“If it’s busted I’ll fucking report you to the fucking police, you fucking idiot.”

He decided to ignore the drunk. That was the best way.

He came to a halt at the next stop. People were waiting to get on. The drunk was standing in the way. The newcomers forced him back. He had to make way. A lady got on. A ticket? Of course. That’ll be sixteen kronor, please. Here you are, a ticket and four kronor change.

He took off, stopped, took off again. It was quiet now. He stopped once more. Opened the doors.

“Consider yourself lucky that my mobile’s still working, you fucking idiot,” yelled the drunk as he got off. Good riddance.

Unfortunately there would be more of them. Some more would get on after he’d turned around and started on his way back. It was always the same. They were a traffic hazard. He could tell the authorities all about that. He had, in fact.

“It’s as if I’ve lost all my enthusiasm for Christmas,” said Angela. “It was a sort of sudden feeling I had in the elevator. Or an insight.”

“An insight into what?”

“You know.”

“You shouldn’t have come with me the first time we saw the boy,” said Winter.

“Yes, it was important for me to be there.”

He didn’t reply, listened for a moment to the fridge, and to the radio mumbling away in its corner.

“Is it the twenty-third our flights are booked for?” Angela asked.

“Yes.”

“It’ll be nice.”

“I expect so.”

“A warm Christmas,” she said.

“I don’t think it will be all that warm.”

“No, there’s bound to be subzero temperatures on Christmas Eve in Marbella.” She continued warming her hands around the cup she hadn’t yet finished. “Stormy, freezing cold, and no central heating.”

“There might be snow,” said Winter.

“There is snow,” she said. “On top of Sierra Blanca.”

He nodded. The trip would work out. His mother would be pleased. There would be sun there. Five days on the Costa del Sol, and then it would be New Year’s again, and the weather would turn and spring would begin to advance, and then summer, and there was no need to look any further ahead than that.

“I met a woman at the nursery-school meeting who had something interesting to tell me,” she said, looking at him. “It was a bit strange.”

“Go on.”

“It made me think about that boy. I mean, we had been talking about it during the evening.”

“We can’t keep everything secret,” said Winter.

“That might be for the best.”

“What did she have to say?” he asked.

“That her daughter had… met a stranger. Apparently she’d been sitting in a car with some grown-up. That’s all.”

“What do you mean, that’s all?”

“I don’t know. The girl came home and told her mother about it. That she’d been sitting in a car, I guess, with somebody else for a little while. That was all.”

“She came home and told her mom about it?”

“Yes. Ellen. The girl’s name is Ellen. She goes to the same nursery school as Elsa. Ellen Sköld.”

“I recognize the name.”

“That’s who it was. Her mother’s called Lena.”

“And she believed it?”

“She didn’t really know what to believe. Nothing had happened.”

“What did she do next? After hearing about this?”

“She reported it. She spoke to somebody at the local police station in Linnéstaden.”

“What did the staff say?” he asked. “The nursery-school staff, I mean.”

“She spoke to them but nobody had noticed anything.”

Winter said something she couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?”

“They can’t see everything,” he said.

She stood up, went to the sink, and put her mug on the draining board. Winter remained seated. She went back to the table. He was staring into space.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“This all sounds strange.”

“Her mother thinks so, too. Lena.”

“But she reported it to the police. So there should be a record of it.” He looked at her. “At the station, I mean.”

“There must be. The police officer she spoke to seemed to take it seriously, at least. He asked her to check if the girl had lost anything, and it turned out that she had.”

“Something disappeared? When?”

“The day it happened.”

“Children lose things all the time. That’s not unusual, you know that.”

“But this seems to have been something she couldn’t just lose. Ellen, I mean. It was a charm that was fastened down somehow.”

“Lena Sköld,” said Winter. “You said the mother was called Lena Sköld?”

“Yes. What are you going to do?”

“Talk to her.”

“I didn’t tell her that I lived with a detective chief inspector.”

“Well, she’ll find out now. Does it matter?”

“No.”

“I think I’ve probably exchanged a few words with her when I’ve dropped Elsa off. I recognize the girl’s name. But I don’t think her mother knows what my job is.”

“Does it matter?”

Winter smiled, and stood up.

“You knew exactly what you were doing when you told me this, didn’t you?” he said.

She nodded.

“Have you ever heard of anything like this before?” she asked.

“I’ll first have to find out exactly what it is that I’ve heard about,” he said.

He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He thought he would probably be able to recognize the girl when he saw her.

He allowed the darkness to linger on in his apartment after he closed the door. He knew his way around it so well, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been blind. In his apartment, that is. He wouldn’t have managed so well outside.

Darkness was more attractive indoors than out. A small amount of light trickled in through the venetian blinds even though he had closed them as tightly as possible.

He sat in front of the television screen. The boy in the video was laughing. At least, it looked like he was laughing. But something was wrong.

Why had he stopped? Suddenly he didn’t want to touch the boy anymore. What was it? Should he go to the doctor and tell him what happened and ask if it was normal or abnormal?

He watched all the videos. He had a little collection. Similar videos, but slightly different. He was familiar with all the details now. You could see. A little extra step each time. He knew that now. And yet, he didn’t really. He was on the way to… to… He refused to think about it. Refused. I refuse!

Don’t think about the boy. That was something different. No. It was not.

Mom never heard him when he shouted. He had moved in there and didn’t need to make a bed for his mom every evening in the house a thousand miles away. Mom was there. He used to shout.

She never heard.

Once he emerged afterward and he shouted and she sat there with her head averted, and she didn’t hear him then either. It was as if he wasn’t there. He didn’t dare stand in front of her. Maybe she really hadn’t heard him before, but if he stood in front of her and she didn’t see him, he wouldn’t exist anymore. He knew that she wasn’t blind, and so he wouldn’t exist. He didn’t exist.

Then she wasn’t there anymore.

And then came all the rest of it.

The telephone rang. He jumped and almost dropped the remote control. He let the phone ring, ring, ring. Five times, six. Then it stopped. He didn’t have an answering machine. What was the point?

It rang again. He wasn’t there. Or he was there but he didn’t hear the telephone, and so he wasn’t there. It stopped eventually, and he could busy himself with the videos for a bit longer and then get ready for bed. All this without switching on a single light. Anybody passing by outside would definitely think there was nobody at home, or that someone was in bed, asleep. And that was what he was going to do now.