There was a smell of sun and pine needles outside the chapel, and the scent accompanied them inside. He didn’t know many of those present. Some had flown in from Sweden on the same flight as Angela. Old friends. Angela had seemed composed when he met her at the airport not far from Málaga.
The grave was overlooked by the mountain. Angela held his hand. A man he’d never seen before sang a hymn in Swedish, and another one in Spanish.
They assembled for coffee afterward at a café in Puerto Banús, close to the beach.
“This is your father’s favorite café,” his mother said.
“What’s that statue over there?” Winter indicated the angel on a high pedestal, looking out to sea.
“Un Canto de la Libertad.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s supposed to symbolize a hymn to freedom.” She pointed to the statue about a hundred yards away. “It’s your father’s favorite statue.” Winter thought he could see a trace of a smile on his mother’s face.
He was feeling a little better now. He had avoided thinking about several things, but felt that it would be easier to do so now, for a while at least. Maybe it was that trace of a smile that helped. Maybe he would allow himself to think those thoughts before long.
He wanted to make a gesture, to do something. Angela was looking at him. Lotta was gazing out to sea, watching a sailing boat heading for the horizon.
“Let’s go home and have a drink,” he said. “Tanqueray and tonic. That’s Dad’s favorite.”
16
The mobile phone rang in Winter’s breast pocket. He thought he’d switched it off. It was Bertil Ringmar. The elderly DCI sounded more subdued than usual.
“I just wanted to send you greetings… today of all days.”
“Thank you, Bertil.”
“We’re all thinking about you here.”
“Thank you.”
“Er… I don’t really know what else to say.”
“How are things at your end?”
“Quieter than usual.”
“So my absence has had a calming effect on Gothenburg crime.”
“It’s a bit more boring as well.”
“Maybe I should keep out of the way in future.”
“You don’t really mean that, surely?”
“No.”
“When are you coming home?”
“My flight is tomorrow morning. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”
“We’ll hold the fort, as they say. Await the new millennium with bated breath.”
“Everybody’s getting on with it, in other words.”
“Bergenhem’s taken a few days off, on health grounds.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s out of sorts. I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with him. He has a headache he can’t shake off. And he’s worrying about something.”
“Has he said anything?”
“No… but there’s something bothering him. I’m not a psychologist, but there’s something there.”
“Has he talked to anybody-someone who could help him?”
“I don’t know, Erik, but I assume he must have, now that he’s off sick.”
“Yes, seems likely.”
“Maybe it’s all the excitement as the millennium approaches. They say it can affect people in all kinds of ways. Seriously as well.”
“Really.”
“I can’t say I’ve thought much about it.”
“No.”
“How are you reacting to it?”
“I haven’t got around to thinking about that yet.”
“Shouldn’t you stay in tonight? You have an exam tomorrow, after all.”
“I’ve done the work for that.”
“When?”
‘At school.“
“Don’t you want me to test you on it?”
“No.”
“Maria, please. Can’t you stay in tonight?”
“I have to go now. They’re waiting for me.”
“Who is? Who’s waiting for you?”
“Patrik and the others.”
“Can’t you ask them to come here instead?” Hanne asked and immediately felt foolish. Would they really want her to serve them sponge cake and lemonade?
“They’ve already been here.”
“We’ve moved the VCR into your room,” said Hanne, feeling foolish again the moment she’d said it.
“Bye, Mom.” Maria closed the door behind her. Hanne heard her daughter’s footsteps on the steps and on the path outside. The snow was already packed so hard that it sounded like somebody bouncing on a trampoline. Winter in November, and it might well have come to stay, although you never knew. It could be fifty degrees over Christmas.
Hanne went back to the kitchen table and her newspaper and her reading glasses. She tried to spin out the time and avoided getting down to her Sunday sermon until the last minute.
If only the Christmas spirit would hurry up and arrive. They ought to go away, as far away as possible… Two weeks in the Canary Islands.
It would be best if they didn’t come back. A house in some southern country. All those Swedish expats. There was lots of work for a vicar. Several Swedish clergy were working on the Costa del Sol. She thought about Erik Winter. Yesterday, when she’d been at the police station, somebody had told her that his father had died. She could hear a tram approaching from Saint Sigfrids Plan. It sounded as if it were plowing its way through the snow. Maria might be on it. She thought about Winter again, his father. Maria’s father hadn’t been around since she was a baby. Had that sowed the seeds of the harvest she now was reaping? What am I saying, she wondered. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
And now the girl was a teenager. She saw her home as a potential prison, as they all do at that age-a part of growing up.
I’d better write that sermon now.
Málaga looked as it had done before. Nothing had changed of the city or the sea since he last saw them from the air.
The plane banked, and all he could see was sky. The coast was no longer visible behind them. The flight attendants started trundling their trolleys down the center aisle, and passengers ordered their drinks. Angela was feeling sick. Nothing unusual in the circumstances, she’d said, but she’d rather it wasn’t in an airplane.
He tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. He avoided alcohol and ordered mineral water instead, like Angela. He didn’t touch his sandwich.
They passed through a pocket of turbulence that caused the aircraft to shudder once or twice.
“That actually helped,” Angela said. “I feel better now.”
“You look better too.”
“I can see the coast.”
“Which coast?”
“ Denmark, I think.”
Half an hour later the plane began its descent. Winter glimpsed Gothenburg through the clouds before they were swallowed up by them. The buildings were gray, but the ground was white.
The snow was about four inches deep at the side of the runway at Landvetter.
It smelled like a different country as they left the terminal building and made their way to the long-term car park. He could feel the cold through his thin coat. There were a lot of people milling around, but fewer than he’d been used to for some time. Coming back home was always like that. A lot of noise, but even so it was quieter than when he’d been away.
They didn’t speak much in the car. Angela intended to say something in the elevator, but didn’t.
“Is it Saturday we’ll be moving in the last of your things?” Winter asked.