It was the repair shop.
Aneta had taken notes. He had written his report, but who had checked out the shop where Bremer left his car for repairs? Should he have done it himself? No. Someone else had been assigned that task. Who was it? It wasn’t recorded here. It didn’t say the name of the repair shop either. Halders had written down the name. It was something generic, like Joe’s Car Repair or something. But the job wasn’t done. Or else it was done but hadn’t been entered. He checked his watch and called Mollerstrom, who answered on the third ring.
“It’s Fredrik. Can you help me with something?”
Halders sat with his interrogation transcript. Veine Carlberg had checked out the repair shop. Nothing strange about it. The time matched what Bremer claimed in his statement. It was a little odd that he had taken his rust bucket all the way in from the outback, and driven it across town, but the guy who owned the repair shop was an acquaintance.
Still, Halders was also acquainted with the guy who owned the repair shop. He’d brought him in for questioning once: Jonas Svensk. He remembered it, managed to reconstruct most of it with the help of his memory and the report in front of him. Svensk had a past he claimed to have put behind him. Halders hadn’t believed him.
Should he talk to Winter about Bremer and Svensk? Or should he check up on it himself a little more first?
He tried to think. They had leads going in different directions, and they had to pull back on one and focus more on something else. Right now it was the lead through the Billdal bus company. During the briefing this morning, Winter spoke about the house in Denmark and the connection or the link or whatever the hell you want to call it to that Andersen guy.
Halders thought about it. Bremer had a large plot. Aneta had thought of it as a vacation home.
54
The telephone rang, and the switchboard informed him the call was from Alborg.
“I thought for a while that we’d bungled things even more than I’d thought, and I’ve turned out to be right,” she said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“The photographer is retired but living. It was the local bureau of the paper that took the photo-i.e., not a professional photographer. Anyway, I’ve spoken with him and he remembers the story about the land partitioning and all that. But he couldn’t remember the photograph itself. I went over there and showed him a copy of the newspaper, but he still couldn’t remember taking it, although he must have, he said.”
“When was it?” Winter asked.
“He didn’t know the exact day, but it must have been shortly before the article was published. The vote in the town council came just before it, and that was three days before the article went to print, so he must have taken the photo during those two or three days.”
“Does he have copies?”
“No. That’s where the next link in this chain comes in. Every afternoon he used to hand over his roll of film to the pig truck or some other farmers’ transport-sometimes to the intercity bus-and it would be developed at the main bureau in Alborg, where the prints were made. Everything is filed away in the archives of the newspaper. They have it all in good order. I know because that’s where I’m calling from now.”
“Have you seen a print?”
“They made me a quick print, and I’ve got the negatives. There are several frames. I’ll take them back to the station and let the photographer down in forensics work on them. Once we have some good enlargements, I’ll give you a call.”
“Excellent.”
“I’ll let you know,” Poulsen said, and hung up.
“Jakobsson has disappeared,” Ringmar said. “His brother thinks he’s been the victim of a crime.”
“The man himself is a crime,” Halders said. “He’s probably holed up somewhere drinking himself into a stupor.”
“But he’s gone,” Winter said. “He went home the day before yesterday and now his brother has reported him missing.”
“What do we think about that?” Bergenhem said to no one in particular.
“We think the worst,” Ringmar said.
Halders stayed behind after the late-afternoon meeting. He’d said a few words to Winter beforehand.
“Let’s go into my office,” Winter now said.
Halders eyed the drawings in the office but said nothing about them. He rubbed his hand over his scalp as if to emphasize the difference between his own crew cut and Winter’s long hair. Winter stroked his hair back behind his ears.
“Have you had a chance to go through all the reports on the owners of the cars yet?” Halders asked.
“No. They’re lying here.” Winter nodded toward the desk piled high with binders and document stacks of varying sizes. In and out trays were a thing of the past.
“There’s one name…”
Georg Bremer. Winter read his rap sheet while Charlie Haden played a solo from the shadow beneath the window: the volume was on low and Haden’s bass was part of the office walls.
Bremer had done time for burglary and criminal damage and had behaved himself while serving out his sentence at Harlanda Prison. No conspicuous drug use. After his release, he disappeared from the world of cops and robbers. He owned a Ford Escort, but that was no crime. He was acquainted with one former biker, as he himself put it. His car may or may not have driven along Borasleden on the night of the murder. Winter grabbed hold of the lamp and directed it toward his new shelf, where he’d placed the VHS cassette. The sphere of light was reflected in the TV screen.
He walked over to the shelf and pulled out the telephone book, flipping to the
He picked up the phone and sat there with his finger poised over the buttons. No. Better to wait until tomorrow. All he really wanted was to hear the guy’s voice. Perhaps determine whether this was yet another distraction that they didn’t have time for. And yet he knew he would drive out there the next morning.
“You look like you could do with some sleep,” Angela said.
“Give me a hug,” he said. “No, on second thought, a massage.”
“First I’ll give you a hug,” she said, and did so. They stood still for half a minute. “Now sit down.”
She began to knead his neck and shoulders.
Winter was silent and closed his eyes and felt her strong fists get his blood flowing and make him a little more supple.
She continued.
“I think that’s enough,” he said. “Now you can fetch my slippers.”
“I’m not your housewife,” she said. “Masseuse, yes. Housewife, no.”
“You wouldn’t be able to stand it,” he said.
“So we’re back there again,” she said.
“Angela.”
