“The woman is more busy with the baby,” the man said on his right, who had a job to get back to. “The man feels that she’s devoting a lot of time to the baby.”

“Surely the man is busy with the baby as well?” Winter said. Was that really me speaking? he wondered.

It’s a matter of keeping your love alive after the baby’s come, Angela thought. What this is all about is meeting others who are in the same boat. It could be of benefit to us.

There was a brief discussion. Perhaps the idea was that they would get help in improving their roles, Winter thought. As parents. Being mothers and fathers. Roles. Could you call it that? Some people never played a role, ever.

They walked home. The smell of winter had started to fade away, together with the smell of the New Year rockets and Bengal lights. The name kept coming back to him: Bengal lights. Pretty.

“What did you think of the group?”

“Hmm…”

“We’ll meet again when we’ve all had our babies.”

“Do you think the advertising chap will be there then?”

“Will you be there then?”

“You shouldn’t answer a question with another question.”

They waited for a green light before crossing over the Allé.

“He’ll be there,” she said. “I’ve heard it’s quite usual for the groups to carry on meeting afterward. Celebrate a one-year anniversary, a two-year anniversary, and suddenly we’re all great friends.”

We must first get through what lies ahead unscathed, he thought.

“Sounds nice,” he said.

“Do you really think so?”

“I think I do.”

They had reached the entrance. It was a clear evening, like so many others that winter. The Pressbyrå newsstand near the old university building created the atmosphere of a small-town square, Winter had sometimes thought. He didn’t know much about small-town squares, but he could recognize the feeling. He’d sometimes felt that when he’d come home alone late in the evening. Perhaps it was a vague yearning deep down.

Angela took a deep breath.

“What terrific air,” she said. “For a big town.”

“This is a little town,” Winter said. People were shopping at Pressbyrå. He could hear music coming from the restaurant on the corner. The buildings on the other side of the park loomed skyward. Trams looked like jerky sparklers shooting off in all directions. A few youngsters walked past and their voices reached them as fragments of words borne along by the breeze. They vanished into the Java café at the crossroads. “So, let’s go in and have a café con leche,” he said.

They couldn’t find any report about a shoplifter in Manhattan Livs, also known as Krokens Livs.

“There are circumstances when it’s better to give a caution rather than to report somebody,” Ringmar said.

“There’s something that doesn’t add up,” Winter said.

“Calm down now, Erik.”

“I could have used that report.”

“You have other stuff to read.”

He had the text of the advertisements in front of him. It wasn’t the best piece of writing he’d ever come across:

We are an average couple coming up to middle age in the Gothenburg area who still have a healthy curiosity and appetite for sex. We are looking for a man as she is going to be the main attraction. 100% discretion. We are lovers of soap and water. Completely healthy of course. If the personal chemistry is right we can have a really juicy time together.

“A really juicy time together,” Ringmar said, who could see that Winter had read the whole text.

“Lovers of soap and water!”

“Fucking perverse, that’s what it is. Sex with a bar of soap.”

Winter smiled, then turned serious.

“I’m beginning to wonder about this line of investigation,” he said. “There’s nothing to indicate that the man we’re after replied to this.”

“No.”

“The Valkers must have destroyed the replies,” Winter said. “Why?”

“Perhaps it was the murderer.”

“Yes.”

“He-assuming it’s the same guy-was looking for something in the Martells’ flat.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about the replies?”

The pile of responses to the Martells’ ad was next to the two ads themselves. The one submitted by the Martells was worded roughly the same as that from the Valkers, possibly a bit more cautiously. A quick read-through might suggest that they were looking for somebody to have coffee with.

“That there are lots of them.”

“I was afraid we might find somebody we knew among them,” Ringmar said.

“Our chief of police?”

“Or the mayor of Gothenburg.”

“The editor in chief of GP.”

“I don’t recognize any of them.”

“Me neither.”

“We’d better get started on them.”

“Yes.”

“But we haven’t finished with the film extras yet.”

“Well, nearly.” Winter looked at the files with transcripts of all the interviews. Nearly forty of them.

“It will be… delicate.”

“What we’re faced with here is delicate.”

Halders was worried.

“Have you talked to Molina?”

“We can’t arrest them, Fredrik.”

“I appreciate that. But what does he want? Something concrete?”

“Something clear-cut,” Winter said. “We’ve got to pry out something more.”

Concrete rhymes with secrete, thought Halders. Cut is very nearly cu-.

“We’ll bring them in again,” Winter said.

“Good.”

Åke Killdén answered after the third ring. It sounded as if he were on the beach, with a wind blowing.

“Hang on a minute while I close the veranda door,” he said. “Someone’s cutting my hedge,” he said when he came back.

Winter explained what the call was about.

“That’s awful.” Killdén was breathing fast, as if he’d been the one doing the gardening. “It’s the deadest spot in the northern hemisphere usually.” He coughed. “I mean… the quietest spot. The most boring spot.”

Unlike Fuengirola, Winter thought, and asked Killdén about his employees.

“I only had three. All of them part-time.”

“Can I have their names?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have their addresses?”

“They must be there somewhere in the accounts material.”

“Where can we find that?”

“If it’s still in existence I suppose it will be in my accountant’s archives,” Killdén said.

The employees, Winter thought. We haven’t given enough thought to the people who worked at Manhattan Livs.

“Did you have many regular customers?”

“They were all regular customers.”

“Do you think you could help me by thinking hard about your… regular customers? Was there anybody who stood out? Anybody you thought acted a bit oddly some time or other? Anything at all.”

“Anything at all,” Killdén said.

“Was one of your regular customers a police officer?” Winter asked.

“A police officer? What do you mean? Somebody who came in uniform?”

“Yes, or without.”

“Well… police officers called in occasionally to buy something, I suppose, but I don’t recall anything in particular.”

“Think hard about that as well.”

“Will do.”

Winter thanked him and hung up.

The employees. Matilda. The man who couldn’t count. They’d only spoken to him over the phone. Winquist. Kurt Winquist. The others, in the accountant’s archives. This was getting bigger by the hour. He was conducting an investigation that could choke him. The Mölndal police. The duty roster for New Year’s Eve.

The answers were all in the investigation material. Everything was there, in the papers he had in front of him. How many more times would he need to read them before the penny dropped?

The telephone on his desk rang, as did his mobile. He said, “Be with you in a moment,” into the mobile and picked up the receiver on his desk. It was Möllerström.

“That kid Patrik has taken a turn for the worse at the Sahlgren Hospital.”

Winter answered his mobile, but whoever had called him had hung up.