“Have you ever spoken to him? Christian?”

“No.”

“To her? Louise?”

“Yes. Once…,” he said, and a new furrow returned between his eyebrows. “She once asked me about… hmm, it might have been the heating. I can’t remember now.”

“Is there anything about them that made you wonder? Or about one of them?”

“Such as what?”

“Their visitors.” Winter coughed again, turned away. “Did they have visitors, for instance?”

“People come and go in this building just as in any other. Who knows who visits who? And I don’t go running up and down stairs unless I have to, you could say.”

Winter could see his point.

“But they did have the occasional party now and again,” said the caretaker.

“Really?”

“Things got a bit lively there at times.”

“In what way?” Winter tried to encourage him.

“People coming and going, sort of thing. I sometimes had to change a bulb or something on the stairs in the evening, so I might have heard something then.” He reached for the cigarette packet again, but it was empty. “Could have been somebody else, of course.”

Winter nodded again.

“No, I can’t remember if it was them or not,” the man said. “Have you finished with me yet? I’ll have to go out to the newsstand to buy some cigarettes.” He waved the empty packet. “None left in here.”

Winter asked about dud bulbs on the stairs, about dates.

“Good Lord, you stink!” Angela said when she came to greet him in the hall.

“A witness chain-smoking like a chimney.”

“Do you normally allow that?”

“We were in his office. He’s our caretaker as well, incidentally”

“What was he a witness to?”

“Nothing here. But he looks after that other property as well,” said Winter, nodding his head in the direction of “that” apartment.

“But what was he a witness to?”

“Nothing more than he’s told us so far, it seems.”

“But you can call him a witness even so?”

He is that type, thought Winter. Takes all the credit for himself.

“Get those clothes off and have a shower,” Angela said.

Winter put his pigskin briefcase on the floor, beside the shoe rack, took off his overcoat and jacket and hung them up. He started unbuttoning his shirt, went into the bathroom, and put all his clothes except for his trousers in the big wash basket Angela had brought with her.

He closed the door, got into the shower, and was just going to turn on the water when Angela shouted something. He shouted back that he couldn’t hear a word, and she opened the door.

“I’m looking for a form from the maternity clinic,” she said. “I think you put it in your briefcase. That was a while ago, but I need to check something.”

“It’s probably still in my briefcase,” he said. “In the hall.” She went out, he drew the shower curtain again, and turned on the water. The pungent smell of tobacco smoke started to fade away and eventually disappeared altogether as he rubbed the shampoo into his hair. He tried to clear his mind, and was rinsing away the lather when he heard a shout from the hall. He turned off the water.

“What?”

No reply. He shouted again. Still no reply.

“Angela?”

He opened the curtain, took the bath towel from its hook, and quickly rubbed his hair, shoulders, and stomach. He dried his feet and fastened the bath towel around his waist, then opened the door. He could see his briefcase standing open on the floor outside the bathroom.

“Angela? Did you shout?”

No answer. He hurried into the kitchen and then into the living room. Angela was on the sofa, staring at him with a piece of paper in her hand. She held it up and Winter could see the return address of the Spanish national police force in the top-left-hand corner.

Oh shit! He’d been carrying that damned letter around instead of throwing it away as he’d meant to.

“I had to look through the pile you had in your case, and this letter was lying face up,” she said. “So don’t think I’m in the habit of snooping through your private papers.” She waved the letter in the air again. “But now I’d like an explanation of what the HELL this is, Erik.”

Winter could feel the water dripping from his hair. Or was it cold sweat? Despite the fact that it was nothing. The letter was nothing. There was nothing to explain.

“It’s nothing,” he said. He took a step toward her. There was water on the floor.

“But I’ve read it, I’m afraid. It wasn’t very long. But long enough.”

‘Absolutely nothing happened,“ he said.

“She seems to have a different idea about that.” Angela looked at the letter. “Alicia. Do you have a photograph of her as well? Maybe it’s hanging on the wall of your office?”

Winter went up to Angela and tried to touch her. She knocked his hand aside.

“I promise you, Angela. Nothing happened.”

“Oh, shut up!” She punched the air. “You’re talking to a witness who’s seen it all.” She burst into tears, quietly, with a soft, constant whimper he’d never heard before. “How could you, Erik? How could you?”

He sat down on the sofa beside her. It felt as if all his blood had rushed to his head. Damn it. He should have told her right at the start, but there was nothing to say. Why say something that could cause pain when there was nothing to discuss? It would be pointless. Destructive.

He started to say something but she stood up and headed for the hall.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“But I must… we must…”

She turned and threw the letter at him, it soared like a swallow for a couple of yards, then flopped down on the polished wooden floor, and he watched one corner sucking up the water that had dripped off him. She just stood there.

“I haven’t said anything because there’s nothing to say,” he said holding out his hands so that she could see how pure and guiltless they were.

“Your conscience is clear?” she said, and maybe that was a laugh he could hear. “Do you take me for an idiot?” She looked down at the letter, which was wet through by now.

“No.”

33

Bergenhem woke up with a headache. He seemed to have been resigned to it even in his sleep, and made himself ready.

He heard a little cry from the foot of the bed and saw Ada trying to climb onto their double bed. He could hear her struggling. He could also hear Martina working in the kitchen, and the screech of a lone seagull flying past the window.

Martina came into the bedroom and gave Ada a little shove so that the girl did a forward roll onto the bed and squealed in delight.

“Is it the usual again?” Martina asked.

“Yes.”

“You have to go to the doctor.” She reached out to prevent Ada from falling off the bed. “You said you would if it kept coming back.” ‘ She put Ada in the middle of the bed and Bergenhem sat up, took the girl’s hands, and lifted her up. It was like lifting a pillow.

“I know, I know.”

“Is it still behind one of your eyes?” She reached out to touch him. “The left one?”

“Stop it,” he said, pushing her hand away, perhaps too brusquely. He looked at her and took hold of her hand. “I’m sorry. But I seem to get so damned edgy with this.”

“You’ve been… edgy for a long time.”

“I know, I KNOW”

“Is there anything else?”

“Meaning what?”

“Is there something wrong between us?” she said, and he could see that she was trying to avoid looking at Ada.

“No, no.”

“Can’t you go to the doctor’s? You’ll have time tomorrow before nine.”

“All right. I’ll go.”

He reached for Ada and lifted her up, and again she squealed in delight. When he looked up at her everything turned black for a tenth of a second and he put her down again, fumbling almost like a blind man.

“What’s the matter, Lars?”

“I suddenly felt dizzy.”

“Good grief, you really must go to the doctor’s.”