“There’s always a lot of crap being said about the city’s outlying suburbs, but one thing is true,” Lundgren explained. “There’s a hell of a lot of loneliness in areas like this. The little lonely people are being pushed out to the margins. It’s strange out here. On the one hand, you’ve got the immigrant families, who after all do have a sense of community. It can be a little fragile sometimes. But still. And wedged in among them you’ve got these young Swedish mothers with their little kids. Almost never boys. Young girls and their children. It’s a strange mix.”
“Yes.”
“And many people keep their distance.” Lundgren’s eyes were still fixed on the group from the day care outside. “That may be why I haven’t seen this woman you’re asking about. Helene, was that her name?”
“Yes. Helene Andersen. The little girl’s name was Jennie.”
“I don’t recognize it. Of course, I can ask my staff, or whatever it is we’re called.”
“It’s possible,” Ringmar said, eyeing the big pile of children’s drawings on the table in Winter’s room.
“A diary,” Winter said. “It could be like a diary.”
“Then we’ll have to get lucky.”
“Luck is often a question of seeing the opportunity when it presents itself,” Winter said. That was a real smart-ass remark, he thought to himself.
“And you think that opportunity lies here.” Ringmar held up a picture depicting a lone tree in a field. The drawing was divided in two. Rain. Shine. “There’s both rain and sunshine in this one.”
“It’s like that in a number of the drawings I’ve seen so far,” Winter said.
“Seems like a case for a child psychologist.”
“I’ve thought about that too.”
“And then there are the locations.”
“And the figures.”
“This can really give you the creeps. I was thinking about my own kids’ drawings. What stuff like that can mean.”
“The fact is that kids draw a lot, right? And what is it that they draw? They draw what they see. What we have lying here in front of us is what she saw.”
“Rain and sun and trees,” Ringmar said. “A boat and a car. Where is this taking us?”
“Well, we can at least go through them, can’t we? Beier isn’t finished with all the drawings upstairs.”
“What else does he have to say?”
“They’re just test firing the rifle into the water tank.”
“Aha. Does the rifle match up?”
“He doesn’t know yet,” Winter said.
They had empty shells from the shoot-out at Varvaderstorget and a suspected weapon. Beier had procured similar ammunition of the same make and fired it into a water tank in order to compare the bullets with the casings.
“What are you thinking about?” Ringmar said.
“Right at this moment? A bullet traveling through water, and a motorcycle crashing through a roadblock somewhere in Scandinavia.”
“I’m thinking about the little girl,” Ringmar said. “And the mother.”
“I’m still waiting for the reports from child services,” Winter said. “And the hospital.”
“She seems not to have any family or friends.”
“Sure she did. We’re slowly getting closer to them. It won’t be long.”
He grabbed his jacket from the chair and put it on.
“Where are you going now?” Ringmar asked.
“I thought it was about time I agreed to meet with a reporter. Don’t you think?”
“Go and get a haircut before you meet the press. Birgersson mumbled something this morning about a Beatles wig.”
“He’s still living in the good old days,” Winter said, heading toward the elevators.
Hans Bulow was waiting at a bar in the center of town. It was getting dark outside, and the candles on the tables were lit. People on the Avenyn were walking briskly, on their way home or out.
“Can I buy you a beer, seeing as you’ve taken the time?” Bulow said.
“A Perrier will do just fine.”
“You’re increasingly becoming one of those straight-edge types.”
“Do they drink Perrier?”
“Water. No alcohol.”
“Straight edge?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds good,” Winter lit up a Corps. “It has a ring to it.”
“They don’t smoke either.”
Winter looked at his cigarillo.
“Then I guess I may as well have a light beer. Hof on tap, if they’ve got it.”
Bulow went over to the bar and came back with two tall glasses. He nodded to a familiar face and sat down. “That’s a colleague of yours, isn’t it?” he said, and took a sip from his glass.
“Where?”
“Behind me, off to the right. The one I said hello to.”
Winter looked over the reporter’s shoulder and saw Halders’s close-cropped head. Halders didn’t turn around. Winter couldn’t tell if he was sitting with anyone.
“You know Halders?”
“You kidding me? As a reporter embedded at the police station, you get to know the forces of good,” Bulow said.
“And you count Halders among them?”
“He’s got the best reputation of anyone.”
“With whom?”
“With the press, of course. He doesn’t put on an act. If he has nothing to say, he doesn’t say anything.”
Winter took a sip of his beer.
“So what’s going on?” Bulow asked.
“We’re still trying to determine the dead woman’s identity. And possibly looking for a child as well, but we don’t know for sure. It scares me.”
“What if I say that you’ve found her?”
“You can say whatever you like. But what do you mean? Of course we found her.”
“Her identity. That you know who she is. But you don’t want to release it.”
Winter sat silently. He took another sip of his beer, to keep himself occupied. The bartender played music at two-thirds volume. It sounded like rock.
“Why not, Erik?”
“I agreed to meet with you because I want to sort out a few things,” Winter said. “But there are certain questions I simply cannot answer.”
“For reasons pertaining to the ongoing investigation?”
“Yes.”
“By virtue of the statutory confidentiality of the preliminary investigation?”
Winter nodded. Halders still sat with his back to him. Perhaps it’s a doppelganger, thought Winter.
“Paragraphs 5:1 and 9:17 of the Swedish Penal Code,” Bulow said.
“Are you a lawyer too?”
“It’s enough to be a legal reporter.”
“I see.”
“So what can you tell me, then?”
