“We can’t do a full chemical analysis here, if that’s what you mean. Fingerprints, yes. Maybe. Age, no. For that you’d have to hand it over to the National Center for Forensic Science. That is, if they can handle stuff that’s just ten or twenty or thirty years old. Otherwise there might be other experts.”
“I see.”
“If it’s worth the trouble.”
“Right.”
“With clothes it’s a little different. Here, for example, we have a label, which makes the job a lot simpler. I don’t recognize the name of this particular clothing manufacturer, or whatever it is, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of difference if it’s closed down. Of course it’s easier to pin down the age of a piece of fabric. That we ought to be able to do here.”
“Maybe the slip of paper is from the same time,” Winter said.
“Possibly. But we don’t know that, of course.”
“How about fingerprints?”
“There are some, but that’s all I can say for the moment.”
The dress in front of him could belong to the girl, to Jennie, but he didn’t think so. He was convinced it had been Helene’s, but he didn’t say that to Beier. She had worn it when she was about the same age as her daughter is now, so about twenty-five years ago. That’s when it’s from, thought Winter. The early seventies. On the cusp of my own teenage years. She wore this dress, and maybe she put the slip of paper in there at some point. Or someone else did, at a completely different time. Perhaps her daughter. The question is why. The question is also whether it has any significance for me. I think so. Yes. I think so.
“If you can determine the age of this paper, I think it would be helpful,” he said.
36
To the right lay the post-office entrance. He stood next to the doors and studied the open square, about seventy-five yards across, like a park. Immediately to his left was the big Konsum supermarket complex. Kitty- corner to that was Jacky’s Pub. To the right of him the open arcade led east, and he could make out a sign for the Sparbanken savings bank and another that said “Flowers.” Anyone leaving the square normally headed to the left or right, to access the parking areas or the other shops. He stepped out into the square and turned around. The windows of the post office covered maybe twenty yards of the facade. Sitting down on a bench, he still had a clear view. He got up and walked to the pub. It was closed but would open in three hours. He turned around. From there he could see the entrance to the post office. Behind him was a window, and inside he saw a counter and bar stools. He guessed that he could sit in there and still see the doors to the post office.
Stepping through those doors, he first entered a vestibule with all the post boxes: 257 of them. You had to push open another door to get to the service windows. Good, thought Winter. It took longer to come in but also to get out.
He knew that nobody had paid the rent for Helene Andersen’s apartment yet. Unless it had been done within the last hour, in which case they had failed.
In the center of the service area was a large desk. Three people were leaning over it and appeared to be filling out forms.
One of them was Bergenhem. He looked up and gazed indifferently at Winter, or at something next to him, and then peered back down at his form.
Attached to the wall four yards up, between the sign for banking services and service window 1, was a CCTV camera. Winter looked into it, briefly. It was well positioned and an unremarkable gray like the wall, except for the black eye that moved slowly.
The other camera was placed above cashier 3, next to a sign that said, “Our advice costs nothing.”
Winter hadn’t noticed the sign by the door stating that the premises were under CCTV surveillance. That’s good, he thought again. I didn’t notice it and maybe no one else will either.
Winter saw that the thick blue-gray carpet by the door had a fold in the middle of it, and he knew that Bergenhem had arranged for that in some discreet way.
Two women with children around their legs were chatting. Others were writing or staring straight ahead. There were about the same number of women and men in there. None of the adults had beards or glared suspiciously at the cameras.
Maybe this was it after all, Winter thought. Maybe this was the time. If he sticks to the program, then it’ll be tomorrow, but anyone can change routine.
The ladies manning the cash registers were working calmly and professionally. They wore navy blue post- office blazers with pinstriped blouses. There were lines at each window even though everyone had taken a ticket.
Each cashier had a slip of paper marked with the numbers. Everyone knew the deal. No customers were jumping the line, demanding quick service to distract attention. If that happened, they would all be extra vigilant.
Winter drove in toward town, past Helenevik and through the tunnel beneath the highway. He turned off into the parking lot and climbed out of the car. There were two other cars there. He heard a motor out on the water but could see no boat. The sky was reflected across the whole lake. Sky and water were one, and he was blinded by light as he drew closer.
Beneath the trees or in the water, thought Winter. We’ll have to drag the lake soon if we don’t find anything on land. The boat that woman, Maltzer, says she saw. That could have been the boys’ boat. There were a thousand fingerprints on it from five hundred people. It was a popular boat. Made the boys a bundle. But it had no prints from Helene, so it was useless as evidence for the moment. Still, it did have a red daub of paint.
The symbol was there on the tree-the marking that could be a Chinese character and that resembled the letter
A boat steered slowly into the inlet a ways, then turned back out again in a wide circle. Winter made out two people in the boat. One of them was wearing a cap and held a fishing pole out over the side, and Winter thought he saw the wet fishing line flash for a moment in the light from the sun that now seemed to be coming from below.
“They’re not done with the deposit slip yet,” Ringmar said. He scratched the bridge of his nose and seemed at the same time to be sucking on a tooth.
“Stockholm sent it over by car, like you asked.”
“I didn’t ask. I ordered.”
“They had a car coming down here anyway.”
“That’s their way of alleviating the shame of having to obey orders from Gothenburg.”
“Do you have a complex?”
“Not me. But Stockholm does.”
Ringmar continued scratching. Bertil’s nose is becoming paler, thought Winter, as if he has cut off its blood supply.
“One thing’s for sure, though-that slip definitely has prints. There could be prints from thirty different people on it. And those are just the ones we can actually identify.”
Winter felt the excitement but also the doubt. The one who paid the rent would most likely have worn gloves, just in case. But you never know.
What they were certainly going to find were traces of the innocent fingers of the post-office staff.
“By the way, there was an incident out at one of the motorcycle clubs just now,” Ringmar said.
