He heard his telephone ringing before he reached his office. It stopped, then started again when he was inside.

“Erik? Hello. We have a problem here at the hospital. Car accident victims. Multiple ones. Could you pick Elsa up, please?”

Angela sounded stressed.

Another nursery school. Yes, of course.

“What time?”

“Half past five. It’s Thursday today.”

Winter looked at the clock hanging on the wall over the sink. Half past four. He might have time to fit in the market as well.

“What time will you be home?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I have no idea, and I have to go now.”

“OK, I’ll pick her up. There’ll be…”-but she had whispered a quick “love you” and hung up before he had time to inform her about dinner.

He turned on his computer. There were several messages in his in-box. He selected one of them and phoned the direct number.

“Police, Örgryte-Härlanda, Berg.”

“Hello, Winter here, CID. Can I speak to Bengt Josefsson, please?”

“He left an hour ago.”

“Do you have his home number?”

“How do I know you are who you say you are?”

“Look, I have to pick up my daughter from the nursery school in less than an hour and go to the market before then, and before that I need to talk to Josefsson about a message he left me, so be a good boy and give me his home number now.”

“I can see on the display here that you are one of us; or at least you are calling from police headquarters,” said Berg.

This Berg idiot is a piece of work, Winter thought. He got the number, and called it.

“Josefsson.”

“Hello, Erik Winter here.”

“Ah, yes.”

Winter heard him swallow, and what sounded like ice cubes in a glass of whiskey. Blended. Josefsson was enjoying his free time.

“It’s about that business with the young children,” said Josefsson.

“I’m all ears,” said Winter.

“I saw your appeal, and I’ve got something that might be relevant.” Winter heard another clink, fainter now as the ice cubes melted and grew smaller. “I made a note of a phone call I received,” said Josefsson. Winter heard his voice rather thicker and milder now, from the smoke in the spirits.

He found a parking space for the Mercedes by the canal. There were more customers in the market today than there had been the day before, but not as many as there would be the next day. Winter bought his venison steak and some langoustines for a possible appetizer, and some ripe goat’s cheese. The market was beginning to acquire the heavy aroma of fresh pork that was so central to the Swedish Christmas. Winter’s mind turned to shellfish tapas on a coast farther south. He’d soon be there.

But back in the car he wasn’t sure. He had a nagging worry. He recognized it as an old enemy that kept coming back.

Elsa already had her jacket on. He had arrived just on time.

When they were in the car, she asked about dinner.

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m really really hungry.”

“Did you have any lunch today?”

“No,” she said, nose in the air.

“Nothing at all?”

“No!”

“I can understand why you’re hungry, then.”

“Whatsfordinner?

He didn’t have the heart to tell her it was venison. Bambi. He just didn’t have the heart.

“A lovely little steak that won’t take long in the oven, and there’ll be sauce, and I can make you some mashed potato and some mushrooms.”

“Yes!”

“And before that you can help me to make a salad with some langoustines and whatever else we can find.”

“Find where?!”

“Inside your nose,” he said, turning around.

“Ha ha ha!” She was jumping up and down in her car seat. “Really really hungry.”

But that was when she could still talk. In the kitchen she very nearly fell asleep with her arm around a langoustine that looked as if it were her cuddly toy. He picked it up, prepared it, and added it to the others.

Elsa couldn’t wait. An unusually hard day at the office. She ate a claw and he quickly prepared a small portion of mashed potato and heated up what was left of yesterday’s salmon and cod au gratin. It smelled good, but Elsa’s interest had faded somewhat.

He read to her.

“Are you tired tonight, sweetie? What have you done today?”

She was asleep. He closed his eyes and thought about the Waggoner boy who didn’t want to talk and couldn’t raise one arm, but could still see.

He lifted her into her bed and left the door ajar. He went back to the kitchen, checked the steak, and peeled some more potatoes and took some more mushrooms out of the freezer. He happened to think about that clinking noise over the telephone, and poured himself a Rosebank with a small glass of water on the side.

The sky was clear. Winter stood in the balcony doorway and drank and enjoyed the fresh, dry taste of herbs, and the whiff of a lowland breeze. He rejected the idea of a Corps. He left the balcony door open for a while, went to his desk, switched on his laptop, and spent a quarter of an hour thinking while the big room filled up with music.

If he had described that scene to anyone, they would have understood it as peaceful. He didn’t feel at peace. He was trying to work out a pattern on the basis of what he’d heard that day, and there was no trace of peace in that pattern.

Angela came home while he was setting the table.

“Will you pour me a drop of wine?” she said, before coming anywhere near the kitchen. He had heard her briefcase thud on the floor from a great height. “Mmmm. It smells good.”

She went in to see Elsa as he was adding a lump of butter to the sauce. The final touch before they sat down to eat.

“Ah yes, of course” said Angela, when she came into the kitchen and saw the deep dishes with the shellfish salad. “It’s Thursday after all.”

“Elsa was tired out.”

“I’m more hungry than tired now,” she said. “And thirsty.” She held her wineglass up to the light and studied the contents. “I declare as the house doctor that wine is good for you after a hard day’s work.”

They sat down at the table. The music was Mingus, drifting in from the living room.

“I hope you didn’t tell Elsa what we’re eating for the main course?” she said.

He shook his head.

“It’s very good even so. Everything is good.”

“Better than Bistro 1965?”

“There are questions you can’t answer with a simple yes or no,” she said.

Such as, have you stopped beating your children? he thought.

21

THE MORNING MEETING WAS HELD BY CANDLELIGHT. TWO ADVENT candles were burning on the table, and hundreds of similar ones dotted the building. Coffee and Lucia buns were on the table, as well as a plate of ginger cookies that Halders was working his way through. Before Winter had the opportunity to say anything, the door burst open. Birgersson had a strange grin on his face, and was beckoning:

“Come and look at this.”

They could hear the singing in the corridor. It was December 13, St. Lucia’s Day, and the traditional procession was approaching, led by Lucia, dressed in a white robe and with a crown of burning candles on her head. She was accompanied by her maids, looking like angels gliding through the catacombs. Winter recognized Lucia as a girl from reception, and some of her maids. At the back of the procession were two “star” boys, both with the same strange grin as Birgersson had worn a minute ago, and still had, as Winter saw when he looked at him. The two star boys, wearing conical white hats and carrying sticks with a silver star on the end, were a couple of experienced officers from the cells. One of them was notorious for his violent temperament.