Never End by Åke Edwardson Page B

interviews had referred to it as a “waist-belt.” The word jumped off the page when Winter saw it. It seemed a wry comment on the waste of a life.
    That could be what the murderer had strangled her with, wasted her life. They couldn’t know for certain as they had never found the belt.
    Winter turned to the newer case notes. Angelika Hanssons’s. He searched for the inventory of her clothes: T-shirt, shorts, socks, panties, bra, hairband, sneakers—basketball type, Reebok. But no belt. Would she have worn a belt with her shorts?
    Had anybody asked about her clothes? He couldn’t see any reference to a belt. He read Pia Fröberg’s report. Angelika could well have been strangled with a leather belt. He picked up the phone and dialed the direct number to Göran Beier on the SOC team. No reply. He called the main lab. Beier answered.
    “Ah, Göran, it’s Erik. Can I disturb you for a couple of minutes?”
    “No problem.”
    “I’m sitting here with the Wägner case notes. Beatrice.”
    “OK.”
    “Were you on duty then?”
    “Beatrice Wägner? Let’s see, that must be, what . . . four years ago? Five?”
    “Five years. Exactly five.”
    “Whatever, it’s not a case you forget.”
    “No.”
    “We did what we could.”
    Winter thought he detected a hidden meaning in Beier’s words.
    “I haven’t given up,” he said.
    Beier made no reply.
    “That’s why I’m calling,” Winter said. “Maybe there’s a connection.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Do you remember that Beatrice had a belt that she evidently always used to wear, and that it couldn’t be found after the murder?”
    “I do. One of her friends had made some comment about it the same night she was murdered,” Beier said. “I read that in the preliminary reports.” He paused. “Now that I think about it, I seem to remember that it was you who signed off on it. My memory’s that good.”
    “I have it in front of me now,” said Winter, picking up the document. He could see his own signature. Erik Winter, Detective Inspector.
    “That was before the glory days of chief inspector,” said Beier. “For both you and me.”
    Winter didn’t reply.
    “I suppose it was Birgersson who was in charge of the investigation?”
    “Yes.”
    “I remember we had a talk about that belt,” Beier said.
    “What conclusion did you draw?”
    “Only that we thought the belt might have been used to choke her. But we never found it, of course.”
    “And now it’s Angelika Hansson we’re dealing with,” said Winter.
    “I heard from Halders that you thought there might be a link,” Beier said.
    “There could very well be.”
    “Or not.”
    “There could also be a belt,” Winter said.
    There was a pause. “I see what you mean,” Beier said, eventually.
    “Is it possible to find out if Angelika Hansson generally wore a belt with those shorts she had on that night?”
    “We’ve already established that,” said Beier.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Don’t you read the reports? What’s the point—”
    “When did you send them?”
    “Yesterday, I think. It sho . . . Hang on, somebody’s telling me something here.” Winter could hear Beier talking to a colleague. Then he spoke into the phone again. “I apologize, Erik. Pelle says he hasn’t sent them off yet. He wanted to che—”
    “OK, OK. But she did have a belt?”
    “There had at one time been a belt in the waistband, so the answer is yes. Of the shorts lying in the heap by her body. We can say that for sure. It’s not complicated at all.”
    “But I can’t find any mention of a belt in the inventory of what was in that pile of clothes,” said Winter.
    “No, because it wasn’t there.”
    “So he took it with him,” said Winter, mainly to himself.
    Beier said nothing.
    “Angelika Hansson could have been strangled with her own belt, then,” Winter said.
    “That’s a possibility.”
    “Just like Beatrice Wägner.”
    “I understand what you’re getting at,” Beier said. “But