Free Death Angels by Åke Edwardson Page B

I?”
    “Not at all.”
    “You Scandinavians speak excellent English. That’s more than I can say of us in south London.”
    Winter heard the shower running. Soon she would come out and wave good-bye as if it had all happened in a distant, stormy dream. He felt the dried perspiration at the top of his forehead. “Your English is easy to understand,” he said to Macdonald.
    “Well, just tell me if I need to repeat anything. It’s my own special blend of Scottish and Cockney.”
    Winter heard Angela turn off the shower. He pulled the sheet up to his waist, suddenly embarrassed by the stranger’s voice. Or maybe I’m just cold, he thought.
    “We’ve got to get down to the nuts and bolts of this,” Macdonald went on.
    “I’m with you all the way.”
    “I’ve been reading your reports, and the last one makes me feel like we’re standing on some kind of stage.”
    “A stage?”
    “Somebody’s out to prove something.”
    “Isn’t it always that way?”
    “This guy is a little too clever,” Macdonald said. “We’re not talking about your everyday sociopath.”
    “You’re right. He’s a sociopath, but there’s something more.” Angela slowly opened the door and threw him a kiss. He nodded back. She turned around and walked out. He heard the front door close and the elevator cage rattle.
    “We just talked to Jamie’s parents for the first time,” Macdonald said. “Or rather his mother. They live on the outskirts of London.”
    “Our database expert mentioned that.”
    “I heard that he called his counterpart over here. He speaks good English and they had no trouble communicating.”
    Winter saw Möllerström in his mind’s eye, the way he enunciated every syllable. Why doesn’t everyone have an e-mail address? Möllerström had wanted to know. Is English easier to write than speak? Halders had asked.
    “It’s a strange investigation.” Macdonald paused. “Actually, it’s several investigations rolled into one. My boss has put our team on the case full time.”
    “Same here.”
    “Nothing new on the letters?”
    “We talked to Geoff ’s pen pal, but she couldn’t help us out very much. She didn’t notice anything unusual in his last letter, only that he was excited about coming to Gothenburg. As far as the letter that he supposedly received from someone else in Sweden is concerned, we don’t know anything yet. His pen pal had no idea who it might be from.”
    “I guess it’s to be expected that he no longer had the letter when you found him.”
    “No new witnesses who saw Per?” Winter was still mulling over Macdonald’s remark about being onstage.
    “Yes and no, you know what it’s like. Everybody has seen everything and nobody has the information you’re looking for. To say that our phones are ringing off the hook would be an understatement.”
    “Nothing solid to go on?”
    “Not at the moment, but that’s how it always is. The good news is that the press has been unusually cooperative. A white European kid murdered in the ghettos south of the river is a real story, as opposed to the crack-related murders we usually deal with. Try to get the papers to write about them. I’m grateful for all the publicity and calls we can get, even if we have to weed out a bunch of nutcases. Croydon is England’s tenth largest town—three million of us. So there’s no shortage of loonies here.”
    “Gothenburg is Sweden’s second largest, and that adds up to half a million.”
    “Any drugs to speak of?”
    “More and more.”
    “Did you get the newspapers I sent by diplomatic pouch?” Macdonald asked.
    “Yes, we did, thanks.”
    “Then you know what I’m talking about. When the Sun demands that a curfew be imposed until an arrest has been made, the public feels called upon to help us solve the case.”
    Winter was thinking to himself. “What did you mean by feeling like we’re onstage?” he asked finally.
    “Onstage?”
    “What made you say that?”
    “It’s like