When Aneta became a police officer, her father had mixed feelings, having had his tough experiences with the police of Ouagadougou. His daughter kept telling him it was different here, though sometimes she wasn’t so sure.

Fredrik Halders listened to what Winter had to say. He looked at the photograph in his hand. How are we going to approach this? What shall we tell people?

“What are we going to tell people about this?” he said, holding up the photograph. “How much detail should we… reveal?”

“What do you mean?” asked Sara Helander, who was sitting two chairs away from Halders.

“What’s happened to them,” Halders said. “How much should we say about what they look like?”

“We have a couple who have been murdered in their apartment, that’s what we’ll say,” said Winter. “There’s no reason why we should give any more information at this stage.”

“Is there ever?” Djanali said, but Winter ignored the question.

“Christian and Louise Valker,” said Winter. “Married for four years. He was forty-two, she was thirty-seven. No children. Christian Valker worked as a computer salesman-hardware-and Louise Valker worked part-time as a hairdresser.” He glanced at his notes. “They had been living in the apartment in Aschebergsgatan for two and a half years, roughly. Tenancy rights. High rent.” We might well have seen each other in Vasaplatsen. At the supermarket, in the street, in the garage, perhaps. The garage was big, hundreds of square yards, under all the apartment buildings. We’d better check if they rented a garage space. “They had previously lived in Lunden, two rooms and kitchen, sublet. Before that, Christian lived on his own in an apartment in Kålltorp. Louise moved to Gothenburg seventeen years ago from Kungsbacka and started work at a hair salon in Mölndalsvägen. She lived in Ran nebergen then, on her own. Neither had been married before. No criminal record either. Not in Sweden, at least. We’ll check with Interpol. No relatives in Gothenburg, as far as we know. Christian Valker grew up in Västerås, Louise in Kungsbacka.”

“He came to Gothenburg to seek his fortune,” muttered Halders to Djanali, who was sitting next to him.

“Shut up, Fredrik,” she said.

Winter signaled to the probationer in charge of the slide projector. The lights were turned off. It was dark enough outside not to draw the curtains.

“You can see for yourselves the wounds on their bodies. Here and here. Any one of the blows could have killed them. They were made with extreme force.”

“A serrated blade,” Halders said.

“We don’t know that for certain,” Ringmar croaked.

“He obviously sawed them,” said Halders. “He must be hellish strong.”

Helander closed her eyes momentarily. She had never seen anything like it. She heard a familiar noise behind her, and somebody jumped up and ran out of the room. The young officer had knocked some chairs over when he had thrown up. Winter could smell it from where he was standing.

Ringmar had been standing at the side of the room, watching the bodies glittering on the slides. It made him think of somebody slinking into a cinema showing pornographic films and staring, transfixed. Like a compulsion. But this was worse. These bodies were exposed for all to see. Looking at them seemed obscene.

The murderer knew we’d be standing here, looking at the fruits of his labor, Ringmar thought as the smell of vomit wafted as far as his corner. All this is a stage setting. It’s a message.

There was another picture on the screen now. The same scene, but from another angle, closer. Winter had approached the screen and raised his hand toward the bodies, but it seemed to Ringmar that he was hesitating. Winter thinks like me. He also feels a sort of shame.

Winter said something, but Ringmar couldn’t hear what it was. He felt as if he had cotton wool between his ears, as if his infection had got worse during the time he’d spent in this room. Someone turned the lights on.

‘And this is what we heard when we entered the room,“ said Winter, switching on a tape recorder. Music filled the room, louder than Winter had intended and he lowered the volume. It seemed to get louder again of its own accord when the song started. Song? thought Winter. This is something new for me.

The crime unit officers listened, and looked at each other. Somebody grinned, somebody else put their hands over their ears. Winter could see no sign of recognition; none of the younger officers raised a hand. He switched it off.

“Damn,” Halders said.

“You’re saying that’s what they had on?” Djanali asked.

“Yes. According to the caretaker there’s been music coming from the apartment for some time.”

“That particular music?” asked Möllerström, the registrar.

“He says he’s not an expert,” said Winter drily, “but it sounded very like that.”

“What the hell is it?” asked Halders.

“I’ve no idea,” said Winter. “That’s why I’m playing it for you now. Does anybody know?”

Nobody responded. After a few seconds Winter saw a hand go up. One of the younger officers. Setter. Johan Setter.

“Johan?”

“Er… are you asking for the name of the band? The band that’s performing the stuff?”

“I’m asking what it is. If anybody can tell me what band it is, then bingo. But, well… I haven’t a clue about this.”

“Well… it’s some kind of trash metal,” said Setter. “Not really my thing, but it’s metal all right. Death metal, I’d say. Or black metal.”

“Death metal?” Winter said, gaping at Setter, who looked unsure of himself. “Death metal?”

Somebody giggled.

“An appropriate name,” Halders said.

“What on earth is death metal?” asked Ringmar.

“You’ve just heard it,” Halders said. “Quite a beat to it.”

“Zip it, Fredrik,” muttered Djanali.

“It’s pretty popular,” Setter said. “Well… more popular than you might think.”

“Popular with whom?” asked Halders. “The Swedish Nazis? The Liberals?”

“Popular with the Valkers?” Möllerström wondered.

“We don’t know,” said Winter, looking at Halders. “We haven’t got around to examining the CD collection in the apartment yet.”

“So it wasn’t a record?” Helander asked.

“No, an unmarked cassette tape. BASF. CE Two Chrome Extra. Ninety minutes.”

“Fingerprints?”

“The forensic boys are busy with that now. What you’ve just heard was a copy we had made.”

“Did they have a lot of cassettes?” Halders asked.

“Apparently none at all,” said Winter. “At least, we haven’t found any yet.”

“Where’s Bergenhem?” asked Halders. “Lars listens to all kinds of peculiar shit.”

“He’s off sick,” Ringmar said.

“Send this crap to his place for him to listen to.”

“Will do,” Ringmar said.

“It could be a message, then,” said Djanali. “A message to us. Or am I jumping to conclusions?”

“You could be right,” Winter said. “At least the murderer left the tape running.”

“For how long?” one of the younger officers asked.

“How the hell could we know?” Halders said. “If we knew that we’d have won half the battle.”

“So this is the music the caretaker heard, is that right?” asked Helander.

“We don’t know,” Winter said. “But I know what you’re getting at. If we can get him to remember when he first heard it, we might be on to something.”

“How long have they been dead?” Djanali asked. “Have we heard from the pathologist?”

“Could be fourteen days,” Winter said. “Could be longer.”

“Oh, hell,” said Halders.

“Can a tape run for as long as that?” Möllerström asked. “Can it keep going on repeat for two weeks?”

“Evidently.”

“It’s called auto-reverse,” Halders said, looking at Möllerström. “When the tape comes to the end it turns around and goes back to the beginning. It keeps going back and forth until it’s switched off. Or the tape breaks.”

“There is another possibility, though.”

Ringmar nodded. He was standing next to Winter now.