“What’s that?” Setter asked.

“That the gentleman responsible sneaked back a week or so after the murder and put some music on to improve the atmosphere,” Halders said. Somebody giggled again.

“So what are we going to do with this?” Helander asked.

“Well, it’s been suggested that Bergenhem should listen to the cassette, and that thought had occurred to me as well,” said Winter. “But we’ll have to check with anybody who might be able to help us with this. Record shops, including ones that sell secondhand stuff. Bands here in Gothenburg. If this music is so popular, somebody must recognize it. Recording studios. Check with rock critics working for newspapers, radio, television.” He looked around those present. “Johan. Can you look after that? You’ll get some help. Take the cassette around to Bergenhem’s place, then see where you go from there.”

Setter nodded.

“There’s one more thing,” said Winter, signaling to the rookie. A new picture appeared on the screen. It showed the wall in the room where the two dead victims had been sitting. There was something on the wall. Everybody could read it, the letters were a couple of feet tall and covered a large part of the wall:

“And that was there when you got to the apartment?” Djanali asked.

“Yes. We’re waiting to hear how long it’s been there.”

“As long as that couple have been sitting on the sofa,” Halders said.

Winter made no comment.

“A message,” Djanali said. “That’s not exactly a wild guess.”

“Is it red paint?” Halders asked.

“No.”

“ ‘Wall,’ ” said Ringmar. “Is the murderer trying to tell us that he’s writing on a wall?”

“Assuming it was the murderer,” Winter said. “But this doesn’t look as if it’s a single word. I don’t quite get it. A circle around the W. What does that indicate? A gap between the W and all.”

“All,” said Ringmar. “It could mean he took all of them.”

“All two?”

“All who come after.”

“Pack it in, Bertil. Go home to bed now.”

‘Are we all going to be off sick? All?“

“Bergenhem will be back tomorrow.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“Had Setter been with the tape?”

“Yes. Not Bergenhem’s cup of tea,” he said.

“Okay. Anyway, this is another message for us, as well as the music. He’s trying to tell us something.”

“Does he want to be caught?” asked Winter.

“Or is he playing with us?”

“It took a lot of time to write… to prepare this. To fix… the paint. He had to go backward and forward.”

“He used a paintbrush.”

“Yes.”

“Did he have a paintbrush with him?”

“He? You’re saying ‘he’ all the time.”

“Do you think it’s a she?”

“No.”

“The question is whether he had a paintbrush with him.”

“One of the questions,” Winter said. “Another is: where is it now?”

“I hate this kind of thing,” Ringmar said. “Riddles.”

“Isn’t that what we’re always dealing with?”

“Riddles within riddles, then. I hate it. It makes me upset. It makes me angry. So angry that I can feel my infection dissipating.”

Winter was alone in the apartment in Aschebergsgatan. He had gone back.

The smell was still there in the room. The pictures he recalled from that morning, the real thing he’d seen first, then the photographs. I saw it live, he thought. I saw death live and I heard the sound track. What am I thinking about? The sound track?

The sofa was empty now, stained. The roar from the music seemed still to be there. The text on the wall was lit up by the sun coming in through the window. The clouds had cleared as Winter walked across the street, and now the bright light was streaming in through the window and the shaky letters seemed to be starker, more powerful. Winter stared at the circle around the W. What did it mean?

How can you classify degrees of lunacy?

Is it as simple as that?

Or is this a sick act by a sane man?

I’ve only seen one thing before that comes anywhere near matching this. But I never thought I’d have to encounter such human brutality again.

He could see the bodies in his mind’s eye, each on a chair of its own. Was that three years ago now?

But it’s continuing.

Water was running along a pipe somewhere in the building. It was a noise he recognized. This building was similar to the one he lived in: a stone block built in the old-fashioned way. He might have been standing in his own apartment. He suddenly thought of Angela.

Angela and her stomach, which had now become a part of him as well. That’s how it was.

This apartment even had the same layout as his own. He hadn’t thought of that when he first entered it yesterday evening, he’d been concentrating on other things. But he could see it now. The rooms radiated from the hall and kitchen, the big living room, where he was standing, the bedroom next to it, another room. A toilet and a separate bathroom.

The forensic officers were working their way through every little thing, but he wanted some time in the apartment to himself. Go and get yourselves a cup of coffee, boys. Give me half an hour.

There were clothes everywhere. It had started in the kitchen and finished on the sofa. When had they started getting undressed? In the kitchen? Why? Had the clothes been put where they were afterward? It should be possible to establish that. Was there a pattern to it? Was there another accursed message? Another riddle? He thought of Ringmar, and his sudden cure.

All the blood was in the living room. Nothing in the hall, or in the kitchen. There didn’t seem to have been any blood left in the bodies. Christian and Louise Valker. At least her eyes had been closed.

They had been sitting in the kitchen. Winter couldn’t know, but he was sure the dried-up drops of wine in the glasses and the dregs in the bottle were from then. He vaguely recognized the label, from the glass-covered shelves at the System liquor store on the Avenue. One of the cheaper Spanish brands.

19

Angela came home late to an apartment in darkness. She switched on the hall light and took off her coat and boots. She could hear music coming from the living room. Guitars. Somebody singing in a loud voice, almost shouting.

‘Anybody there?!“

No answer. She tried again.

I’m in here.”

She went to the living room and found Winter in the leather easy chair next to the window. The room was in shadow. He was only an outline.

“You’re sitting in the dark.”

“I like it like this.”

The guitars became more hectic, faster. The song was a screech.

“Are you thinking about… your dad?”

“Yes. Among other things.”

“Does the music help?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. I bought the disc in a shop in Marbella.”

“It’s… interesting.” She listened to the singer, who was now completely drowning out the acoustic guitars. “There seems to be a lot of hurt in flamenco.”

“Hurt and heart. Romero. He’s called Rafael Romero. An old man.”

“You can hear that he’s had a life.”

Winter stood up and crossed the room to embrace her. He stroked her cheeks and kissed the tip of her nose and her mouth.

“What sort of a day have you had?”

“I haven’t felt sick so much as the day wore on. It was worst at the beginning. Apart from that it was the usual running around from patient to patient, ward to ward. I apologize when I get to the patients later than I should, but I suspect I’m the only one who does.” She caressed his arm. “What about you? How was work?”

“We have our double murder to keep us occupied,” he said, going to the CD player and turning down the volume. “But don’t ask me about details.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The phone rang. Winter automatically checked his watch. Eleven-fifteen. He picked up the receiver.