The door opened outward. They saw the little pile of papers on the carpet inside and the darkness of the hallway. A window was visible in the far room like a dim rectangle of light. Winter asked the others to wait and then stepped into the apartment after putting on the plastic shoe covers he’d removed from his coat pocket. In the silence he heard a humming from the refrigerator that he could now see to his left through the kitchen doorway. It smelled of silence in there and of dust that had collected in the stagnant air. He continued on. To the right was a door that was closed, while straight ahead lay what had to be the living room. Winter’s concentration was like an iron hand clenched tightly around his brain. His gun was chaffing in his armpit more palpably than ever, and he felt a powerful urge to draw his weapon. He looked at the closed door, then moved cautiously through the open doorway and into the living room. He saw a couch and table and armchairs. A small glass cabinet and a TV. A chest of drawers. Dead plants on two narrow shelves beneath the windows. A carpet on the floor. A painting of an Indian woman on the wall above the couch. Winter backed up and drew his weapon. He stood in front of the shut door and pressed down the handle and opened it with a jerk, in the same moment pressing back up against the wall in the hallway. He leaned in toward the room. It was long and narrow, with two beds at either end, the smaller one against the far wall. Along the short wall next to him were wardrobes, one with the doors open. The wall above the little bed was stapled with drawings. The window was closed and the room was hot-summer had remained trapped inside here. The sun still shone in several spots above the girl’s bed. It was raining in a few of the drawings. In others there was both rain and sunshine. I wonder what that means, Winter thought. He turned his gaze toward the larger bed. Next to it stood a little bedside table that held a telephone and an empty glass. There was a newspaper lying there too and a framed color photograph of a fair-haired mother with her red-haired little girl. Winter moved closer. The woman in the photo was smiling a little smile that barely showed any teeth, and that was Helene. He thought, as he stood there in front of the little frame, that death hadn’t done all that much to her face. Helene was Helene. They’d finally made progress in the hunt for her killer, but he felt as yet no satisfaction as a hunter. It was only now that it really began-this investigation that had been in the process of closing. Helene had been given back her name. The little girl was smiling in the photo, wider and more openly than her mother. The girl’s name was Jennie, and she wasn’t here. At first Winter had felt relieved that he hadn’t fou-But before he could finish thinking that thought, it gave way to another almost just as unspeakable, unthinkable. In the hunt for the killer they would also be searching for the child. They had had a body without a name, and now they had that name. But they now also had a name without a body. The thought struck him hard and wouldn’t leave him.
30
OFFICERS FROM THE FORENSICS DEPARTMENT’S CRIME SCENE unit swabbed ninhydrin on the newspaper that lay on Helene Andersén’s bedside table and applied the chemical to other loose objects. The ninhydrin method allowed them to lift fingerprints that were left long ago. Salts and proteins from people’s sweat penetrate paper and stay there, like a handshake through time.
Prints on steel could not be polished away. They were like etchings. There were even methods for finding fingerprints on wet paper.
The officers dusted the apartment’s surfaces with the black charcoal powder Winter knew Beier didn’t like. The iron in the powder rusted when it became damp and left ugly marks.
The three technicians searched for prints by the light switches, around doors, tables, and other surfaces that hands may have touched. They dusted with powder and then waited for it to fully adhere to the print residue, which they would then lift using tape.
The danger was not actually getting the print onto the tape, which sometimes happened when it was too firmly attached. In the few instances where this seemed likely, the fingerprint was photographed before an attempt was made to lift it. The photographer always used black-and-white film.
Karin Sohlberg was crying. Winter sat opposite her in the residential services office.
“Ester was right,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What’s she saying now?”
“I’m going to speak to her shortly.”
“How awful.” Sohlberg blew her nose. “That little girl and everything.”
“You don’t remember her?”
“I feel like I’m completely confused now. But I can’t really remember. Maybe later.”
“Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to help us with the identification later.”
“What does that mean? Do I have to accompany you to-to the morgue?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. We’re going to have to ask the old lady to come too. I’m sorry.”
She thought quietly for a moment. “I know it sounds strange, but I haven’t been here very long, after all, like I said. And maybe they were the kind of people who kept to themselves. Or the mother anyway.”
“Kept to themselves?”
“Some people are a little quiet or don’t attract much attention.”
Winter knew what she meant. Loneliness could cause a person to withdraw. Loneliness and poverty. Winter was born into a poor family, but suddenly, while he was still a child, there was money. He’d spent his first years in one of the innumerable high-rises in the outskirts of Gothenburg. It was a world he still remembered.
Karin Sohlberg blew her nose again. A small group of onlookers had gathered outside the entrance to Helene Andersén’s courtyard, fifty yards away, on the other side, and followed a football game between two girls’ teams.
“So her rent is paid,” he said. “Do you know anything more about that?”
“No, nothing other than that’s what I got from the computer at the district office.”
“So you could only see that the rent for that specific apartment was paid?”
“Yes. On the computer.”
“Paid using a preprinted rent slip?”
“Yes, or with a regular deposit slip. Manually, in other words.”
“And Helene’s rent could have been paid either with the rent slip sent out from your office or a regular blank deposit slip?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know which it was?”
“It’s not specified. The computer only indicates that it’s been paid.”
“But if someone paid without the preprinted rent slip-that is, with a blank deposit slip, manually or whatever-then you would have a copy?”
“I think so.”
“And someone would have had to write her name in order for you to see that it’s specifically for that apartment.”
“It’s enough to just write the apartment number.”
“Is there someone at this district office now?”
Sohlberg checked her watch. “Yes, I think so. Lena is the one who handles that and she should be there. I can call and check.”
Winter nodded, and she punched in a number on her desk phone. He waited while she spoke.
“She’s there,” Sohlberg said, and put down the receiver.
Winter called Ringmar on his cell phone and learned that Bertil was about to start the interview with Ester Bergman. He hung up and slipped the phone into his blazer’s inner pocket.
Outside, one group had dispersed and another had formed, closer. Winter saw the dark faces, perhaps from Southeast or East Asia. Like the woman walking next to him. He hadn’t asked about her background.
“There are a lot of nationalities in this area,” he said.
“Over fifty percent are non-Swedish,” Karin Sohlberg said.
Winter looked down at her. She was a full head shorter.
“But I am,” she said. “Swedish.”