“So I gathered. I’ve been out of town. But what the hell’s going on? Has she-”

“The help I asked you for. It’s more important now than ever.”

“Is that really you I’m talking to, Winter? Your voice sounds-”

“Make an effort, Benny.”

“Is this really connected with-”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

“Make an effort, Benny.”

“If only I knew what to do. But I’ll do… continue to do whatever I can. Find out what people have to say.”

“Make an effort,” Winter said yet again.

They’d put more officers to work on the interviews with the lonely hearts-better to think of them like that. Halders had more names. Names, names.

Winter wasn’t sleeping at all now. If he needed drugs, he’d take some.

He knew that all this was interconnected. Ringmar knew, everybody knew. Angela hadn’t just vanished into thin air…

He scratched his head. Ringmar was in the doorway again. Was it the third day in hell? The fourth?

Tomorrow he’d be forty. He’d noticed that when he’d gone home to collect the mail and some clean clothes. He wanted to make the journey alone. Nodded to Bergenhem, who was standing guard in the dark in Vasaplatsen. There would be others there as well. If…

Forty years old. He’d forgotten all about it. Angela had drawn a red lipstick line around the date on the calendar hanging above the stove. Six inches up from the work surface and some four feet up from the floor. As he stood there looking, he’d thought of getting a tape measure and checking the distances, anything that kept him in touch with everyday things. But total control was bordering on lunacy.

During the night he’d thought about the boy again, in the hospital.

The boy had recognized somebody. When had he first come into the picture? There was a parallel story here-but it was linked to himself, with the murders.

Winter had driven back in his own car, where there were no traces at all. He’d phoned Hanne Ostergaard and asked her to come in. She looked tortured, as if she’d turned into a mirror. They’d sat in Winter’s office, and he’d suddenly told her what had happened to the people who had been murdered. What had happened. For three seconds he lost his composure, let his hell rain down upon her.

She answered after the first ring.

“I was awake,” she said. There was something urgent about her voice.

“When Maria… was taken care of…” Winter said, and asked some more questions as she described what had happened, who had been there. The urgency was still in her voice, as if she were waiting for her turn.

Then she said it. Broke her silence, you might say. One duty superseded another. Simon had not poured out his memories while in confession. She knew she wasn’t bound to silence.

“I don’t know what it signifies,” she said, “but when you told me what had happened…”

Winter could feel the lava again, on its way upstream, just as cold.

“Has he told you about it several times? The accident? The bodies?”

“Yes.”

“Erik?”

Winter looked up. He was alone in his office. Ringmar had appeared in the doorway.

“We ran through the addresses again,” Ringmar said, transcripts in hand. “The pornography list. There’s something…” He came into the room, sat down, and spread out the papers on Winter’s desk.

“What?”

“It’s not close to Krokens Livs. But this responder has given an address in one of the apartment buildings down in Askim and we compared it like you said and, well, there is a link.”

“A link? What did I say?” Just now his mind was a blank, as white and blank as the sky and the ground had been in the middle of January.

“Somebody from the force lives in that area. A police officer.”

“Well?”

“It’s a very long shot,” Ringmar said. “We must keep calm about it.”

“Who is it?” Winter asked.

“Morelius. Simon Morelius. He’s a pol-”

“I know who he is,” Winter said.

“Keep calm now.”

He was calm. God was holding his hand.

“Do you know where Morelius comes from?” he asked.

“No.”

“Is he on duty at the moment?”

“I checked that. He’s free.”

“Is he at home?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t try to phone him. I didn’t know what to say.”

“Have you got the number there?”

Winter called but there was no reply

He asked the switchboard to put him through to the Lorensberg police station.

“Hello, Winter here. Yes… I know… there’s somethi… yes, exactly…”

He asked about Morelius, as Bertil had just done. Back tomorrow. In Ivarsson’s group. A bit of extra time off after New Year. Do you need to get hold of him?

“Yes.”

“He might be at home.”

“No.”

“Have you tried Kungsbacka?”

“Eh? No.”

“That’s where he’s from, you see.”

“Kungsbacka?”

“Yes. Somebody mentioned it only the other day. I think it was him himself, come to think of it.” Winter could hear the sound of conversation in the background at the station in Chalmersgatan, telephones, boots clomping over hard floors. “It came up in connection with that murder. She was from Kungsbacka, wasn’t she? The woman who was murdered?”

“Yes,” Winter said, and looked at Ringmar, who was listening with bated breath. Winter concluded the call, then took the telephone directory from one of the bookshelves.

There was just one Morelius in Kungsbacka. Elna Morelius. Mrs. She answered after the third ring. No, her son wasn’t at home. What was it about? Something to do with work? Of course she would tell him to get in touch, but she hadn’t heard from him for a while. He ought to contact her more often. Yes, that’s the way it is. When was the last time? Well, not too long ago. He wasn’t feeling well. He wasn’t too good.

Winter tried to think.

“What does your husband do, Mrs. Morelius?”

“My husband? What kind of question is that? My husband’s dead.” Silence. Winter waited. “My husband was a vicar,” she said eventually.

Morelius. Winter could picture his face, hovering over his uniform. In a squad car on patrol up and down Vasaplatsen.

A real police officer. Patrik. Maria. Always at hand when something happened.

When Winter arrived at the Valkers’ apartment Morelius had been standing inside it. The silhouette. Pointing at the wall.

Winter thought about Lareda Veitz, what she’d said. She’d phoned the other day but he didn’t have the strength, not just now.

Winter turned to Ringmar.

“Let’s go there,” Winter said. “Now.” He stood up and checked his gun, which was pressing against his ribs.

“To Morelius’s place? Askim?”

“Where else, for Christ’s sake?”

“Erik…”

“You can stay here if you like,” Winter said, taking his overcoat from its hanger. He felt like running through the corridors, running like a madman, flying.

Ringmar phoned again, but nobody answered.

“Should we ask them to send a car from Frölunda?”

“Yes, but nobody goes in until we get there.”

Winter’s hands were shaking, he’d checked his SIG-Sauer again. They were running now, both of them.

“I’ll drive,” Ringmar said.

It was evening now. Ringmar drove fast through the homebound traffic. Winter put the flashing light on the roof when they were caught in a line of cars near Liseberg and Ringmar switched on the siren as they came to the highway.

Two feet of mist were creeping over the fields on either side of the road. Ringmar turned off before coming to the Järnbrott intersection. Winter thought of the Elfvegrens in their pretty estate on the other side of the junction. They hadn’t said anything else about the man Louise Valker had spoken about. Louise Valker from Kungsbacka. He glanced at Ringmar. If there was nobody in, the next stop this evening would be the Elfvegrens’ house.