Halders stood in the middle of Doktor Fries Square. Time stood still here, in this square that had been built during the era of the Social Democrats, when Sweden ’s welfare state was strong, when everybody was cared for from the cradle to the grave and looked into the future with confidence, anticipating the fulfillment of their dreams. In this square I’m a little boy again, Halders thought. Everything here is genuine; this is what it looked like then.

Flags, stone, concrete. But everything in the square was lovely then, dammit. Concrete soaring high over the ground. Not bad, not bad at all.

A few people were wandering around between the library, the community center, and the dentist’s office that Halders knew Winter used. There was a pizza parlor, of course. A closed-down bank, of course. A newstand, post office (but not for much longer). A self-service store-a name that fit the square’s appearance and age. For me this shop will always be a self-service store. That’s a 1960s term.

Halders sat down on one of the benches outside Forum and drew a map in his notebook.

Stillman had passed by here, after climbing up the steps that lead down to the city center. He’d walked through the bushes, which must have been pitch black. There were other routes he could have taken. This had been the most awkward one. Perhaps the boy was a bit of an adventurer. Halders drew a line that Stillman must have walked, from where he was sitting to the point where the attacker had clubbed him down.

Almost the dead center of the square. He looked in that direction. Somebody might have been standing in the covered passageway in front of the self-service store. Or by the tobacconist’s. Or the delicatessen on the other side. Crept forward with his club. A seven iron. Or a different iron. Or swished up on a bicycle. Or run like the devil on silent soles, and the young man who was tired and tipsy hadn’t heard a thing. Too bad the victim didn’t have a Walk-man with Motorhead filling his brain at full volume. That would have explained a lot.

Perhaps they weren’t alone. Halders kept thinking that when he made this follow-up visit to the various locations. Maybe they were with somebody but didn’t want to say who, even though whoever it was had tried to kill them. Could that be the case? Were they protecting their own attacker? Huh. Halders had learned a lot in this job. It was a mistake to believe that people will behave rationally. The human psyche was an interesting piece of reality in that respect. Or frightening, rather. You had to take things as they came.

Not alone. Shielding somebody. Or ashamed of something? He looked down at his sketch again. Drew a dotted line to the bus and streetcar stop. Stillman had been on his way there, he’d said.

From where? He still hadn’t been able to explain what he’d been doing here. Halders didn’t buy all that stuff about just strolling around, going nowhere in particular. It was a long way from here to Olofshöjd and his dorm room. It’s true that it’s possible to go there from Slottskogen via Änggården and Guldheden, just as it’s theoretically possible to stroll east from Gothenburg to Shanghai.

Had he been visiting somebody around here? In which case, why the hell didn’t he say so? Did they go for a moonlit walk? We’ll have to have another chat with him. And with the other students, a student from Uppsala-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la. Halders hummed the tune as he got up from the bench and made his way to the delicatessen to buy lunch.

Winter lingered on the grounds after dropping off Elsa at the nursery school and waving to her through the window. She had turned away immediately and vanished, and it dawned on him that he and Angela were no longer the only ones in her life.

A lot of children were running around the grounds. Two supervisors, as far as he could see. There was a lot of traffic passing by-the second stage of the morning rush hour. I’ll be joining the rush shortly.

A little boy was making his way through the bushes. Maybe the same one as last time, hoping to escape to freedom outside the fence.

Winter watched him disappear into the undergrowth. He’d soon be out again. Maybe he had a secret den among the bushes that he went to every day.

Winter walked down to the gate and looked to the right, expecting to see the boy on the other side of the bushes and inside the fence. But there was nobody in sight. He walked toward the bushes but still could see nothing, hear nothing. He approached closer still, noticed a loose bit of the thick steel wire, pulled at it, and felt the whole length open like a swinging door.

He turned around, but there was no little boy in brown overalls and a blue cap standing in the bushes, waving.

What the hell…

The opening was too small for him to clamber through. He jogged quickly to the gate and out into the street, but he still couldn’t see the boy anywhere.

He walked the ten or so meters to the intersection, which was partially hidden from view by the evergreen bushes surrounding the day nursery, turned right, and saw the boy some twenty meters ahead of him, marching purposefully away.

By the time Winter got back to the nursery school with the boy, they had already called the register.

“We were going to have a snack,” said the deputy manager, who was standing at the gate, looking worried.

“There’s a hole in the fence,” said Winter, putting down the boy who had allowed himself to be carried back without protesting.

“Good Lord,” she said, squatting down in front of the boy. “Have you been out for a walk, August?”

The boy nodded.

“But you mustn’t go outside the fence,” she said.

The boy nodded again.

She looked up at Winter.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She looked in the direction of the juniper bushes. “How on earth can the fence have broken?”

“I don’t know,” said Winter. “I didn’t have time to examine it. But you’d better have it fixed right away.”

“I’ll call this very minute,” she said, standing up. “We’ll keep the children indoors in the meantime.”

Winter went back to the fence and secured the loose strand of wire. Another length came loose when a few rusty staples gave way. He was stronger than August, but nonetheless, the boy had managed to open up the gap, even if it was rusty to start with. Not encouraging. Winter thought of Elsa. Had she ever been to this hole in the fence with August before? Never go with strange men.

The whole group was playing some kind of hide-and-seek, the children were laughing and looked delightful. He’d have loved to run forward and stand against the wall and count to a hundred, then shout “Ready or not, here I come!” and then start looking and see somebody emerge from their hiding place and make a dash for it, but he would be faster and touch base first, and then they’d do it all over again with the same result, and everybody would say that he was the fastest and the best and then, when it was his turn to hide, nobody would find him, and he would dash out and touch base and win again. He would win every time.

He was crying now.

It was raining; he could see drops on the windshield.

The same voice on the radio again, always the same voice when he was out driving, when he felt as he felt now. When he wanted to be where the children were. Talk to the children, that’s what he wanted to do. That was all.

The same voice, the same time, the same program, the same light in the sky. The same feeling. Would any of the children want to go with him, a bit farther? Go home with him? How would he be able to turn them down? Even if he wanted to?