“What?”
“The witness who called three minutes ago said that it’s like an all-out gang war, and now we have a car out there confirming that shots have been fired.”
“Busy day today.”
“Did I miss something else?”
“There’s a hostage situation out front, or whatever you want to call it.”
“I’ve been on the phone the whol-Are you serious? A hostage situation?”
“A bus. But never mind that now. Have you had a chance to send someone to-Where did you say it was again?”
“Vårväderstorget square. In His-”
“I know where it is.”
“Like I said, there’s a radio car on the scene, but no one from the department. I don’t have a single fucking officer-”
“Let’s go,” Winter said. “Do you have a car ready?”
“Yes.”
They drove out via Smålandsgatan. Winter heard the megaphones and thought about the boy sitting with the man on the bus. Maybe they were father and son. He felt a sudden rage, a nausea that punched at his chest.
“What’s going on?” Ringmar was looking in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know much more than you do. Except that there’s a man sitting in a bus intent on killing himself and the boy he has with him. There may be other people there too.”
Ringmar sounded like he let out a sigh.
“He may also have an explosive device,” Winter said.
“And here we are on our way to another corner of the event center,” Ringmar said.
Winter looked at him askance just as the radio crackled to life with an update about Vårväderstorget. Four shots had been fired from the roofs of the buildings surrounding the square. And it seemed that two men had been shooting at each other but had disappeared. The police were now searching along the rooftops and on the ground.
“What the fu-Now somebody’s shooting again!” the voice was heard to say, and then the radio cut out.
“What the hell.” Ringmar pounded on the radio. It crackled but there was nothing intelligible. “That sounded like Jonne Stålnacke.”
They drove across the bridge and continued down Hjalmar Brantingsgatan. As they neared Vårväderstorget, Winter made out two patrol cars and people lying on the ground. When they got closer, he realized they were people who had taken cover, but he saw no blood around the cars or the people.
They stopped the car and ran, hunched over, to the two police officers who’d crawled down behind their car. One was holding a walkie-talkie and nodded when he recognized Ringmar and Winter. It was Sverker. A few days ago they’d seen him investigating an accident on Korsvägen. Winter thought about Sverker’s cancer and his return to the job.
“Fucking gangsters,” Sverker said.
“What happened?” Winter asked.
“Somebody started shooting-that’s what happened,” the police sergeant said, and suddenly a shot rang out close by.
“It’s a fucking war,” Sverker said.
Someone started screaming somewhere up ahead. The voice went silent and soon started up again, more softly and drawn out.
“What is that?” Ringmar asked.
Winter stood with his knees bent and slowly lifted his face and peered through the windows of the car. Thirty yards ahead, on the asphalt, lay a uniformed police officer, and he was the one who was screaming-more like shouting now. He’s probably been shot, Winter thought, since he seems unable to move. Unless he has chosen to lie still. But he was shouting. Winter saw no blood, but the man was lying at a strange angle with his leg pointing straight out. Now he moved an arm, in a kind of wave. He fell silent.
“Good God, it’s Jonne,” Sverker said, also looking through the windows. “He moved forward when it seemed like they’d stopped shooting. It’s Jonne Stålnacke.”
“Do you have a megaphone?” Winter asked.
“In the car. I’ll get it.” Sverker cautiously opened the door. “We’ve still got this one from a traffic accident the other day. It ought to be standard equipment.”
Winter took the megaphone and called out, “THIS IS THE POLICE. WE HAVE A WOUNDED OFFICER WHO NEEDS IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION. THERE MAY BE OTHER INJURED PEOPLE HERE. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAP-”
And then there was another explosion, and Winter dived headlong onto the street and scraped the hand that was holding the device. Someone fired again, from above. The shot seemed farther away, like the one he’d heard before. Maybe they’re pulling back, Winter thought. The enemy is retreating. Or was that just one of them? They had been shooting at each other, after all.
He raised the megaphone again and saw that he was bleeding from the knuckles and fingers of his right hand.
“THIS IS THE POLICE. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY. THERE ARE PEOPLE INJURED HERE. THIS IS THE POLICE. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AT ONCE. WE HAVE INJURED PEOPLE IN DESPERATE NEED OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL ATTENTION. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY.”
On the road behind him, an ambulance whined its way closer. Two ambulances. He turned around. The cars had stopped twenty yards away. People were standing along the other side of the road, by the thousands it looked like. Around him lay police officers and civilians who’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place but the wrong ti-
Another shot, but now in the distance like a New Year’s firecracker in another neighborhood. The injured police officer mumbled something. He’s in shock, Winter thought. He could die.
“We have to go get Jonne,” Sverker said. “There could be more people lying out there.”
“THIS IS THE POLICE. PUT AWAY YOUR WEAPONS. WE ARE GOING TO STAND UP NOW AND MOVE OUT ONTO THE SQUARE. WE’RE GETTING UP NOW. THIS IS THE POLICE. PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS. THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE HERE. WE HAVE TO BRING UP AN AMBULANCE. THERE ARE INJURED PEOPLE HERE.”
The ambulances behind Winter honked their horns, backing up his words. People all around gazed at him and at the long and narrow square, the roofs, the shop signs. Sverker held his service weapon in his hand.
“Put that away,” Winter said.
Jonne cried out again. No one was shooting anymore. Winter tried to see if there was anyone on the rooftops, but the sun stung his eyes and made the buildings look like they were being corroded by a chalk white light.
“THIS IS THE POLICE. WE’RE GOING TO MOVE OUT ONTO THE SQUARE AND THEN AN AMBULANCE IS GOING TO FOLLOW. WE’RE MOVING FORWARD NOW.”
He stood up and, holding the megaphone, slowly walked around the car. Clever idiot. He took a few steps forward, as if walking on thin ice, and continued over toward the injured police officer. Jonne Stålnacke lay still, but Winter could hear a low murmur, as if he were talking to himself.
Winter bent down over Jonne, dropped to his knees. Jonne’s face was white like the sky around the sun. His lips were invisible. His groin area was soaked in blood-they hadn’t been able to see this when they were crouching behind the car. Winter thought about how clean Jonne’s socks and shoes were. The leather shone like a mirror. Sverker jolted up and waved vigorously to the ambulance, which popped the clutch and screeched toward them. It was like a signal to everyone else who was lying down. People stood, but many of them were shaking so badly they had to sit right back down again. Winter heard crying. An entire square in shock. He caught a whiff of excrement from a man who tried to walk toward the street. More ambulances arrived on the scene. A streetcar passed by, as if it had emerged from another world. Uniformed police officers took care of people and looked to see if there were any more injured along with the paramedics and doctors. Stålnacke was carried into the ambulance and driven off. Winter suddenly felt terribly thirsty.
It was so hot, so it was strange that the little girl didn’t come outside for a dip in the wading pool. Many days had passed. It had been hot for such a long time now, but she didn’t know when she had last seen the girl. Nor the mother, but she wasn’t so far gone as not to realize that she couldn’t quite keep track of time the way she used to. Elmer wasn’t around anymore. He used to wind up the clock or say when it was getting on toward evening. It was hard to know what time it was when it took so long for it to get dark. But now it went quicker because the skies were turning toward fall.