Free Frozen Tracks by Åke Edwardson Page B

Smedsberg's room,
and all hell was let loose on the way there.'
    'But we're living in the twentieth century in an enlightened
society,' Winter said. 'Or in the twenty-first, to be
precise. And isn't it a bit odd for a young man to want
to conceal his orientation to the extent of shielding a
person who tried to murder him?'
    Bergenhem shrugged.
    'Well, isn't it?' asked Winter again.
    'We'll have to ask him,' said Bergenhem.
    'We shall. Why not? It would explain a great deal.'
    'One other thing,' Bergenhem said.
    'Yes?'
    'It's connected.' Bergenhem looked at Winter. 'Where
are the newspapers?'
    'Yes.'
    'He was carrying a bundle of papers, but not a single
subscriber received one and we haven't found any.'
    'We haven't looked,' Winter said. 'We've assumed
that the papers were delivered.'
    'That's true, of course.'
    'They might be around there somewhere. A pile of
them. It would be useful if we could find them, wouldn't
it?'
    'Yes.'
    'But when we spoke to the newspaper delivery people,
we'd taken Smedsberg's word for it that he'd seen a
newspaper boy at that particular time.' Winter scratched
his nose. 'Why do we believe that if we've had reservations
about other parts of his story?'
    'So we need to find other witnesses who saw a fake
newspaper boy at that place and at that time,' said
Bergenhem.
    'Yes, and we've already started on that.'
    Bergenhem stroked his hand across his forehead, from
left to right. His four-year-old daughter had already
acquired the same habit.
    'This line of reasoning could throw new light on the
other attacks,' he said.
    'Or cast a shadow over them,' Winter said. 'Maybe
we should soft-pedal a bit, not get ahead of ourselves.'
    Pedal, he thought the moment he'd said it. A bicycle.
Perhaps the attacker had ridden up on a bike. That
would explain the speed, the surprise. A silent bike. Soft
tyres.
    'But just think,' Bergenhem continued, 'four attacks,
no witnesses to the actual violence, no trace of the
attacker. The victims didn't see or hear anything, or not
much at least.'
    'Go on,' Winter said.
    'Well, maybe they all made contact with the person
who clubbed them down.'
    'How? Did he pose as a newspaper boy every time?'
    'I don't know. Perhaps he posed as something else,
somebody else, so as not to scare them.'
    'Yes.'
    'Have we checked this newspaper boy business in
connection with the other cases?' Bergenhem asked.
    'No. We haven't got that far yet,' said Winter.
    'It would be worth following up,' Bergenhem said.
'We haven't asked the people living in the areas
concerned about newspapers.'
    Yes, Winter thought. You don't get answers to
unasked questions.
    'And then,' Bergenhem said, 'there's the business of
the other victims' orientation.'
    'All gay?'
    Bergenhem made a gesture: could-be-a-possibility-but-
how-do-I-know.
    'Young gays who spotted an interesting possibility
and paid dearly for it?' asked Winter.
    'Could be,' Bergenhem said.
    'So they fell victim to a gay-basher? Or several? A
gay-hater?'
    'It's possible,' said Bergenhem. 'And I think there's
just one attacker.'
    'And what's the orientation of this man of violence?'
Winter asked.
    'He's not gay himself,' Bergenhem replied.
    'Why not?'
    'I don't know,' said Bergenhem. 'It doesn't feel right.'
    'Are gays non-violent?'
    'Gay-bashers aren't homosexual, surely?' said
Bergenhem. 'Is there such a thing as a gay gay-basher?'
    Winter didn't respond.
    'This attacker isn't gay,' said Bergenhem. 'I know we
can't rule anything out, but I already have a very strong
feeling that it isn't the case here.'
    Winter waited for Bergenhem to say more.
    'Mind you, it's too early to think anything about
anything,' Bergenhem said.
    'Not at all,' said Winter. 'This is the way we make
progress. Talking it over. Dialogue. We have just talked
ourselves into a possible motive.'
    'And that is?'
    'Hatred,' said Winter.
    Bergenhem nodded.
    'Let's assume for the moment that these four young
men don't know one another,' said Winter. 'They have
no common background, nothing