Free Death Angels by Åke Edwardson Page A

working on it from now on,” he continued, nodding at the person to Halders’s right. “You all know Sara.”
    Helander lifted her hand in acknowledgment. She had been called in from the wanted persons group. Crossing her legs, she brushed back a lock of hair from her left temple and kept her eyes fixed on the screen.
    “If it’s the fox-trot,” Halders said, “we can pick him up any night of the week at the King Creole Club.”
    Helander spun around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Forget it.” Halders turned back to the video.
    “How are we ever going to make anything out of all this?” Bergenhem asked.
    “How do you make anything out of anything at the beginning of an investigation?” Helander retorted.
    Winter nodded in approval. Police work was all about waiting until the impossible became possible. A dance? Why not? He had jotted down the name of the album in Jamie’s CD player and given it to Helander. There’s a tape somewhere with audio, he thought, and it might be music or it might be something else that only people with certain predilections can stand the sound of.
    “What does the London team have to say about this?” Djanali asked.
    “I’ve been trying to get hold of the chief investigator all morning,” Winter answered.
    “How about INTERPOL?” Halders asked.
    “We need to be talking directly with London at this point,” Winter said.

    Winter stood where he had been during the meeting, while Bergenhem sat next to him and jotted down some notes.
    “Try to be as discreet as possible,” Winter said.
    “How many strip joints can there be?”
    Winter fingered the package of cigarillos on the table in front of him. When he opened the blinds, he saw a whole class of students crossing the street from Kristinelund High School, no doubt on a field trip to the upholders of public order. At the front of the pack was a man in his early fifties, a wrinkled Seeing Eye dog leading blind youth, none of them much younger than the victims of the murders Winter was investigating. He closed his eyes. “Any questions?” he asked, turning to Bergenhem.
    “Can you give me a week?”
    “We’ll see. I know someone you can talk to right away.”

    Winter went home early that night and made an omelet. Cutting up the tomatoes, he thought briefly of the Mediterranean sun that watched over his vagabond parents.
    A restless feeling chafed at him. He walked over to the stereo but stood there idly. He thought about opening a bottle of beer, then changed his mind and decided to go for a run in the Slottsskogen woods across Sprängkullsgatan Street. He’d pulled the jersey halfway over his head when he heard the phone ring. It was Angela, one of his girlfriends—the best idea of all.
    He pulled her to him as soon as she walked through the door. In bed he bent down and lifted her by the thighs. He was in a hurry, and it felt like an eternity before his body erupted, his mind blissfully empty.
    They lay on their backs in the silent room. “You needed that,” she said.
    “It takes two.”
    The phone on her side of the bed began to ring, and she rolled over to pick it up while he gazed at the smooth contours of her hips and thighs. “Hello?” she said, listening intently. “That’s fine, go ahead and put him through.”
    How does she manage? he wondered. It’s almost like she’s my wife.
    “Yes, he’s right here.” She looked over her shoulder. “It’s a chief inspector calling from London—MacSomething,” she whispered to Winter.

11
    WHlLE ANGELA HEADED FOR THE SHOWER, WlNTER SQUlRMED HlS way across the bed to pick up the phone. She closed the bedroom door.
    “Erik Winter here.”
    “Good afternoon, this is Steve Macdonald in London. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
    “Not anymore. I’m glad you called back.”
    “I got the message.”
    “We have some things to talk about.”
    “You can say that again. Somebody else was also . . . Sorry, I’m not talking too fast, am