Free Frozen Tracks by Åke Edwardson

delivered, in the
square, Kapellplatsen. Then darkness.
    * * *
    Linnéplatsen was surrounded by tall buildings that were
new but meant to look old, or at least in time blend in
with the hundred-year-old patrician mansions.
    Jens Book had been clubbed down outside Marilyn's,
the video store. Halders was standing there now. There
were five film posters in the windows, and all of them
depicted people brandishing guns or other weapons. Die
Fast! Die Hard III! Die and Let Die! Die!
    But not this time either. Jens Book was the first victim.
Studying journalism. The Aryan, Kaite, was the second.
Jakob Stillman the third. In the same department as
Bertil's daughter, Halders remembered, and moved to
one side to avoid a cyclist who came racing up from
Sveaplan. Gustav Smedsberg was the fourth, the yokel
studying at the university of technology, Chalmers.
Branding iron. Halders smiled. Branding iron my arse.
    Book was the one with the worst injuries, if it was
possible to grade them like that. The blow had affected
nerves and other things, paralysing him on his right side
– and it was not clear if he would recover mobility.
Maybe he wasn't as lucky as I was, Halders thought,
as he backed out of the way of a cyclist evidently determined
to ride straight ahead. Halders very nearly fell
through the door of the video store.
    He thought about the blows again. First the one he'd
received. Then the ones that had injured the young men.
    It had all happened so quickly. Wham, no warning.
Nobody noticed anything in advance. No footsteps. Just
wham. No chance of defence, of protecting themselves.
    No footsteps, he thought again.
    He watched the cyclist ignoring a red light and riding
straight over the crossroads, displaying a splendid
contempt for death. Die? Pfuh!
    The cyclist.
    Have we asked about a possible cyclist? Have we
thought about that?
    He had interviewed Aryan Kaite himself, but there
had been no mention of a bicycle.
    Had the attacker been riding a bike?
    Halders stared down at the tarmac, as if there might
still be some visible sign of cycle tracks.
    Lars Bergenhem had some news before lunch. Winter
was smoking a Corps. The window overlooking the
river was open a couple of centimetres, letting in air he
thought smelled more distinctly than his ciga rillo smoke
did. The Panasonic on the floor was playing Lush Life .
Only Coltrane today, and in recent weeks. Winter had
unfastened two buttons of his Zegna jacket. Anybody
coming into his office now who didn't know any better
would think he wasn't working. Bergenhem came in.
    'There was no newspaper delivery boy there.'
    Winter stood up, put his cigarillo down on the ashtray,
turned down the music and closed the window.
    'But the student saw him,' he said as he was doing
this. 'Smedsberg.'
    'He says he saw somebody with newspapers,' said
Bergenhem, 'but it wasn't a newspaper delivery boy.'
    Winter nodded and waited.
    'I checked with the Göteborgs Posten delivery office,
and on that particular morning, the day before yesterday
in other words, their usual employee for that round
phoned in sick just before it was time to start delivering,
and it took them at least three hours before they
could mobilise a replacement. So that would have been
at least two hours after Smedsberg was attacked.'
    'He could have been there even so,' Winter said.
    'Eh?'
    'He could have called in sick but turned up even so,'
Winter said again. 'He might have started to feel better.'
    'She,' said Bergenhem. 'It's a she.'
    'A she?'
    'I've spoken to her. There's no doubt. She has an
awful cold, and a husband and three children who were
all at home that morning and give her an alibi.'
    'But people received their morning papers?'
    'No. Not until her replacement turned up. According
to GP , in any case.'
    'Have you checked with the subscribers?'
    'I haven't had time yet. But the girl at GP says they
had lots of complaints that morning. As usual, according
to her.'
    'But Smedsberg says he saw somebody carrying