“Is he lying?”
“Of course he is. But I doubt he’s lying about the marking.”
The evening was dark and mild as Winter biked across Sandarna and through the center of Kungsten. Langedragsvagen was lit with dim streetlights. You could feel and hear the sea in the wind.
The road outside Lotta’s house was crowded with parked cars. He heard the party through the open windows. Bim and Kristina had put a sign that said “Happy Birthday Mommy” above the open door, which was festooned with balloons and left ajar. The daughters had chosen white and blue. Winter removed the rubber bands from his pant leg and walked up the few steps.
He took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
Standing in the front hall were people he’d never met. He nodded to the three in the kitchen entrance and hung up his leather jacket on top of three thousand others. He smoothed out his jacket and stuffed his polo shirt down the back of his black pants. He was carrying a present under his arm.
“Erik!” Lotta had come out into the hallway from the kitchen.
“Hiya, sis.”
“So you made it after all!”
“I promised. And I wanted to.”
She hugged him and stroked his cheek. She smelled like the evening outside and faintly of wine.
“Happy birthday,” Winter said, and held out his present.
“There is a standing order that all presents be put in a pile and opened at the same time to the cheers and adulation of the masses,” Lotta said, and took the present.
“When?”
“Oh come on, what kind of a question is that?”
“Sorry.”
“It was the girls’ idea.”
“Come on. You like it too,” Winter said. “Being in the spotlight.”
“But Angela couldn’t come,” Lotta said.
“She was on call and got paged.”
“Well, that’s a shame. She called me.”
“Really?”
“She said to say hello to you. Seems I’m acting as go-between for you guys.”
“It’s not that bad. It’s better.”
“What do you want to drink?” She waved toward the kitchen. “There’s wine, beer, and the hard stuff.”
“No water?”
“On a day like this? Of course not.”
“Uncle Erik!” Bim and Kristina grabbed hold of Winter and pulled him out into the kitchen.
47
The worst of the commotion has settled, Winter thought, reading District Chief Wellman’s statement about the preliminary investigation. Wellman was good at saying something in public when there was nothing to say.
The commotion was down to three columns on the first page of the news section and a short lead-in on the front page. Brigitta Dellmar was unknown to the press, or at least they weren’t writing about her. Oskar Jakobsson was known, since his arrest in Molnlycke, but his identity hadn’t been released.
There were some differences here and there, Winter thought. The Danish press wasn’t very particular about protecting the names of the people involved.
He thought again about Brigitta Dellmar. Had her name appeared in Danish newspapers back when it happened?
They’d kept quiet about the Danish connection, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Perhaps it might be to their advantage to leak some of the information, but Winter wanted to head over there first, to build up a picture of what happened, perhaps even to get a
It was becoming increasingly obvious that what had transpired in Alborg played a role in the murder that had recently happened here, maybe even a decisive role, like a long shadow reaching from the past into the future, like a distant cry or a voice. Helene’s voice, or her mother’s, and in a ghastly repetition of history, also that of the girl, Jennie.
It was nearly twelve o’clock, and the sun shone into the room through the big windows. Winter had opened the balcony door to the sound of the sparse Sunday traffic. A flock of seagulls passed by engaged in eager discourse in the wind.
He studied the photograph in front of him. Brigitta Dellmar. The photo had been taken three weeks before she vanished. She disappeared on October 2, 1972, sometime just after five in the afternoon, and this photograph was taken in a studio in west Gothenburg three weeks before that, almost to a day. It was found in her apartment in Frolunda. Hers and Helene’s. Was there any particular reason why she’d had her picture taken at that time? She seemed to be looking past the lens at something standing next to it. Her gaze was lowered. Was she looking at her daughter? Was Helene standing there and consequently also in this photograph?
There was a clear likeness between mother and daughter. Their mouths were broad and their lips full. Their eyes were spaced widely apart. Their hair was blonde, their cheekbones high. They were beautiful women. They disappeared at the same point in their lives.
Jennie had inherited her mother’s and grandmother’s face and someone else’s hair. What sort of person could abandon their child? Where was Jennie’s father? Was he dead? Who was Helene’s father? One of the men killed during the robbery? Or did he disappear? The man found floating in Limfjorden?
Who was Helene’s father?
Hidden within that question was part of the solution to the riddle-that much Winter realized. Perhaps even the entire solution. The past cast its stark shadow over the future.
Brigitta wore a tight-fitting sweater typical of the time, but the photo cut off where the shoulders gave way to the arms. Her face was angled slightly downward in the photo, as if she couldn’t hold her head higher. It wasn’t a furtive look, but Winter got that impression. There was something evasive in her posture. She was alone in the photo. No props. The studio she was sitting in glowed with a harsh loneliness. The picture was black and white but there wouldn’t have been any color in it anyway, thought Winter. He didn’t think in color when he thought about Helene’s mother. When he saw Helene, he thought in red and in the ice blue that hovered mutely in the cold rooms of the morgue. When he imagined Jennie, he saw in black.
Winter biked across Heden and saw students playing football in the mud.
A fax was waiting for him in the basket in his office. His Danish colleagues were looking forward to his arrival. They may well have meant it. The unsolved robbery and killing of an officer had plagued the Alborg police over the years.
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow morning, with the catamaran.”
Ringmar poked in his coffee cup with a spoon.
“I have to go, Bertil. It feels like I can do more good over there than here right now.”
“I think you’re right. It’s just that, well, it’s as if you’re going over there to confirm that this thing happened, while we keep on working without finding the right lead.” Ringmar looked around. “We’re starting to shrink down to a skeleton crew. Even the search for the little girl is going cold. People are hanging their heads.”
