On the way there Aneta Djanali called.

“Ellen Sköld said a name.”

“Have you spoken to her again?”

“Yes, just now, this morning. She keeps saying the name Gerd. It must be Gerd she keeps saying.”

“Jerner’s mother,” said Winter.

“He’s told Ellen about her,” said Djanali.

There were plainclothesed police officers in all the arcades, Postgatan, Götgatan, in the department stores. All the entrances and exits were under observation.

People were thronging in there now. The Boxing Day sales had exploded in everybody’s face. Winter could barely move as he tried to make his way over the square. Yesterday he’d been the only person on earth, today there were thousands there.

The headlines outside the newsstand were screeching at top volume.

Ringmar was waiting outside H &M, as agreed.

“Did you get any sleep, Erik?”

“Yes, but it was not intentional.”

“I’ve spoken to Martin,” said Ringmar.

“About time.”

“He wants to meet me.”

“What does he have to say?”

“That he’s never gotten over the fact that I hit him once. Once. That was it. That was all it was. But it just grew and grew on him.”

“Did you?”

“Hit him? Not in that way.”

“What other way is there?”

“I didn’t hit him,” said Ringmar, and Winter could see that the relief in Bertil’s face was that of an innocent man. I haven’t even done that, was what he wanted to say.

“Where is he?” asked Winter, as he observed people moving slowly around in clumps.

“In New York.”

“In

New York?”

“Yes. He left that damned sect he was a member of.”

“Deprogrammed?”

“He sorted it out himself.” Ringmar looked at Winter. “This might only be the beginning, of course. Such things take time.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Working in a restaurant.”

“Is he coming home?”

“Next week.”

“When’s Birgitta coming home?” Winter asked, watching a man sitting on the ground with people stepping around him.

“She’s already home. So’s Moa.”

“Who’s checked out that guitar player?” said Winter, pointing in the direction of the plinth in the middle of the square.

“Eh? What guitar player?”

“Who’s the guitarist?!” said Winter. He stepped quickly forward, collided with a woman, apologized, and continued barging his way forward like a rugby player forcing his way through tackling backs, and he reached the guitar player who was sitting underneath the hanging and whirling bodies of Two Dimensions, strumming away at some tune or other, and Winter came up behind him, saw the checked cap and knew that it was possible, and that anybody could hide himself away like this for as long as they liked, it was a devilishly clever disguise, a disguise that would work in any public place, and Winter’s hand was shaking as he reached out for the man, who strummed a chord, and Winter pulled off his cap and found himself looking at a mop of black hair and an unknown, terrified face looking up at him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Winter.

Nobody seemed to have noticed. Nobody had been listening to the busker. He stood up, grabbed his empty guitar case and his guitar, and hurried away.

The sculptures were hovering over Winter’s head. He took a step backward and looked up at the roof that extended from the north arcade to the square. Four enormous ventilation shafts were fixed under the roof, like pedestrian tunnels. He followed them with his gaze. They opened out just in front of the work of art. You could see the sky through a circular window. The highest of the figures were surrounded by mirrors that formed a circular prism reflecting the display windows of the shops around about. He could see the reflections of people moving. The white sculptures were of naked bodies, on the way down from heaven to earth. He’d looked closely at them for the first time the previous day. He was the only person looking up. Before long, several more people would wonder what was happening, and look up as well.

The bodies were attached to transparent lines that seemed to freeze their movements.

Some were jumping.

Some were diving.

Then he saw him.

There was a new body hanging up there.

He hadn’t seen that one yesterday,

White like the rest of them, as white as snow.

Jerner’s features had stiffened just like the rest of them. He was on his way down from heaven in a frozen movement.

His arms and legs were attached to wires that he must have carried with him through the ventilation shafts.

He’d tied the last of the wires around his neck.

Then he’d jumped.

Winter was able to work all that out in a flash.

Winter closed his eyes and looked again. Jerner was hanging there, frozen in his death leap. He was flying, just like he’d told his brother he would, flying in his own way. Winter looked around, and he could see that he was the only one who had seen. Bertil had disappeared in the sea of humanity. Winter looked up again, he couldn’t help it. Next to Jerner’s left shoulder he could see the reflection of H &M’s display window. The mirror was curved in a strange way that made it possible for him to see the bottom part of some clothes racks inside the shop. He saw a small, shiny wheel and something that could be a stay, or a stand of some sort. Winter turned around and forced his way through the crowd and ripped the clothes off the racks, and there was the stroller and Micke’s head was leaning to one side, and a little arm hung down and he could feel a faint pulse.

On the plane he kept his leather jacket on, and his sunglasses. Somebody started singing as they rose up through the black, friendly skies. Somebody laughed. He put on the earphones and turned on his portable CD player and closed his eyes. A cart arrived eventually and he asked for four of the ridiculously small bottles of whiskey. He put the earphones back on and drank and tried to think of nothing, but failed. The woman next to him looked away. He turned up the sound, and the trumpet of Miles Davis blew everything else out of his mind.

About Åke Edwardson

Åke Edwardson is a Swedish author of detective fiction, and a professor at Gothenburg University, the city where many of his Inspector Winter novels are set. Edwardson has had many jobs, including a journalist and press officer for the United Nations, and his crime novels have made him a three-time winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Award for best crime novel. His first novel to be translated into English, in 2005, was Sun and Shadow. The second, Never End, followed in 2006.