“Mmm.”

“Quite a circle of friends, even if they only mix with their own kind,” said Winter.

Ringmar drummed his fingers on the armrest. Winter turned off the main thoroughfare and drove north. The streets grew narrower, the houses bigger.

“A pick-ax,” said Ringmar. “Who wanders around with a pick-ax on a Saturday night?”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” said Winter.

“Did you go to school here in Gothenburg?”

“Briefly.”

“What did you study?”

“Prudence. Then I dropped out.”

“Prudence?”

“Introduction to jurisprudence. But I quit, like I said.”

“Imprudence follows prudence,” said Ringmar.

“Ha, ha,” said Winter.

“I was a student of life myself,” said Ringmar.

“Where do you study that? And when do you qualify for a degree in it?”

Ringmar gave a snort. “You’re right, Erik. A student of life is tested all the time. Continuous judgment.”

“By whom?”

Ringmar didn’t reply. Winter slowed down.

“Turn right here, you’ll avoid the intersection,” said Ringmar.

Winter did as he was told, threaded his way past a couple of parked cars, and pulled up outside a wood-paneled detached house. The lights from the house cast a faint glow over the lawn and through the maples that looked like limbs reaching up to the sky.

“Want to come in for a sandwich?” Ringmar asked.

Winter looked at his watch.

“Is Angela waiting up for you with oysters and wine?” wondered Ringmar.

“It’s not quite the season yet,” said Winter.

“I expect you’ll want to say goodnight to Elsa?”

“She’ll be fast asleep by now,” said Winter. “OK, I’ll have a bite to eat. Do you have any south Slovakian beer?”

Ringmar was rummaging in the fridge as Winter came up from the cellar, carrying three bottles.

“I think I only have Czech pilsner, I’m afraid,” said Ringmar over his shoulder.

“I’ll forgive you,” said Winter, reaching for the bottle opener.

“Smoked whitefish and scrambled egg?” Ringmar suggested, examining what was in the fridge.

“If we’ve got time,” said Winter. “It takes ages to make a decent scrambled egg. Got any chives, by the way?”

Ringmar smiled and nodded, carried the ingredients over to the counter, and got to work. Winter sipped the beer. It was good, chilled without being cold. He took off his tie and hung his jacket over the chair. His neck felt stiff after a long day. A student of life. Continuous judgment. He could see the student’s face in his mind’s eye, then the back of his head. A law student, just like he’d been once. If I’d stuck with it I could have been chief of police now, he thought, taking another sip of beer. That might have been better. Protected from the streets. No bending over bodies with shattered limbs, no new holes, no blood, no wounds in the shape of a cross.

“The other two don’t have an enemy in the world,” said Ringmar from the stove, where he was stirring the egg mix with a wooden fork.

“Who?”

“The other two victims who survived with the cross-shaped wounds on their heads. Not an enemy in the world, they’re saying.”

“That goes with being young,” said Winter. “No real enemies.”

“You’re young yourself,” said Ringmar, lifting up the cast-iron pan. “Do you have any enemies?”

“Not a single one,” said Winter. “You make enemies later on in life.”

Ringmar put the finishing touches to the open sandwiches.

“We should really have a drop of schnapps with this,” he said.

“I can always take a taxi home.”

“It’s settled, then,” said Ringmar, going to get the hard stuff.

“The same man was responsible for all the attacks,” said Ringmar. “What’s he after?”

“Satisfaction from causing injury,” said Winter, draining the last of his second schnapps and shaking his head when Ringmar lifted the bottle questioningly.

“But not any old way,” said Ringmar.

“Nor any old victim.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“We’ll have to hear what this kid has to say tomorrow,” said Winter.

“Attacked from behind in an unlit street. He saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing, knows nothing.”

“We’ll see.”

“Pia Fröberg will have to put in some extra effort to help us with the weapon,” said Ringmar.

Winter could see the forensic pathologist’s pale, tense face in his mind’s eye. Once upon a time they’d been an item, or something pretty close to that. All forgotten and in the past now. No hard feelings.

“Always assuming that will help,” Ringmar added, gazing down into his beer glass.

They heard the front door open and shut, and a shout from a female voice.

“We’re in here,” Ringmar informed her.

His daughter came in, still wearing her anorak. As dark as her father, almost as tall, same nose, same eyes, focused on Winter.

“Erik needed some company,” said Ringmar.

She reached out her hand. Winter shook it.

“You still recognize Moa, don’t you?” asked Ringmar.

“Haven’t seen you for ages,” said Winter. “Let’s see, you must be…”

“Twenty-five,” said Moa Ringmar. “Well on the way to being a senior citizen, and still living at home. What do you say to that?”

“You could say that Moa’s in-between apartments at the moment,” Ringmar explained.

“It’s the times we live in,” said Moa. “Fledglings always return to the nest.”

“That’s nice,” said Winter.

“Bullshit,” said Moa.

“OK,” said Winter.

She sat down.

“Any beer left for me?”

Ringmar got her a glass and poured out what was left of the third bottle.

“So there’s been another assault,” she said.

“Where did you hear that?” wondered Ringmar.

“At the department. He’s a student there. His name is Jakob, I’m told.”

“Do you know him?”

“No, not personally.”

“Do you know anybody who knows him?” asked Winter.

“Hey, what’s all this?” she protested. “I see you’re back at work again.” She looked at Winter, then turned to her father. “Sorry. It is serious. I didn’t mean to joke.”

“Well?” wondered Winter.

“I might know somebody who knows somebody who knows him. I don’t know.”

Vasaplatsen was quiet and deserted when Winter got out of the taxi. The streetlamps lit up the newspaper kiosk at the edge of Universitetsplatsen. A student of life, he thought as he punched the code to the front entrance.

There was a faint smell of tobacco in the elevator, a lingering aroma that could have come from him.

“You smell like alcohol,” said Angela when he bent down to kiss her as she lay in bed.

“Ödåkra Taffel Aquavit,” he said.

“I figured as much,” she said, turning over to face the wall. “You’re dropping off Elsa tomorrow morning. I have to get up by half past five.”

“I just looked in on her. Sleeping like a log.”

Angela muttered something.

“What did you say?”

“Just wait until tomorrow morning,” she said. “Early.”

He knew all about that. After six months’ paternity leave? He knew all there was to know about Elsa, and she knew all about him.

It had been a terrific time, maybe his best. There was a city out there that he hadn’t seen for years. The streets were the same, but he’d been able to view them at ground level for a change, in his own time, not needing to be on the lookout for anything more than the next café where they could pause for a while and he could sample some of that other life, real life.

When he went back to work after his paternity leave, he felt a sort of… hunger, a peculiar feeling, something he almost felt ashamed of. As if he were ready for battle again, ready for the war that could never be won but had to be fought well, regardless. That’s the way it was. If you chopped an arm off the beast, it promptly grew another one, but you just had to keep on chopping.