Ease off now Bertil, Ringmar thought.

“If you tell me who you met, that can help me to find whoever it was who attacked you,” he said, and had the feeling that he’d said precisely that before, many times, to many victims.

“OK, what the hell,” said Book. “I met a guy, OK?”

“That’s completely OK,” said Ringmar.

“OK,” said Book again.

“Why was it so difficult to say that?”

The boy didn’t respond. He was studying something behind Ringmar’s head but Ringmar knew that there was nothing there to look at, nothing but a blank wall covered in paint that had never glistened. Hospital wards are very much like Lutheran assembly halls, he thought, or maybe chambers for ascetic sects: Life is but a journey to death, and this is an opportunity to get there a bit quicker.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“A… just a guy.”

“A friend?”

Book nodded, carefully. It seemed like a solemn moment, as if he were about to reveal his big secret. Which was exactly what he did.

“A close friend?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to ask you how close,” said Ringmar. “But I must ask you if you met him at his place.”

“Yes.”

“I need his address.”

“Why?”

Ringmar didn’t answer that question. Instead, he asked:

“Did he go with you when you left?”

“Go with me?”

“When you left his home.”

“Yes. Just a short way.”

“What time was that?”

“I can’t remember.”

“When was it? In relation to when you were attacked.”

“Er… Half an hour before, maybe.”

“He lives near there, does he?”

Book didn’t answer.

“Were you still together when you were attacked?”

“No.”

“Where did you part?”

“A bit… A bit farther up the street.”

“In Övre Husargatan?”

“Yes.”

“Where exactly?”

“Just past Sveaplan.”

“When?”

“When, er, it was just before that bastard came and knocked half my head off.”

“I want his name and address,” said Ringmar.

“Don’t we all?”

“I mean your friend’s,” said Ringmar.

It was more or less dark when they assembled again in Winter’s office. There wasn’t enough light in there to fill the corners.

“Can’t you put that bloody cigarillo out just for once?” said Halders.

“I haven’t even opened the pack yet,” said Winter, with a look of surprise on his face.

“Prevention is the best cure,” said Halders.

Ringmar cleared his throat and spread some of his papers out on the desk that Winter had just tidied.

“It was hard for the kid to come out with it,” said Ringmar. “For Book, that is.”

“I hope you managed to convince him that in principle we couldn’t care less about his sexual orientation,” said Winter.

“It’s that ‘in principle’ that could get in the way,” said Ringmar.

“Was his friend at home?”

“No reply when I called him.”

“We’ll have to pay him a visit.” Winter looked at Bergenhem. “Will you have time this evening, Lars?”

“Yes. Just a formal check, I take it?”

“No,” said Halders. “Bring him in here and give him a good whipping.”

“Is that an attempt to be sarcastic?” said Bergenhem, turning to face Halders.

“Attempt?” said Halders.

“The time is absolutely crucial, Lars,” said Winter. “But you know that as well as I do.”

“His pansy friend didn’t do it, for Christ’s sake,” said Halders.

“But he might have seen something,” said Ringmar.

“In which case he’d have come and told us about it already,” said Halders.

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” said Bergenhem.

“What what’s like?” asked Halders.

“Having to be secretive about it,” said Bergenhem.

“No-but you do, do you?” wondered Halders.

“It takes a lot of courage to come out, or whatever they call it,” said Bergenhem without seeming to have heard what Halders had said.

“Really?” said Halders. “How come then that you can’t open a newspaper nowadays without reading about how some celebrity fairy has just come out of the closet?”

“It’s different for celebrities.”

Ringmar cleared his throat again.

“Got a sore throat, have you, Bertil?” Halders turned to look at Ringmar.

“Fredrik,” said Winter.

Halders turned to look at Winter.

“There’s something these four kids have in common, and it’s not their sexuality,” said Winter. “Can you repeat what you told me earlier, Fredrik?”

“I did a bit of checking up,” said Halders. “They’ve all lived in the Olofshöjd student dorm.”

Bergenhem whistled.

“The same goes for about half of all Gothenburg students, past and present,” said Halders.

“Even so,” said Bergenhem.

“Kaite and Stillman still live there now,” said Winter.

“Smedsberg moved to the Chalmers student dorm,” said Ringmar.

“Why?” Bergenhem wondered.

Nobody knew at this stage.

“And Book shares an apartment in Skytteskogen,” said Halders. “No doubt they’ll have to make it handicapped accessible now.”

“What are we going to do about Olofshöjd?” asked Winter. “Any suggestions?”

“We don’t have enough personnel,” said Ringmar.

“We can check their halls, though,” said Bergenhem. “The one where Kaite and Stillman live.”

“Their rooms are in different halls,” said Halders.

“Kaite said something odd when I spoke to him,” Winter said. He fumbled for his pack of cigarillos in his breast pocket, and noticed Halders staring hard at him. “We were talking about Smedsberg having seen a newspaper delivery boy, and Kaite was wide enough awake to ask how the fake one could have known that he wouldn’t run into the real one.”

“Maybe he just took a chance and risked it,” said Bergenhem. “The fake one, that is.”

“That’s not the point,” said Winter. “The thing is that Kaite said ‘her’ when he was referring to the usual delivery person. ‘He could have bumped into her,’ he said. How could he know that it was a woman?”

“Maybe a slip of the tongue,” said Bergenhem.

“Don’t you think that’s a very odd slip of the tongue?” said Winter.

“It could be that in a guy’s world, it’s always women who deliver newspapers,” said Halders. “In his dreams. He lies awake and hopes they are going to drop in on him in the wee hours.”

“How does this fit in with the gay theory?” wondered Bergenhem.

“Don’t ask me,” said Halders. “That’s yours and Erik’s theory, isn’t it?”

12

BERGENHEM CROSSED SVEAPLAN WITH A STRONG WIND BEHIND him. A sheet of newspaper went flying past the corner shop.

The buildings around the square looked black in the dusk. A streetcar rattled past to his right, a cold, yellow light. Two magpies took off as he rang the bell next to the nameplate. He heard a distant answer.

“I’m looking for Krister Peters. My name is Lars Bergenhem, from the Gothenburg CID.”

No response, but a humming sound came from the door and he pulled it open. There was no smell in the stairwell, as if the wind had blown in and cleansed it. The walls on each side were as dark as the building’s facade.

Bergenhem waited for an elevator that never appeared.

He walked up the stairs and rang the bell next to the door labeled Peters. The door opened a couple of inches after the second ring. The man peering though the crack could’ve been the same age as Bergenhem. Five or six years older than the students.

He stared at Bergenhem. His dark hair hung down over his forehead in a way that looked intentional, fixed with some kind of gel or spray. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved for three or four days. He was wearing a white vest that stood out against his tanned and muscular body. Of course, Bergenhem thought. No, you shouldn’t be prejudiced. The guy is just uncombed and unshaven and fit.

“Can I see your ID,” said the man.