Sun and Shadow

“That sounds great,” Börjesson said. He took a CD out of his pocket. “Do you recognize this?”

The man took Sacrament and looked at the cover, then at Börjesson.

“If you mean have I sold it, yes, sir.”

“You recognize the disc?”

“I recognize most things in the music line.” He looked at the gloomy landscape on the cover. “Maybe it was this lousy drawing that made me long to get away to the sun.” He opened the lid. “We had two,” he said.

“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you about,” Börjesson said.

“It’s not bad stuff if you ignore the production.”

“I don’t suppose you can remember who you sold them to, can you?”

“You must be joking! In the first place I’m not the only person working here, and anyway, I’m better at album covers than I am at faces.” He turned the cover over and looked at the pictures of the men of darkness against the shocking-colored background. “Sometimes I can remember who I bought the disc from. Some people come in with mountains of CDs. Sometimes you come across a find.” He looked at Börjesson. “This one’s a borderline case.” He took out the booklet with the words and leafed through it. “Why is it so interesting?”

“The music is linked to a case we’re working on,” Börjesson said.

“That murder I read about?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well… it’s the obvious thing.” He looked at Börjesson. “The songs on this CD are pretty bloody. But fairly i

“Have you any idea of when you bought the CD?”

“I’m afraid not. Maybe it wasn’t me. No, it wasn’t me. Have you asked the others?”

“Yes. They don’t recognize it at all.”

“I suppose it might have been me, then… I do remember that we had it… let me see… we had two, one of them was in the shop when I started… it’s quite an old CD, of course…” He left the counter and went over to the hard rock section and sca

Börjesson thought. Somebody had changed the music and now it was Led Zeppelin.

“When I took off there was one copy,” the man said, looking at Börjesson. They were about the same age. “When I came back, it had gone.”

“All right.”

“We sell so much stuff it’s simply not possible to keep tabs on everything, as you can imagine.”

“I can imagine.”

“We get all ages here, all races, all sizes.”

Börjesson looked around the shop. There were more than twenty customers in the big sales area, all of them men. Most of them were youngsters, but there were some men in their thirties working their way through the racks, and at that very moment in marched a man who must have been about forty-five, with a pile of LPs in his arms. Two young girls followed him in.

“There’s a fair amount of turnover among the staff as well. Several have come and gone this last year.”

“Business is good, is it?”

“You can say that again.” He went back to the counter and the pile of CDs that had now been joined by the pile of LPs. He stopped and turned to face Börjesson again. ‘As you’re from the police you’ve reminded me that a guy kept stopping in and checking to see what we had in stock. Several times. A cop, that is. That was shortly before I went off on my travels.“

“A cop? A police officer? How do you know?”

“I hope I can recognize a police uniform. I wouldn’t recognize the man, but the uniform…”

“What do you mean by checking to see what you had in stock? As a customer?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“Is that unusual?”

“That police officers come in uniform and check our stocks? I suppose he’s the only one I’ve ever seen in here. You should ask the others. Didn’t any of them mention him?”

“No.”

He looked at Börjesson again. The man with the LPs was being served by another assistant. “Do you men have time to buy a few discs in working hours?”

The woman repeated what she had said. Winter dragged his eyes away from the photograph.

“Have you got anything smaller?” she said. “No small change?”

“I’m afraid not.” He looked back up at the picture on the wall behind her.

“Did this shop use to be called Manhattan Livs?” he asked, pointing at the photograph. She turned to look, then spun back around on her chair.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I only recently started here.”

Winter knew that the owner was a man. They had routinely interviewed all the people living in the vicinity and he’d read the transcripts, just as he’d read all the other material co

“The man who owns it comes in the evening. Bertil Andréasson.”

“Could you give me his telephone number, please?”

Bertil Andréasson answered after the second ring. Winter explained who he was and asked about the name of the shop. He had gone back to his office and hung his wet overcoat on a hanger next to the sink.

“I changed it when I bought the place,” Andréasson said.

“When was that?”

“Er… nearly three years ago.”

“And you changed the name right away?”

“More or less, yes. Manhattan… I couldn’t see the link, to be honest. Mind you, I’ve never been to New York, but I don’t think it looks anything like the area around Hagåkersgatan. Not the Manhattan you see in films, at least.”

“Are you often in the shop?” Winter asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

Winter could hear the man’s voice sort of stiffen, become more guarded.

“Do you often work in the shop yourself?”

“Why should I? When I have people working for me? You’ve met Jilna.”

“She was only hired recently, I believe-isn’t that so?”

“I had two others before her. And I have another job as well.”

“Two other employees before her? Have they left?”

“One moved and the other couldn’t count,” Andréasson said.

“I have a few more questions to ask you,” Winter said. “It would be better not to have to use the phone. Could you stop by my office?”

“What’s this all about?” Andréasson said. “I’ve already talked to the police, after that murder. I don’t know any more than I did then.”

“It’s just routine,” Winter said. “When we’re busy with an investigation we sometimes need to talk to people several times. If new facts turn up.”

“What kind of new facts? Ah, yes! The name.”

“I saw the photograph,” Winter said.

“The picture of Killdén? Behind the counter? I’ve thought of taking it down at least eighty times, but some old customer or other might ask where the old guy’s gone to, so I’ve left it there for sentimental reasons.”

“Killdén? Was that the previous owner?”

“Åke Killdén. He used to own a few shops, but then he sold up and now he spends his time sitting in the sun.”

“In the sun?”

“He bought an apartment, or maybe it was a house, in Spain. Costa del Sol, I think.”