Free Never End by Åke Edwardson

tape.
    “He’s been here at least as many times as I have,” said Winter. “That’s the way it goes. He’s been here alright.”
    “Maybe at the same time,” Bergenhem said.
    “No.” Winter looked at his colleague. “I would have known.”
    All we can do is keep at it, he thought. That’s the way it goes.
    He’d been here spring, summer, autumn, and winter after the murder of Beatrice Wägner. Not every day, of course, but he made it his business to pass here on weekends and in the evening, sometimes at night.
    Late one evening he’d seen a shadowy figure standing by the rock and had gone to investigate, his heart beating a bit faster, and found himself face-to-face with Birgersson when the shadow turned around.
    And he knew that Halders sometimes came here too.
    He didn’t think they’d scared anybody off. They didn’t walk into the park hips swinging, with guns drawn, silhouetted against the sunset.
    “The girl’s our best bet,” Bergenhem said. “Jeanette. The one who got away.”
    “Maybe that was the intention,” said Winter.
    “What do you mean? That she got away?”
    Winter shrugged. “Could be.”
    “If it is him, she’s seen him, touched him. Heard him.”
    “Yes.”
    “Those sounds. Some sort of mantra.”
    “Hmm.”
    “She said he repeated something she couldn’t understand. The same thing. She thought he’d said the same thing maybe three times.”
    “Yes.”
    “While he was raping her.”
    “Yes,” said Winter, watching the two girls who’d passed a couple of minutes before walking back again, each holding an ice cream cone. They looked curiously at the tape. “While he was raping her.”
    “Maybe there’s more,” Bergenhem said.
    Winter looked at the girls. An ice cream was just the thing. In weather like this, what you needed was ice cream and a cold drink.
    “Maybe she’ll remember a lot more now,” said Bergenhem.
    “I’m seeing her tomorrow,” said Winter. “Ten o’clock.”
    Bergenhem went up to the trees and peered inside. When he spoke again his voice was muffled by the enclosed space.
    “How far do you think he had to drag them?” Bergenhem said.
    “Ten meters,” Winter said.
    “Were there drag marks after Beatrice Wägner as well?”
    “Yes.”
    “What about Jeanette? Was she also dragged in there?”
    “We’ll talk about that tomorrow. So far all she’s said is that she can’t remember. She fainted.”
    Winter looked over his shoulder, and saw that the girls had left.
    “How about an ice cream?”
    Bergenhem emerged from the copse.
    “OK.”
    They walked around the pond to the ice cream stand. The noise from the children swimming was not as loud here. A couple about the same age as Winter whizzed past on Rollerblades. A man was selling balloons in the middle of the lawn. Three people were lining up at the stand.
    “This is on me,” said Winter.
    They walked back with their cones. The ice cream started to melt.
    “We should have gotten cups instead,” said Bergenhem.
    They sat down on the grass. It smelled dry and brittle. There were patches of yellow in the light green.
    “Why did he try to strangle Jeanette?” said Winter after a while.
    “What do you mean?” Bergenhem asked.
    “She wasn’t wearing a belt that he could use . . . as he did with the other two, Beatrice and Angelika, but even so he’d had something with him . . . a dog leash, perhaps. He had it with him but he didn’t strangle her with it. He didn’t kill her.”
    “You’re assuming this same rapist also killed Beatrice and Angelika.”
    “Yes. I am. For the moment, at least.” Winter could feel the cold ice cream on his fingers. It felt good.
    “The same person,” said Bergenhem. “Five years later.”
    “Yes.”
    “Did Angelika have a belt?”
    “According to Beier she’d been wearing a belt with her shorts. I checked with her parents later, and that was correct.”
    “But now it’s gone.”
    “Yes.”
    “Just as with Beatrice