Halders had left the door open, and Winter saw Patrik outside accompanied by Möllerström, who ushered him into Winter’s office and left. Winter stood up. Patrik came to his desk.

“What’s happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Patrik said. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s very nasty bruising you’ve got.”

Patrik felt his cheekbone with his right hand, under his right ear.

“It’s nothing. I slipped as I was getting off the bus.”

“Slipped when you were getting off the bus? Don’t talk such crap,” said Winter, walking around his desk and peering at Patrik’s face. “Have you been to the hospital with that?”

“No.”

“You might have broken your zygomatic bone.” Winter resisted a temptation to touch the boy’s cheek. “Will you let me feel it?”

“Are you a doctor as well?”

“Let me feel it.” He had hardly touched it before Patrik flinched in pain. “Does it hurt as much as that?”

Patrik said something he couldn’t understand. The boy was hanging his head.

“What did you say? I couldn’t hear.

“It was… the bus.”

“No,” Winter said. “Somebody’s been hitting you.” Patrik looked up at him. The bruise was beginning to look like an irregular birth-mark. His face seemed to be lopsided. “This happened recently.”

Patrik didn’t respond. He looked as if he wanted to leave. He had a bag in his left hand.

“Who was it?” Winter asked. “Somebody at school?”

Patrik shook his head. Winter could see his shoulders starting to twitch. I shouldn’t scare him. He has tears in his eyes. Now he’s crying. He’s only a kid.

Patrik looked down and sobbed silently. Winter held his shoulders, which had started to shake. Patrik was standing with his back to the open door and Ringmar appeared in the doorway. Winter signaled with his head and Ringmar backed out.

“It’s all right, Patrik, all right.”

The boy sniffled, then pulled himself away. He looked vulnerable, as if on the run.

“Sit down, Patrik.”

He flopped down onto the chair. Winter squatted down a couple of feet away.

“It happened at home, didn’t it?”

Patrik didn’t answer, didn’t nod, sniffed, looked anywhere but at Winter.

“We won’t worry about that now, but you should have this looked at,” Winter said. He went to Ringmar’s office. “Can you arrange for a squad car to get the kid to the hospital?”

“When?”

‘As soon as you can.“

When Winter went back Patrik was just a little head barely visible over the chair back. Winter sat down at his desk. Patrik’s face was twitching, and Winter could see that it hurt to cry. Winter fetched him a glass of water and Patrik took a sip. He sniffled again, put down the glass, and gestured to the bag he’d put on Winter’s desk.

“Don’t you want it?”

“Of course,” Winter said, pulling it toward him and taking out the CD. “You’ve done a great job, Patrik.”

“Sacrament,” Patrik said, his voice steadier now. He ran his hand over his eyes. “There you have it. The Daughter disc.”

“What’s the name of your friend?”

“Jimmo.”

“How did he get ahold of it?”

“Secondhand in Haga, I think it was. I can’t remember which shop it was. He-”

“Never mind, we’ll look into that later. Now let’s…”

Winter’s desk phone rang.

“There are a couple of officers waiting outside,” Ringmar said.

“Okay, thanks.” Winter looked at Patrik. “I want you to get this looked at. It’s very important, as I think you realize. We’ll give you a lift to the hospital, then we can chat a bit more. All right?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t need to say who hit you. I just want you to have it seen to.” Winter stood up. “We need the people working on this case to be in top condition, and you’re one of them. All right?” He held out his hand to Patrik, as if to give him support. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said Patrik, getting to his feet.

“I’ll take good care of the disc,” said Winter, putting it in the inside pocket of his jacket. It was wide, Italian. The Italians made voluminous inside pockets in some of their jackets.

They took the elevator down. It was snowing again by the time they came to the entrance, and the squad car that had been waiting for them drove up. The driver got out and walked around the car. Winter raised his hand in greeting.

“Hello, Simon.”

“Hi, Erik.”

“Haven’t seen you. How are things at Lorensberg?”

“The usual. We keep an eye on where you live.”

“I think I saw you there the other day. In Vasagatan.”

“That’s on our patrol route.”

Winter looked down. Morelius’s colleague rolled down his window and introduced himself: “Bartram.” Winter nodded.

“Bartram hasn’t been in Gothenburg long,” Morelius said.

“I’ve seen him around,” Winter said. “With you, in fact.” He turned to Morelius. “I’d be grateful if you could take this kid to the ER.”

“Bertil Ringmar told us about it,” said Morelius. He turned to Patrik, who looked as if he were ready to run.

“Hi, Patrik.”

“Do you know each other?” Winter asked.

“Only in passing,” said Bartram “But we’ve never seen him without Maria.” He turned awkwardly in the passenger seat and looked up at Patrik. “Where is she now?”

“Maria?” Winter asked.

“Hanne’s daughter. The vicar,” Morelius said.

“Hanne Ostergaard?”

“Yes.”

“Can we go now?” Patrik asked.

Winter nodded without asking any more questions. The boy needed to see a doctor.

Patrik got into the back and the car drove off. Winter had his home number. He wondered briefly what must be going on there. Then he thought of Hanne Ostergaard for the first time in ages, and he felt the CD hitting against his rib and he thought about the music.

Patrik closed his eyes. His cheek and eye were pounding, more now than before. The cops didn’t say a word. It had grown darker, and was nearly black outside. The pair in the front seats became lighter and darker as they passed the streetlights. Lighter. Darker. They seemed to be sitting diagonally opposite one another. What he could see most of was the backs of their heads. They weren’t wearing hats. It got lighter again as they passed Slottsskogen. He dosed his eyes, then looked again. He could still see the profiles of the men in front of him, and still nobody spoke. He closed his eyes, looked. He was back on the stairs that morning. He was here. On the stairs. And here. His cheek started hurting. He was sweating, he felt as if he were running up the stairs, carrying the newspapers. Stopped, looked. Somebody went out through the front door, into the darkness out of the light. The profile.

Morelius stopped outside the ER and turned around.

“Here we are, Patrik.”

The boy said nothing. Didn’t move. Bartram turned around to look at him.

“Patrik?”

“He’s dozed off,” Morelius said.

Winter listened to the CD on his portable Panasonic, which was on the floor in front of the window. First track, second track. He changed to the cassette, then back again. They were the same so far. He listened to the whole thing and compared them. A challenge.

The text was a fold-out rather than a booklet. The cover itself was brown and black, a clumsy drawing of a brown sea and black cliffs and a horizon that melted into the night and a black sky, with bright, tiny stars. It said “Sacrament” at the bottom, in a Gothic typeface that Winter recognized from the magazines and catalogs he’d leafed through.

There was also a logo in the top left-hand corner, maybe a silver bat, or a prehistoric bird.

The leaflet was made up of four pages, three of the pictures depicted men who could be members of the band. Or they could be any metal fan who happened to be passing, he thought. The three people could be Nordberg and Sverker and any of the other staff at Desdemona: black sweaters and trousers, bright yellow patterns, studs like the bright stars in the black sky, black waist-length hair, extremely pale faces. But there were some extra features here: bare tree trunks, weapons such as swords and maces. Every character had a different sky: orange, green or dark blue.