“I meant that I’ll look into the possibility of getting time off so that we can visit you over Christmas.”

“You should have done that already, Erik.”

He didn’t respond.

“I can make a Christmas ham,” she said.

“No, no! If we come we want fish and shellfish.”

Winter found it hard to picture his mother in front of a stove; she had never been that kind of mother. She could stoop over a counter in the kitchen, but that would be in order to cut slices of lemon for some drinks, or to prepare a cocktail shaker. A drink or two too many at times. But she had always been good. She had treated her children with respect. He had grown up to become a man who tried to do the same with the people he came across. He had a reason. Far too many people didn’t have a solid base against which to brace themselves when the going got tough.

“It’s almost December,” she said. “You should be booking flights. It might be too late already.”

“So you should have called earlier,” he said.

She said nothing.

It suddenly dawned on him why. She had been waiting for as long as she could in the hope that he would ask her if they could visit her over Christmas. She’d only been hinting that they should before. Now she couldn’t wait any longer.

“I’ll look into reservations,” he said.

Why not? Over twenty degrees, lots of places with good tapas, and a few extremely good restaurants. It was only one Christmas. He’d spent so many in Gothenburg wrapped up in a shawl of freezing cold winds from the sea. Long days between Christmas and New Year’s when it never became fully light out but everything was enveloped by a mist that a poor detective was unable to see through as he staggered through the city in search of answers to riddles. Holmes. My name is Sherlock Winter Holmes.

They hung up. He stood there in the square for a moment without the slightest idea of why he’d gone there.

He drove back to town, leaving the plain behind him and all the smells associated with that world.

His head had been overfilled with memories, and now he tried to get rid of them, to let them blow away through the open window. The slipstream tugged at his hair and his cheeks. It felt good.

He followed a circular route he knew well. The network of highways sucked him slowly in toward the city center, like a spiral rotating inward. Or downward, he thought as he stopped for a red light in the Allé.

He parked at the same place as before. It might have been exactly the same spot. No. He used the maple tree as a marker, and that showed him it was a slightly different spot.

He touched his forehead and felt the sweat. The back of his neck was also wet, and the back of his head.

He touched the parrot hanging from his rearview mirror. Bill was with him. He touched the little bear on the seat next to him. Odd that he’d never given it a name. It was always Bear.

He touched the parrot lying next to Bear: It looked exactly the same as Bill. The colors were almost identical, maybe something red was yellow instead, but the difference was so slight that you could hardly see it.

“What do you want them for?” the old man had asked as he got into the car.

“They’re mine,” he’d said.

“That weren’t what I asked. I asked what in hell’s name you wanted them for now.”

“They’re mine” was all he’d managed to come out with.

The only things he had left from his childhood.

“You’ve always been an odd ’un,” the old man had commented.

Those words had almost been enough to make him run the old man over. To make a big circle around the farmyard, then come back and really show that he didn’t want people to talk about him like that.

He held up the bird so that it was looking past him and at the trees and the lawn and the playground where children were on the swings or running around and playing tag or playing hide-and-seek, and there were far too many of them and far too few grown-ups to keep an eye on the children and make sure that nothing happened to them.

He would have to help them.

He got out of the car and left his things behind, but he didn’t lock the doors.

He’d positioned the car so that it was pointing toward the road back to the park, and he walked past the square and he found himself behind the high-rise buildings after only one or two minutes, and he could feel the sweat again and he suddenly felt sick, his head was spinning. He paused and breathed deeply, and that felt better. He walked a few more paces and somebody said something.

He looked down at the boy, who was standing beside a bush.

“What’s your name?” asked the boy.

14

HE LOOKED AT HIS HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL. THEY WERE shaking. He had to keep moving them to new positions, to make sure his driving wasn’t affected. He didn’t want that to happen.

All the parking places were taken, which was unusual. He drove around the block, and when he returned there was an empty space.

He drank a glass of water in the kitchen before taking off his shoes. He’d never done that before. He always left his shoes in the hall, so as not to bring grime and dirt into the apartment, as had happened now. He’d cleaned the apartment yesterday, and wanted it to be nice and tidy for as long as possible.

He put down his glass and looked at his hand, and at what was in his palm, and he turned his head away again and walked all the way through the kitchen and the hall to the bathroom, where he washed his hands with his face averted. He couldn’t see properly what he was doing, so water splashed down onto the floor, but that couldn’t be helped.

He dried his hands. The telephone rang. He dropped the towel. The phone was still ringing. He went into the hall.

“Hell… hello?”

“Is that Jerner? Mats Jerner?”

“Er, yes.”

“Hello, this is Gothenburg Tramways, Järnström here. I’m calling in connection with that accident at Järntorget. I’m handling the inquiry.”

Järnström and Järntorget, he thought. Did they select inquiry chairmen on the basis of their name? Or of the victim. My name fits in as well.

“It’s almost finished, in fact,” Järnström went on.

“Have we met?”

“No.”

He heard the rustling of paper.

“We’re basically done,” said Järnström, “with all this. You can start again.”

“Start work again, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“So there’ll be no more interrogations?”

“Interrogations?”

“Questions about how I do my job.”

“That’s not what-”

“So it’s not my, er, not my fault anymore?”

“Nobody ever said it was. You were-”

“I was suspended.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What would you call it then?”

“It’s just that we had to hold this inquiry and it’s taken a bit of time.”

“Whose fault was it, then?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“

Whose fault was it, then?” he yelled into the telephone. The man was evidently a bit deaf and he had to speak more loudly. “Who’s going to take responsibility for everything that’s happened?”

“Calm down now, Jerner.”

“I am calm.”

“It’s all over and done with now,” said Järnström. “As far as you’re concerned.”

“Who isn’t it all over for?”

“I’m don’t follow.”

“Is it the drunk it’s not all over for? It was all his fault.”

“That kind of thing is a problem,” said Järnström.

“Who for?”

“For Gothenburg Tramways,” said Järnström.

“For the drivers,” he said. “It’s a problem for the drivers.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what causes this kind of thing.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Was there anything else?”

“No, not at the moment. We might need to ask you about the odd detail later on, but tha-”

“So I just need to show up for work again?”