“You look half dead,” she said. ‘And it’s not just your swelling.“

“Thanks very much.”

“I’d never be able to start delivering papers at four in the morning.”

“Five. I get up at four.”

“Damn early”

“You get used to it.”

“You can borrow from me if you’re short of cash.”

“From you? Hasn’t your mom cut off the supply?”

“I have a bit.”

“So do I,” he said. “I don’t need anybody to help me.”

Winter had asked Hanne Ostergaard to call in the next time she came to the “police palace” at Ernst Fontell’s Square. That was today. She knocked on his door and went in.

“Hello, Erik.”

“Hi, Hanne. Thanks for coming.”

“I was in the building, after all.”

“Please sit down. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you.” She sat down on the visitor’s chair. Winter was in a short-sleeved shirt and suspenders. He’d draped his tie over his jacket, which was on a coat hanger by the side of the sink. His hair was shorter than when she’d last seen him. He was slimmer. His face was narrower than she remembered it, more sharply outlined. It was softened somewhat by the thin-framed glasses he was wearing. If she knew Erik Winter they wouldn’t be Giorgio Armani spectacles. Nothing as simple as that.

“I see you’re wearing glasses.”

“Reading glasses. We’re all getting older.”

“Nice. They’re not Armani, are they?”

“Er… no, they’re…” He took them off and peered at the inside of one of the earpieces. “Air Titanium.” He looked at her. “Is that one of your special interests?”

“Spectacle frames?” She gave a little laugh. “No. I don’t have time for hobbies like that.”

He put his glasses on the desk. She waited for him to say something.

“How are things otherwise?”

“Otherwise? What do you mean? When I’m not in this building?” She crossed her legs. “That’s a good question.”

“Well…”

“Come to the point. You want to know about me and my daughter.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You know perfectly well.”

“Know what, Hanne?”

“Stop it, Erik. Everybody here in the police station must know that my daughter was taken into custody by some of your colleagues when she was drunk. Drunk and disorderly is what the crime is called, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Give it up, Hanne. Yes, I know about it. No, that wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you.”

“You’re welcome to do so.”

“What?”

“You’re welcome to ask me how things are… after that incident.”

“How are things?”

“Better now,” she said, and smiled. “Maria has been behaving herself since then.” It sounded as if she let out a sigh. “As far as I know, that is.”

“No doubt it taught her a lesson, for want of a better way of putting it.” He put on his glasses again. “It’s only human, after all.”

“Yes. We are poor, sinful humans. That’s what I try to tell the Social Services,” she said.

“Social Services?”

“There’s always an inquiry when something like that happens.”

“Regard it as a formality.”

“You don’t have any children, I can tell that.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes, I’ve heard. Terrific. Congratulations. And pass them on to Angela.”

“Thank you. But you really must regard all that business as a formality.”

‘As long as it doesn’t happen again.“

Winter didn’t know what to say.

“There’s no guarantee that it won’t happen again, is there?” she said.

“Er…”

“It would be me, in that case. I’d be the guarantee. But I’ve obviously failed.”

“That’s a lot of crap, if you’ll pardon the expression, Hanne.” He repeated the comment but not the apology: ‘A lot of crap.“

“I hope so.”

“But there are cases.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maria has a friend by the name of Patrik.”

“Yes… how do you know that?”

“I was told by my colleagues who met Maria. It’s nothing special. They spend a lot of time wandering around the center of town and all that. But what I’m interested in is Patrik, who we’ve been speaking to because he delivers newspapers in the building where those murders took place. You’ve no doubt read about it in the papers.”

She nodded.

“Was Patrik a witness to something?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But he was there?”

“He delivered newspapers, yes. But what I wanted to say is that he’s got into a bit of a mess, in a different way. He was here, and he’d clearly been beaten. His cheek was black and blue. I sent him off to the hospital to get it treated.”

“What had happened?”

“I think he was beaten up at home.”

“That could well be,” she said, her face becoming serious.

“Have you seen anything like that before?” he asked.

“Not really, but he has looked a bit tousled on some of the few occasions he’s been to see us. To see Maria. Which isn’t very often.”

“Has he said anything to you?”

“No. Not directly, but I have had thoughts.”

“His father is maltreating him. We can’t prove it, but that’s the way it is.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“We’ll have to see. Patrik will have to sort out what he wants to do about it.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I must do something to help.”

Winter went to the CD player. “I’d like you to listen to this.” He started the Sacrament disc. He was familiar with the music by now. For a brief moment he even thought he might be able to hear a tune, like a vague sort of message inside the cement mixer. Like Coltrane’s meditations.

Hanne Ostegaard listened with her eyes closed. She has a teenager at home. This is nothing so unusual to her. He switched it off after a minute.

“Not exactly what I like listening to,” she said. “What is it?”

He filled her in and gave her the text that came with the CD.

“Patrik has played metal for us at home.”

She scrutinized the cover, the black line tracing the coast, the sky, the silvery gleam. Winter had written out the text from the leaflet in a readable form.

He asked her to read the words for the first of the songs. She seemed almost to smile, despite the seriousness of it all.

“A large dollop of imagination,” she said.

“You can say that again.”

“A wide scope. All the way, from bottom to top, as it were.”

“From hell to heaven.”

‘And then they make a little corner available for one of the prophets.“

‘And that brings us to the real reason why I wanted to talk to you, Hanne.“ He gestured toward the first page of the leaflet that had accompanied the CD.

“Habakkuk? You want to know about Habakkuk?”

“Yes.”

“Erik, I’m not that kind of theological expert. He was an honest professional prophet, but that’s just about all I know. Have you read what he wrote? In the Bible?”

“Yes. Did he have a daughter?”

“I’ve no idea. I don’t think anything is known about his life. You’ll have to look at the theological literature. Exegesis. The exegetic reference works.”

“Okay. I’d thought of turning to the university. Religious studies.”

“Yes. There’s something called an Interpreter’s Bible. And similar stuff. That’s where you’ll find whatever is known about Habakkuk.” She looked at the cover. “How on earth could he get involved in something like this? Habakkuk?”

“The murders, you mean?”

“Or just this CD cover. That’s enough.” She looked at Winter. “What are you going to make of this?”

“For starters, we will try to avoid making anything of anything, and concentrate on establishing some facts.”

“Heaven and hell.”

“That’s what it looks like right now.”

“But perhaps it’s just a game. This band, Sacrament-are they really trying to say something serious with all this trash?”

“That may not be important. But somebody is using it to mean something.”

“I read an article in one of the Sunday papers last week,” Hanne said. “It was about the spirit of the age. It went on about there being only a couple of weeks left until the new millennium, when all concepts would have to be redefined.”