Ringmar consulted his notebook again.

“Several of the people we’ve spoken to. It wasn’t a secret.”

“It sounds almost like I’m being accused of something.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“It sounds almost like that.”

“I’m only trying to establish what you were doing. Surely you can understand that? If we’re going to find this attacker, we have to walk in your footsteps, so to speak,” Ringmar said.

Pure bullshit, he thought. I’m thinking like my daughter speaks.

The boy didn’t answer.

“Did you meet somebody?” Ringmar asked.

“Even if I did, it’s got nothing to do with this.”

“In which case there’s no harm in telling, is there?”

“Telling what?”

“If you met somebody,” Ringmar said.

“Yes and no,” said Book. His eyes were wandering all round the room.

Ringmar nodded, as if he understood.

“What year are you in?” asked Winter.

“My second.”

“My wife’s a doctor.”

“Really?”

“She’s a hospital doctor. General medicine.”

“I suppose that’s what I want to be.”

“Not a brain surgeon?”

“It would be useful to be one, after this,” said Aryan Kaite, grimacing slightly and touching his head with his left hand: The big bandage had been replaced by a smaller one. “The question is whether I’ll be able to go on studying.” He took down his hand again. “Thinking. Remembering. It’s not certain that everything will still work.”

“How do you feel now?” Winter asked.

“Better, but not good.”

Winter nodded. They were in a café in Vasastan, chosen by Kaite. I should come here more often, Winter thought. It’s relaxing. Interviewing people over coffee. There should be a sign outside: Coffee and Questions.

“I live just around the corner,” Winter said.

“Working within walking distance, then,” said Kaite.

“Yes, again,” said Winter, and told him about the case he’d worked on a few years previously, the couple in the apartment fifty meters down the street who had been sitting so still. The odd circumstances regarding their heads. But he didn’t say anything about that particular detail.

“I think I read something about that,” said Kaite.

“We got the call from a newspaper boy,” said Winter. “A young kid who became suspicious.”

“I guess they see a lot,” said Kaite.

“You didn’t see a newspaper boy that morning, did you, Aryan?”

“When I had my head bashed in? I couldn’t see anything at all.”

“When you came up to Kapellplatsen, or just before you were attacked. You didn’t notice a newspaper boy around? Or on the other side of the square? Near the buildings?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Did you see anybody carrying newspapers?”

“No.”

“OK. I’ll tell you why I’m asking. I take it you’ve heard that another young man was, er, attacked, in the same way? At Mossen?”

“Yes.”

“He says he saw a newspaper boy shortly before it happened, but there was no newspaper boy there that morning. The usual person was sick.”

“So it must have been a replacement.”

“No. The usual one called in sick at the last minute, and they didn’t have time to find anybody else.”

“How does he know it was a newspaper boy he saw, then?”

“There was somebody carrying newspapers up and down staircases at four-thirty in the morning.”

“Sounds like a newspaper boy,” said Kaite.

“Exactly,” said Winter.

“But isn’t there something a bit fishy there? How could he know the usual delivery person was sick?” he asked. “He could have bumped into her. How did he know?”

“That’s what we are wondering as well,” said Winter, studying the boy’s face-it was as black as Aneta Djanali’s, but with different features from another part of Africa.

“Very odd,” said Kaite.

“Where do you come from, Aryan?”

“ Kenya.”

“Born there?”

“Yes.”

“Are there a lot of Kenyans living in Gothenburg?”

“Quite a few. Why?”

Winter shrugged.

“I don’t hang out with any of them,” said Kaite.

“Who do you hang out with, then?”

“Not many people.”

“Fellow students?”

“Some of them.”

“Who were you with that evening?”

“Eh?”

“When you were attacked. Who were you with then?”

“But I told you I was on my own.”

“Before you came to Kapellplatsen, I mean.”

“Nobody. I was just wandering around the streets.”

“You didn’t meet anybody?”

“No.”

“Not at all? All evening?”

“No.”

“It was a long night.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t meet anybody later on, either?”

“No.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” He looked surprised. “Is it that strange?”

“So you didn’t know the person who clubbed you down?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Do you want me to ask it again?”

“You don’t need to. If I knew who it was, I’d say so of course.”

Winter said nothing.

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?”

11

“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF I SAID ‘BICYCLE’?” ASKED HALDERS.

“Is this some kind of word association game?” wondered Jakob Stillman.

“-What?” said Halders.

Stillman eyed the detective inspector with the shaved head and rough polo-necked shirt and jeans and heavy shoes. Who was he? Was there a mix-up during the arrest of a gang of aging skinheads?

He rolled carefully to one side. His head followed his body, and hurt. He couldn’t shake off this constant headache. And this conversation was not making things any better.

“Word association game,” he said. “You say something and I associate it with something else.”

“If you’d said ‘bicycle,’ I might have said ‘hit in the head,’ ” said Halders.

“Yes, that’s a natural association.”

Halders smiled.

“Do you understand what I’m getting at?” he asked.

“Is this how you conduct all your interviews?” Stillman wondered.

“You’re studying law, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t you gotten to the chapter on cognitive interrogation methodology?”

Stillman shook his head, which was a mistake. It felt as if something was loose inside it.

“Let’s go on,” said Halders. “Do you think it’s possible that whoever attacked you was riding a bicycle?”

“I saw just a body, as I said to your colleague. And it all happened too quickly.”

“Maybe that’s why?” said Halders. “He was riding a bike?”

“Well, I suppose that’s a possibility.”

“You can’t rule it out?”

“No. I guess not.”

Halders checked his notes, which were detailed and comprehensive. It seemed that after the blow to his head he’d become more inclined to make notes. As if he didn’t really trust his own mind anymore. Before that he’d often managed with notes recorded on the inside of his eyelids; but now he needed a notebook and a pencil.

“When Bert… DCI Ringmar asked you about the noises you’d heard-it seemed obvious that you didn’t think they were human sounds. What might they have been, then?”

“I really don’t know.”

“What would you say if I said ‘bicycle’?” said Halders.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Jens Book.

“I asked you if you’d met anybody after you’d left the party and before you were attacked, and you answered yes and no.”

Book said nothing.

“It’s an answer you really ought to elaborate on,” said Ringmar.

“I did meet somebody,” said Book.

“Who did you meet?”

“It has nothing at all to do with this,” said Book.

“Why do you find it so hard to tell me?” Ringmar asked.

“For Christ’s sake, can’t I be left in peace?”

Ringmar waited.

“It’s as if I’ve committed a crime,” said Book. “I’m lying here paralyzed and smashed up and… and…” His face contracted and he burst into tears.