He squinted and saw banners that cast reflections and shadows. The banners down there were being carried off to yet another confrontation between opposing groups of protesters.
There would be trouble again tonight. The party continued and so did the conflict.
“I think they’re connected,” he heard Börjesson say.
Winter turned around with blinded eyes. He blinked to get rid of the sunlight in his head.
“I can’t say what this is supposed to represent,” Börjesson continued, “but it seems like too much of a coincidence for this marking to appear there at the same time as the body.”
“Good,” Winter said. He could now see Börjesson’s face again. The boy looked like a man, or an adult anyway. He’d taken an idea and was running with it, wasn’t standing still. “I’m trying to find out if any satanic rituals have been held in that area.”
“Satanists?”
“They like the forest. Life in the outdoors.”
“It could be something like that.”
“Look at this marking again,” Winter said, and walked around the desk and stood next to Börjesson. “What do you think it looks like?”
The young homicide detective picked up the photo and held it at arm’s length.
“It could be an H.”
“Yes.”
“Or some Chinese character.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Chinese characters mean something,” Börjesson said. “I mean, beyond just a word. It’s like a thing. An object.”
“You studied Chinese?”
“In high school, for a couple of years. I did humanities at Schillerska High School.”
“And became a policeman?”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
“On the contrary,” Winter said. “The force needs all the humanists it can get.”
Börjesson gave a short laugh and looked back at the photograph.
“I can compare it to the characters in my books.”
“How many are there?”
“Tens of thousands, but only a few thousand are in more common use.”
Winter stared intently at the symbol. He had to go back there again and study the contours of the tree. It looked as if the person who painted it on the trunk had followed them. The marking looked like it was part of the tree.
He would have to look at the thing itself, but even now he felt a raw power emanating from the photo, a maniacal force from another world of evil. A message.
Winter shook his head gently. They started again, the connotations swirling in his mind.
To him the marking looked like an H. That was also a coincidence. In his mind he had named the woman after the cluster of houses close by: Helenevik.
For him she had been Helene hours before he had made any serious attempt to study the symbol on the tree. Helene. It felt as if the fabricated name would help him find out who she really was.
She was dead and the dead have no friends, but he wanted to be her friend right up until she got her name back.
12
EVERYTHING IN WINTER’S OFFICE WAS BLACK AND WHITE, WITH no shades of gray. The Post-its on the wall opposite his desk were empty rectangles.
Lingering there alone in the silence, he was suddenly very tired-a sensation that seemed to spring from the stillness in the room. He closed his eyes, and his thoughts became vague. He saw a child’s face before him and opened his eyes again. He closed his eyes and looked at the face. The hair had no color, and the girl’s eyes were looking straight at him. It was a girl.
A reflexive jolt roused him just as he was about to tip over in his chair. Must have fallen asleep, he thought.
He no longer saw the girl’s face, but he didn’t forget her.
The phone rang.
“So you’re back at work.” It was his sister.
“Since this morning. Pretty early,” Winter said. “I was actually back a bit before that but not for real until now.”
“What’s happened?”
“ ‘Sounds like murder!’”
“What?”
“Somebo-There’s been a murder. It’s true. But I was quoting a song by a band I’ve been listening to, to try to find myself again.”
“Coltrane, of course?”
“The Clash. A British rock band. Macdonald-you know, the British inspector I worked with last spring-he sent me a few CDs.”
“But you’ve never listened to rock in your whole life.”
“That’s why.”
“What?”
“It’s like-I don’t know. I need something else.”
“And now you’ve got a fresh murder on your hands.”
“Yes.”
“So the assault case, or whatever the expression is, you guys have solved that? Or put it aside?”
“The assault case?”
“Your colleague, Agneta, with the foreign last name.”
“Aneta.”
“That’s the one. Well, apparently she was beaten up, and you know who called me just now?”
Winter saw a swimming pool, a naked man, sun glittering in the water, and he could almost smell the stench of tanning oil again.
“I think so.”
“How could you be so stupid as to drive over to that scumbag’s house and threaten to beat the crap out of him?”
“Is that what he said?”
“He said that you came over to his house and tried to strangle him.”
“I needed information.”
“Not the right way to get it, Erik.”
Winter didn’t answer.
“I haven’t heard from Benny in years,” Lotta said. “And I could almost say the same about you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes I wonder when it was you stopped being my brother. No, that sounds pathetic. And crabby. I just mean that I need to speak to you sometimes.”
“I’m trying.” Winter knew that his sister was right. When her life hit the skids, he didn’t have a thought for anything other that his own career. Or whatever it is I consider my work to be, he thought. He had been immature. She’s right, he thought again.
“But we were speaking about Benny Vennerhag,” she said. “He called and complained and asked me to keep you away from him.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“Can’t the police manage without their peculiar contacts on the other side? Or haven’t you caught the ones who hurt your colleague?”
“We’ve caught them. But that bastard shouldn’t be calling you.”
“Well, at least somebody’s calling me.”
“Now you’re exaggerating, Lotta.”
“Am I?”
“I promise to do better. Åke isn’t causing any more trouble, is he?”
His sister had gotten divorced from Åke Deventer, and it had been an ordeal filled with bitterness. Now she lived alone with her two kids in the house where they had grown up.
“He stays away, and that means he isn’t causing any trouble,” she said. “But I had pretty much forgotten the great mistake of my youth, Benny Vennerhag, until I heard his voice yesterday.”
“You hadn’t even turned twenty-five, I think.”
“My God. You’re supposed to be considered an adult at that age.”
“He must have been rattled.”
“What?”
“Benny. I must have scared him.”
“You did try to kill him, after all.”
Winter said nothing.
“Did it feel good?” she asked.
“What?”
“Trying to murder somebody? Was it a good feeling?”
The room had grown darker. Winter thought about his hands around Benny Vennerhag’s jaw. He no longer remembered what it had felt like. They hadn’t been his hands.
“Are you there?” she asked.
“I’m here.”
“How are you doing, really?”
“I’m not sure. A woman who’s no more than thirty years old is dead, and we don’t know who she is. That makes me more depressed than I ought to be, at least this early on.”