She stroked her finger and blew on it.

“It hurts.”

“About time you stopped.”

“I’ve only just started.”

“I think they saw something worse than a Wes Craven,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Halloween. I think it was Halloween in that apartment, sort of.”

“Explain.”

“Come on, Ria. For once I’ve been following this in the newspapers. I mean, you could say that I’m an interested party. I checked to see what the police had to say about what they found inside there. What had happened. Are you with me?”

“No.”

“It says nothing at all about it. About what had happened, sort of. I think that’s fishy.”

“Take it easy. They never tell you all that much, do they?”

“Do you read the papers regularly?”

“I read about the TV programs. What’s on in town.”

“Don’t you see what I’m getting at?”

“Are you saying that they’re keeping quiet because there was something extra horrific inside there?”

“Yes. That’s the way I see it. Less is more.” He drank the last drops of his cold espresso and made a face.

“That’s smart.”

“What?”

“A smart way of putting it. Less is more.”

“There’s another thing.”

“And?”

“I think I might know what kind of music they were playing in there.”

20

They were three cars behind and Morelius saw the Volvo jump a red light.

“We can get him under the bridge,” Bartram said.

They pulled out and passed the cars that had stopped at the red light and waved to the Volvo driver to stop next to the Shell gas station. They walked toward the car, one on each side, and the driver, who was alone, rolled down his mud-covered window as Morelius approached. They were about the same age.

“Can I see your driver’s license, please?”

The man took his wallet out of his inside pocket and produced his license from a collection of other plastic cards. He was wearing a thick polo-necked shirt and a thin jacket. Glasses, his thinning hair combed back. He seemed nervous, but it would have been odd if he hadn’t been. Morelius couldn’t smell any alcohol.

“You were a bit ahead of yourself back there.”

“I know.”

“You’re supposed to stop at a red light.”

“I know, I know. I thought I could make it before it changed from yellow.” He looked up at Morelius. “You can usually make it on yellow.”

“That depends,” said Morelius. “Were you in a hurry?”

“I’m late picking up the kids from nursery school. Very late, in fact. They actually phoned me to ask where I was.” He looked at Morelius again, but he wasn’t playing for sympathy. “They even phoned,” he said again.

Morelius thought he saw Bartram struggling to suppress a giggle.

“It’s true,” the man said. “It’s in Fräntorp,” he said, as if that confirmed everything. “I can call them,” he said, pointing to his mobile phone in its holder on the dashboard.

“That won’t be necessary,” Morelius said. “But make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The man took his driver’s license and stared at it, as if expecting it to turn into an arrest warrant any moment.

“Er… you mean there won’t be anything?”

“What do you mean, anything?”

“Fine, or points docked, or whatever.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Er… no.”

“Be more careful in future,” Morelius said, and walked back to the patrol car. Bartram was already inside. Morelius heard the man start his engine and drive off.

“He was lucky to get stopped by officers who weren’t on traffic duty,” said Bartram. “They have to think about their success rates.”

The law and order boys had to think about everything, Morelius thought. Drugs, traffic offenses, robbery and burglary, violent assault. All-arounders. Double murders.

“We drive around town and see that bastard who mugged that woman and beat her up so badly that she was off work for three years, and he was in prison for a month. Does anybody expect us to take twelve hundred kronor off a guy who’s rushing to pick up his kids from nursery school?”

“Not today, in any case,” Morelius said.

“I let a shoplifter go the other day,” Bartram said.

“Eh?”

“I took it upon myself to let a shoplifter go, without reporting him.”

“You don’t say.”

“You can’t always throw your weight around. Show who’s boss.”

There was a crackling from the radio: “Eleven-ten. Come in eleven-ten.”

“We’re at the roundabout just north of Central Station,” Bartram said.

“We’ve just had a call from a mobile phone at Kungsportsplatsen. They’re holding somebody who’s stabbed a passenger in a tram, and they’re trying to restrain him, over.”

“Roger,” said Bartram, and Morelius switched on the lights and siren.

“They’re at the stop for northbound traffic. Did you get that? Over.”

“Yep, roger,” Bartram said, and they raced past Brunnsparken and turned left.

Winter wrote down the message: W ALL. Drew a circle around the first letter. What was the point of sitting here, doing this? Riddles like this took time that could be spent on other riddles, but he was fascinated by the message, gave it a higher priority than it might have deserved. No obvious answer. One word? Several? Or was the murderer just being facetious, pointing out that there was a wall there? Did “wall” have a symbolic significance? Was it something to do with the music? Was “wall” a frequent symbol in this kind of music? Setter had come up with a new suggestion regarding the genre: black metal. Not death metal. Black metal. Even worse.

He looked at the word once more, wrote it again, drew another circle. All? Had he killed all? Were all going to die? He’d already been thinking about that. Why was there a circle round the W? Is that what we should be thinking about? What begins with W?

He got up and went to the mirror over the sink. The slight tan he’d brought back from the Costa del Sol had gone, replaced by the usual bluish hue typical of winter. Winter. Winter started with W. He pressed his right hand lightly against his cheek. Winter. A bit early for paranoid thoughts.

The investigation had only just begun, but it didn’t seem like that. He felt as if it had started the moment he’d boarded the plane for Málaga. That’s when the tale started.

W. Double-U. Double murder.

The telephone rang, and he thought about the phone ringing at home with nobody speaking at the other end. He’d answered last night just before Angela made him his Paris sandwich, but there was nobody there. Not even any breathing this time, just the tone signaling an open line. Maybe he should change his number and go unlisted.

He went to his desk and answered.

“Hello, it’s Lotta. I bet I’m disturbing something important, but I wondered whether you and Angela would like to come around for dinner tomorrow evening? It’s Friday tomorrow.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“What about you yourself?”

“Well, I suppose I can come.”

“I’m overwhelmed by your enthusiasm.”

“Assuming nothing more happens, nothing new.”

“I read about it. A couple in Vasastan.”

“That’s where they lived, yes.”

“Only a few doors away from you, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Don’t remind me. And, above all, don’t remind Angela.”

“I’ll try not to. Mom has just called, by the way.”

“How is she?”

“She seems to be coping okay. Better than I’d expected, to be honest.”

“What’s she doing?”

“She seems to have become a bit more sociable. She’s meeting some of their friends down there more often than she used to.”

“That’s good.”

“She’s coming home for Christmas.”

“Is that what she said?”

“As good as.”

“I’d better buy some Tanqueray.”

He noted the ensuing pause and knew what was coming next. He’d also wondered when he should mention it.

“I dreamed about Dad last night,” she said. “He was emerging from a clump of trees. It was summer. Bright sunshine, you know.”