Watching You(12)

Perhaps there was no other meaning to the hidden mooring rings than the fact that they had been wrapped up. Like a present.

Wrapped in a parcel. Inside a parcel.

Whatever the rings had been used for, they were supposed to be found. The Scum was showing off again. Wanted to show how clever he was. Wanted to be admired. But who the hell by?

Berger was feeling tired as he took a couple of pictures. He tried one last time to imagine the scenario. He couldn’t, the images kept slipping away from him. He hoped he’d be able to drive home without hydroplaning his way into a hospital bed.

Mind you, how long had he actually been down in the windowless basement? Before he checked the watch on his wrist he had time to worry that dawn had arrived, that the neighbours would have started to stir.

It was ten to seven.

Time wasn’t on his side.

He slid out through the opening in the wall, up the stairs, and stepped out onto the porch taking several deep breaths. It was fortunate that the autumn had progressed to the point where the mornings had got darker. And the persistent rain, still falling just as heavily as before, was keeping any early birds indoors.

He stood on the porch and looked down towards the gate. For a brief moment a considerably lighter image flared in his mind – ambulance, police vans, cordon, onlookers – before he took one last deep, damp-laden breath and looked down as the hand resting on the rail of the porch. His eyes settled on the knuckles of his right hand.

The wounds actually seemed to have healed.





8




Monday 26 October, 07.26

The fact that it was Monday wasn’t the only reason why the morning felt darker than usual. Autumn had settled in with a vengeance and when Detective Inspector Desiré Rosenkvist tapped in the entry code to Police Headquarters it felt like the middle of the night. But at least it had stopped raining. In fact it hadn’t rained since she had left home, waved goodbye to Lykke at nursery and then, feeling weighed down as usual with guilt, got in her environmentally unfriendly old car. When she snuck out onto Nyn?sv?gen ahead of the morning rush the carriageway seemed almost dry.

Even so, Berger was wet.

She said a quick hello to the rest of the team as she headed towards Berger’s corner like a pre-programmed robot. It also happened to be her corner.

He looked like a wet dog, just staring straight ahead. They barely greeted each other, she sat down, as usual with her back to him, and started to tap at her computer. Even though she very obviously angled the screen away from him, she got the feeling that Berger didn’t care what she was doing.

He really was staring blankly into space. It was his way of having a crafty nap. No one really noticed the difference between a power nap and deep concentration; the question was, did he? He was old enough to have done national service, and a lot of that involved trying to look awake even though you were asleep.

Deer turned round and said: ‘The movement of rain clouds.’

It was a sufficiently cryptic comment to rouse Berger from his trance. He turned towards her. She went on: ‘Micrometeorology, that’s a word suited to your class, Sam.’

‘We’re from exactly the same class, Deer. What are you driving at?’

‘There’s been a heavy autumn storm hanging over us for longer than we can bear to remember. But it’s capricious, and this morning it eased up, briefly, and slipped away towards Norrland. Check the times on this map.’

Berger looked at the screen. A large thundercloud slid upwards as a clock indicated the time. The cloud moved very fast. As 06.00 approached, a map started to emerge, and he vaguely recognised the geography. Deer paused.

‘Skog?s,’ she said, pointing. ‘Where I live.’

Then the storm slid further north, uncovering the familiar outline of Stockholm. Deer paused again when the whole of the inner city was clear, then pointed and said: ‘And that’s where you live. Ploggatan, the north side of S?dermalm. The rain cleared there at about twenty past six.’

The storm moved on towards the north. When the timer reached 06.45 Deer paused it for a third time.

‘Are you with me?’ she asked.

Berger nodded, reluctantly fascinated.

As the heavy cloud moved on, the name M?rsta appeared on the map.

Deer turned to Berger, fixed her eyes on him and said: ‘For you to be that wet, Sam, you must have been pretty far north, very recently.’

‘Get back to work.’

As he turned his chair away he couldn’t help smiling. His eyes settled on his wrist. For the third time in twenty-four hours he had neglected to protect his old Rolex from the wet, and now it really looked like some water had seeped into the casing. For the first time since 1957. An ominous layer of condensation was obscuring the left half of the glass, where the hands were.

For the time being there was no time.

He pulled a tissue from his drawer and placed the watch on top of it. Then he angled the desk lamp to shine on its face. Maybe the heat from the bulb would be enough.

With great reluctance Berger looked at the time on his mobile phone instead. He glanced over his shoulder at Deer. She was immersed in photographs from the house in M?rsta, as if she was on his tail. He shook his head quickly and pulled up the pictures on his mobile. The twins, Marcus and Oscar, it always started there. Marcus and Oscar Babineaux. And the vacuum that swelled inside him every time. Then he scrolled through towards the end, past the pictures from his first visit to M?rsta – inside the house, the basement, the porch – until he reached the most recent ones.