Halders liked to remind Djanali of her African origins. I was born in the East Gothenburg Hospital, but that doesn’t seem to be good enough for Fredrik, she thought as she turned west.

“Christmas tree,” Halders said, pointing at a dressed Christmas tree at the entrance to a garage. “There are lots of them around,” he said, pointing to lots of them. “It’s a Nordic symbol for light and the celebration of joy”

“You don’t say”

They drove past all the little detached houses and parked in front of the Elfvegrens’ hedge. The houses had been built in the 1950s, when people used to live in cramped homes but had large gardens.

There was snow everywhere, but no sign of footprints. Djanali noticed tracks made by rabbits and cats.

“Lynx tracks,” she said, indicating the track to her left.

“Lion,” Halders said. “They’ve moved a long way north this year.”

“This one was born at the Borås zoo.”

“How can you tell?”

“Its claws are pointing inward,” she said, ringing the Elfvegrens’ doorbell.

The phone rang. Angela didn’t want to answer, although she was nearer.

“Erik here.”

It was Lotta Winter.

“Have you spoken to Mom?”

“I’ll pick her up from Landvetter.”

“That’s the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“Only three days until Christmas. Time flies.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m expecting you and Angela here on Christmas Eve.”

“Of course.”

“Have you gotten around to buying Christmas presents yet?”

“Only Mother’s gin.”

“Stop joking now.”

Winter looked at Angela’s profile. Always Angela’s profile. He wasn’t joking.

“It’ll be last-minute. Apart from a few things,” he said.

“You got Bim’s and Kristina’s lists, I assume?”

“By e-mail. They were big.”

“Just like they are now.”

“No doubt they’ve grown an inch or two since I last saw them.”

A sudden wind had eliminated some of the lion tracks outside the Elfvegrens’ house by the time Halders and Djanali left again. It looked as if the animal had backed away and taken its paw marks with it.

“We’d better watch our step,” Halders said once they were outside.

Erika Elfvegren closed the door behind them. Djanali felt the cold sinking down inside her fur collar.

They got into the car and drove off.

“They had two copies of Aktuell Rapport under the sofa,” Halders said as they negotiated the roundabout.

“Aktuell what?”

“Aktuell Rapport. The men’s magazine bought by more people than any other in Sweden. Or maybe I should say, it sells more.”

“Really?”

“I wonder why.” He said it again. “I wonder why.”

“So you recognized the magazines, did you?”

“I recognized the spine. Half an inch of red at the top. And I could see a bit of the logo.”

“You have a skill for recognizing men’s magazines.”

“True. But if you think I buy crap like that, you have another think coming.”

“I don’t think anything.”

“Is it usual for people to have pornographic trash in their homes?” wondered Halders, mainly to himself.

“I’ve no idea,” Djanali said.

“I think it’s getting more common. The spirit of the times. The collapse of the old order. People read pornographic magazines and watch pornographic films on Channel Plus and TV One Thousand.”

“You may be right.”

“They’re advertising sex toys now every evening on one of the major channels. Every night. Every damn night. And they’ve been doing it for over a year.”

“How do you know?”

“Eh?” Halders looked at Djanali as if he’d just woken up from a dream.

“How can you be so sure about that?” Djanali asked with a smile.

“Because I keep a check on it, of course. Always keep a check on things, that’s the way to go about it, isn’t it? I check for two seconds and I get so annoyed and that makes my day.”

“Make my day.”

“I’d have loved to ask them,” Halders said.

“What?”

“That ever-so-nice couple, the Elfvegrens. I’d have loved to ask them what their favorite reading was.”

“You might get a few more opportunities.”

34

Lareda Veitz studied the photographs and listened to Winter. She had read parts of the investigation report. This was the second time they’d met in the last two weeks. They were in Winter’s office. The forensic psychologist had made it clear that she couldn’t produce a clear profile of the killer, but she could discuss it with the officer in charge. It was not the first time they had worked together, nor was it the first time Winter had turned to forensic psychology for help.

“It’s obvious that it’s a message,” she said, looking up again. “Then again, everything is a message, but in different ways.”

“So there’s enough there for it to be taken seriously?”

“Very much so. What did you think?”

“I don’t actually know. In situations like this you think about… all the things at the side of the tracks as well. Whether this might be a sort of diversion.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course not. You’ve asked that before, and I have to give you the same answer.”

“Okay. It’s just that one has so many questions.”

She looked at one of the photographs between them on the desk, held it up, and ran her finger over the necks of the two dead bodies on the sofa.

“One of the answers could be this,” she said. “The swapping of heads. It could also be interpreted as an exchange of bodies.”

Winter nodded. Veitz’s tone was neutral, concentrated. It was the only possibility when the unspeakable was being examined in close-up. Winter had issued instructions that no calls were to be put through to his office. His mobile was on forward to Ringmar, in his office a dozen yards away. Ringmar was there should something urgent crop up.

Veitz put the photograph back on the desk.

“Let me think out loud,” she said. “Let’s have a good think about it, okay? From various different angles. Then we can dissect what we come up with.” She indicated the tape recorder next to the stack of papers and pictures. “Then you can edit the tape.”

“Of course.” Winter checked that the tape was running.

“He… we’ll say he… has changed the sex and identity of his victims. One of the answers lies in that action. The swapping.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure he knows that himself, Erik. We might have to search for unconscious motives that led him to commit the crime in this way”

“Something else was directing him?”

“Somebody else. Somebody other than himself.”

Winter nodded again, picked up one of the photographs and examined it closely. He’d done this so often that they had acquired an absurdly mundane quality. It was like looking at the patterns on the wallpaper at home, or the framed photographs on the bedside table. Aneta Djanali had talked about the violently themed advertising posters hanging on the walls of the hairdressing salon where Louise Valker had worked. Murder as a sales pitch. He thought about that now. He looked at Louise Valker’s contorted face; it had lost all human expression. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen that poster for himself. What had it looked like?

How carefully had he read the case notes on the interviews with all the people working at the salon?

“One moment,” he said, reaching for his black notebook. He scribbled a note, then looked up at Lareda, who was deep in thought. “Keep going, Lareda.”

“I’m improvising a bit,” she said. “He’s put down a marker… or several that might be interlinked. Somehow or other the text and the music and the action are interlinked.” She looked up at Winter. “They’re not disparate markers.” She looked down at the desktop again, with a glance at the tape recorder. “And what they’re saying is that he wants to be stopped.”