Sara Helander had relieved Bergenhem an hour and a half ago and was sitting on one of the benches by the window, with a brochure on the art of borrowing.
She glanced down at it and tried at the same time to keep an eye on what was going on over at the service windows. She could see them, but perhaps she ought to stand. I’ll rest my legs a minute longer, she thought.
She’d lifted her gaze and stood when she saw the women at window number 3 raise a hand. Helander quickly moved closer, crossing between a baby carriage and a child. The woman behind the counter looked pale, as if she was about to fall off her swivel chair. She lowered her hand and pointed toward the doors.
Helander saw the light signal flashing at short intervals above the service window, like a reminder of her negligence. A man as broad as the poster above him had already positioned himself in front of the window, expecting to be served. Helander thrust him aside, thrashing her way forward, intense nausea surging in her chest.
“What the he-”
“He was here!” the woman behind the glass said. “I tried to catch your eye. He was here thirty seconds ago. Didn’t the light go on?”
Reflexively Helander looked up once again at the angry signal from the warning light mounted above the service window. Fuck, I’m gonna get fired! Oh my God, I didn’t even think… But she pulled herself together.
“Was it the same number?”
The woman held up a deposit slip.
Helander grabbed hold of the little woven basket on the counter. It was half-filled with slips.
“Put these somewhere safe,” she shouted, and tried to squeeze the basket through the far-too-narrow gap beneath the window. “Open up and put these inside!”
“He went ou-” The woman in navy blue and pinstripes felt her voice crack.
I bet he fucking did. Helander almost tripped over the fold in the carpet but regained her balance and avoided breaking her nose against the shatterproof glass.
Winter was just lighting a Corps when he saw Sara Helander fly out through the doors of the post office and look around wildly.
Something’s gone wrong. He threw away his cigarillo and ran to where Helander was standing. She saw him.
“He was here!” she said breathlessly. “The cashier processed a deposit-”
“Which way?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Just now. A few minutes ago. I’m sor-”
“Forget about that now. What does he look like?”
“I don’t know. It happened so fa-”
“Bergenhem is eating over in the bar. Go over there and tell him to come over to the post office right away, to the room at the back where we’ve got the video machine. You come back here with him. But first call Bertil and tell him to send over two cars with extra manpower. I’ll call the officers watching the parking lots.”
He dialed a number for one of the cars stationed at the western parking lot and spoke into his cell phone.
“They’re standing by,” he said, and hung up. “We’ll see if we can’t pick him up.”
Damn it, he thought to himself. “I’m going inside to check the CCTV footage. Come as quickly as you can. Which window was it?”
“Number 3.”
Inside the post office, life went on as usual. The postmaster was waiting by the door to the back room.
“I’ll go in and rewind the tape,” Winter said. “He was in here. Have someone relieve the girl at window 3 and send her back here to the video room.”
“But I’ve got no one else!”
“What’s the matter with you? We’re investigating a mur-” But he calmed down. “Look, just close it or sit there yourself if you have to. I want her in here immediately.”
The camera was connected directly to the video recorder, which was connected to a monitor in a room with no windows. Winter stopped the machine and looked at his watch. He rewound the tape to a half minute before the time Helander had put down that the man had been there. The woman from window 3 came in. Winter pressed play. The film scraped to life and the interior of the post office appeared.
Winter had chosen the camera location at the very back of the premises, and from there it looked like a thousand people were gathered. The woman now standing next to him could be seen in angled profile close by. A female customer left the window. A man wearing a baseball cap and a long, heavy jacket was next in line and then stepped forward.
Winter saw the man drop his slip in the basket on the counter, like a reflex action. Winter couldn’t see his face-just his profile, at an angle, from behind.
“That’s him,” the cashier said.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course it’s him. He was wearing that same cap,” she said, as if the footage they were watching wasn’t a replay but a live take in a reality show.
Winter saw how the man handed something over and how the cashier took it and shifted her gaze in front of her, still angled down, and how she then looked up at the man and seemed to look past him. Winter followed that gaze right across the room to Helander, who was sitting on a bench, looking down at a brochure.
The light above the service window started flashing. The woman said something to the man.
“I tried to keep him there, but he didn’t want a receipt.”
The man in the cap left the counter and moved toward the door. The cashier raised her arm and waved her hand. Another man stepped up to the window and looked at the cashier gesturing. Winter saw how Helander jumped up and forced her way up to the window. The man in the cap walked out through the double doors without tripping over Bergenhem’s fold in the carpet.
Bergenhem and Helander had entered and were standing next to the cashier.
“My God,” she said. The idiot’s caught on film, she thought when she saw herself.
Winter stopped the tape and backed it up. The man in the cap came back into frame.
“That’s him,” Winter said. He won’t be the only one out there with one of those fucking caps, he thought to himself. But his has some big, pale lettering on the front.
“Yes, that’s him,” the cashier said.
Winter spoke on his cell phone, repeated the description.
“They’re searching for him,” he said to Helander and Bergenhem as he held the phone to his ear, waiting for someone else to pick up. “Hello? Yes, seal everything off. Forge-What? No, no sirens for Christ’s sake. And don’t forget the bus station. Yes. The bus station. Send someone over there
He hung up and headed for the door.
“Is Bertil bringing more men?”
“Yes,” Bergenhem said. “What do we do now?”
“You all know what he looks like.” Winter checked his watch. “Less than ten minutes have passed since he was in here. He may have jumped into a car and driven off, but there’s a chance he’s still around, and we’ve got the big parking lots and the bus station covered. I don’t think he suspects anything. And call Bertil again, right away.”
