think about. We couldn’t have children, and it might not have been my fault. It may have been Elmer’s fault, but he didn’t want to get himself examined and I let him decide. I regret that now. What if I’d known that I’d grow old and sit here regretting all the things I hadn’t done? All the sins I hadn’t committed.
She read the notice posted on the bulletin board again. She had to strain because the print could have been bigger. If they wanted people to read it, they ought to think about not making the letters so small.
When she walked back, she thought once again about the girl who had been so quiet. Why am I thinking about that so much? I’ve been doing that for a few days now.
On the way back to her unit, she walked past the property management office. A sign outside said “Residential Services.” Was that something new? There was also something about a “district superintendent” who manned the office during opening hours. What was a district superintendent? She didn’t know, but it must be someone who knew something about the area or the buildings. She could pay a visit to that district super and ask. It’s not good to go around thinking all the time. She could ask when that mother and her little girl moved away and where they went.
26
He put his feet on the sanded fir floor, its coolness soft beneath the arches of his feet. Then he yawned, a leftover from burning the midnight oil with his head bowed over the PowerBook he could now see through the bedroom doorway, screen still open. Today it was a different apartment. He’d grown used to four months of almost constant sunshine and a home that offered no protection from the light.
In the kitchen he raised the blinds without getting dazzled. The sky had no opening. An invisible rain made the
