Frozen Tracks Read Online Free Page A

paper on the table beside
him, where there was also a vase with six tulips that
he'd bought that same afternoon. Both the vase and the
tulips.
    Now the boy was there. His face, then the car window
behind him, the radio, the back seat. The boy told him
what to film, and he filmed it. Why not?
    The parrot hanging from his rear-view mirror. He'd
picked out a red and yellow one, just like the climbing
frame at the playground that needed another coat of
paint, but his parrot didn't need repainting at all.
    The boy, who'd said his name was Kalle, liked the
parrot. You could see that in the film. The boy was
pointing at the parrot, and he filmed it even though he
was driving. That needed a fair amount of skill, but he
was good at driving while thinking of something else
at the same time, doing something different. He'd been
good at that for a long time now.
    Now he heard the voices, as if the volume had
suddenly been turned up.
    'Rotty,' he said.
    'Rotty,' echoed the boy, pointing at the parrot, and
it almost looked as if it were about to fly away.
    Rotty. It was a trick. If anybody else were ever to see
this film, which wouldn't happen, but if, only if, it would
seem as if Rotty was the parrot's name. But that wasn't
the case. It was one of his tricks, like all the other tricks
you had when you were little and your voice suddenly
g-g-g-g-ot s-s-s-s-s-st-st-st-st-st-stu-stu-stu-stu-stu-stuck in
mid-stride, as it were, when he first st-st-started st-st-stst-
stu-stu-stu-stuttering.
    It began when his mum walked out. He couldn't
remember it being like that previously. But afterwards
he had to invent tricks that would help him out when
he wanted to say something. Not all that often, but
sometimes. The first trick he could remember was rotty.
He couldn't say parrot, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa – no,
he could stand there stuttering for the rest of his life
and still not get to the end of that word. Rotty was no
problem, though.
    He heard a sound that he recognised. It was coming
from himself. He was crying again, and it was because
he'd been thinking about the parrot. He'd had a red
and green parrot when he was a little boy, and still had
it when he was older. It was a real one and could say
his name and three other funny things, and it had been
called Bill. He was sure that Bill had been real.
    The film had finished. He watched it again from the
beginning. Bill was there in several of the scenes. Bill
was still there for him because he hung a little parrot
from his rear-view mirror every time he went out in the
car. They might be different, with different colours, but
that didn't matter because they were all Bill. He sometimes
thought of them as Billy Boy. His favourite rotty.
The boy was laughing again now, just before everything
went black. Kalle Boy, he thought, and the film ended
and he stood up and fetched all the things he needed
for copying or whatever he should call it. Cutting. He
liked doing that job.
    'Sounds like the Incredible Hulk,' said Fredrik Halders.
    'This is the first of the victims who's seen anything,'
said Ringmar. 'Stillman's the first.'
    'Hmm. Of course, it's not certain that it was the same
hulk who did all the deeds,' said Halders.
    Ringmar shook his head. 'The wounds are identical.'
    Halders rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn't all
that long since he himself had received a savage blow
that had smashed a bone and para-lysed him temporarily,
but he'd managed to get the use of his limbs back. For
what that was worth, he'd thought a long time afterwards.
He'd always been clumsy. Now it was taking
him time to get back to his former level of clumsiness.
    To get back to his old life. His former wife had been
killed by a hit-and-run driver. A nasty word. Former.
Lots of things had been different formerly.
    He lived now in his former house, with his children
who were anything but former.
    He rubbed the back of his neck.
    'What kind of a pick did he use, then?' he asked.
    Ringmar raised both his hands and shrugged.
    'An