“No. I know that you came home from Denmark with a fresh batch of horrendous things on your mind and that you’re searching for that little girl and the murderer. All that, I know. I’m trying to stay out of the way.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t want to keep going on about it-you know that’s not what I want. But now it’s serious. It’s serious again,” she said, and her hands disappeared from his shoulders.
He’d remained seated while she spoke. Now he stood. She was still turned away.
“I’m going home now,” she said. “I want you to make up your mind. This can’t come as a surprise.”
She turned around, and he saw that her eyes were glistening.
“It’s always the wrong moment,” she said. “You’re tired. You have a lot of stuff to work out. But I also have a lot of stuff to work out. We have a lot of stuff to work out. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want to.”
She walked out into the hall, and Winter called her name but got no answer.
PART 3
Seek out evil in order to destroy it. There was a voice inside her. It came back and told her things. Told all!
The courtyard was in darkness. Behind the window stood the old lady, who lifted her hand like a bird raising its wing. She heard a noise from the swings.
The first few days she had paced in circles around the living room table. It was hot, but she didn’t open the windows. She had been in the basement and come back upstairs. She couldn’t be there.
The sun was here; then it was gone. Everything happened at the same time. I’m cold, Mommy. It’ll be better soon. It smelled of night and rain, and then it became easier to move around again.
She had sat with Mommy a long time. She had slept for a while in the backseat and then crawled up front. It was cold there, and Mommy started up the car and let it run for a while and then turned it off again. Mommy hadn’t answered when she had asked, and she asked again and Mommy’s voice was hard. Then she went quiet. He stood close to her. He had taken the scissors out of her hands. She had one question left and then no more. The cuckoo called. His hands held her. She heard the cuckoo and its wings beating against the wind. There was a scream from the sky.
55
The clear-cut was in the process of growing back, until the next time. Old growth survived in narrow reserves. They came to yet another crossroad.
“That’s the last one,” Halders said, and turned to the left. After about half a mile, or a little less, the road opened out onto a slope and ended in front of the house, which was crooked but stable. Winter thought he recognized it. The garden consisted of the hillside in front, and behind the house Winter could see the forest and parts of a field. Now he heard the gloomy sound of hooves against the earth. Horses were running somewhere back there, perhaps startled by the sound of Halders’s Volvo. They’d parked next to Bremer’s Escort. It was covered in mud, hardly pearl white anymore beneath the crud, since it was being driven on forest roads in late October.
Winter couldn’t make out the license plate.
To the left of the house, ten yards away and an equal distance from the edge of the forest, stood a windmill.
It was yellow and the vanes weren’t moving. It was about four and a half feet high.
Halders knocked on the door, which had a window with a curtain. No one opened up.
They hadn’t called ahead.
“What is it?” The man had stepped out from behind the house. “You again.” He approached them and pointed. “The car’s standing right there, in case you’re wondering.” He looked at Aneta Djanali and Halders. “I recognize you.”
Winter shook his hand. Bremer was tall and his hand dry. His eyes looked past Winter. He was wearing rubber boots, and Winter saw that one of them had a gash above the foot. Winter knew that beneath the knitted cap on his head the sixty-nine-year-old was bald. His mustache was dark. He was skinny and wizened, as Aneta had said in the car on the way out.
“May we come in for a moment?” Winter asked. He looked up at the sky, low above the glade. “Looks like it’s starting to rain.”
“A little rain never hurt anybody,” Bremer said. “But sure, we can go inside.”
Aneta Djanali met Winter’s eyes as they stepped up onto the porch. The hall inside was dark. Bremer took off his boots, and the police took off their shoes and followed him into a room with windows facing the back of the house.
Winter looked out, and the horses were gone. He turned toward Bremer and took a step forward. “It’s about your car again,” he said. “And a few other things.”
“What about my car?”
“We’re talking to all the owners of this kind of car. To see if maybe they can remember anything else that might help us.”
“Help you with what?”
“Aren’t you aware that we’re investigating a murder?” Winter asked. “And a disappearance in connection with that murder?”
Bremer looked at Halders. “He mentioned something about it.”
“Is that all you’ve heard of it?” Winter asked.
“Maybe something on the radio or TV. I don’t know. I mind my own business.”
Winter made up his mind when he saw the horses emerge from the bushes. They were moving in perfect symmetry, floating above the high grass.
“Do you know Jonas Svensk?”
“Svensk? Well, he owns the repair shop where I leave my car when it’s acting up. Why do you ask?”
“We’re in the process of looking into any potential connections here,” Winter said, expressing himself as cryptically as he could.
“What connections? What’s my car got to do with it?”
“I didn’t say anything about that.”
“You didn’t? You were talking about the auto repair shop.”
Winter took a breath. “I’d like you to accompany us back to the police station so we can discuss this
