“Have you seen him?”

“No. What are you getting at?”

Ringmar could see that the boy no longer looked bored stiff. His body language had changed. He was more tense.

“Do you know his name?”

“No. You’ll have to ask old man Carlström.”

Ringmar paused for a few moments.

“You were the one who mentioned that branding iron. Marking iron. We’ve looked into it but didn’t get anywhere until we paid a visit to Carlström.”

“Why did you go there?”

“It was your dad who thought that Carlström might have owned an iron like that.”

“Oh.”

“Which he had.”

“Oh.”

“Did you use to have one on your farm?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“You said you did before.”

“Did I?”

“Were you making it up?” Ringmar asked.

“No. What do you mean?”

“You said you used to have irons like that.”

“I must have gotten it wrong,” said Smedsberg.

“How could you have done that?”

“I must have phrased it wrong. I must have meant that I’d heard about irons like that.”

We’ll come back to that, Ringmar thought. I don’t know what to think, and I don’t think the boy does either. We’ll have to come back to it.

“Carlström had one,” said Ringmar. “Or maybe two.”

“Really?”

“You seem to be interested.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

Ringmar leaned forward.

“It’s been stolen.”

Smedsberg was about to come out with another “really” but controlled himself.

“It’s vanished,” said Ringmar. “Just like Aryan Kaite has vanished. And he has a wound that looks as if it might have been caused by a weapon like that. And that wound might be able to tell us something.”

“Isn’t it a bit far-fetched for you to meet an old man who’s just had an iron like that stolen, and that it should turn out to be precisely the one that was used?” said Smedsberg.

“That’s what we’re wondering as well,” said Ringmar. “And that’s where you come in, Gustav.” Ringmar stood up and Smedsberg remained seated. “If it hadn’t been for you, we’d never have made that journey to the flats.”

“I didn’t need to say anything at all about a branding iron,” said Smedsberg.

“But you did.”

“Am I going to get fucked over for that, then?”

Ringmar didn’t respond.

“I’ll be happy to join in a search party for Aryan if that’s what you need help with,” said Smedsberg.

“Why a search party?”

“Eh?”

“Why should we send a search party out to look for Aryan?”

“I have no idea.”

“But that’s what you said.”

“Come on, that’s just something you say. I mean, a search party, for Christ’s sake, call it what the hell you like when you’re looking for somebody.”

“Search parties don’t work in big cities,” said Ringmar.

“Oh.”

“They work better in the countryside,” said Ringmar.

“Really?”

“Is he somewhere out there in the flats, Gustav?”

“I have no idea.”

“Where is he, Gustav?”

“For Christ’s… I don’t know.”

“What’s happened to him?”

Smedsberg stood up.

“I want to leave now. This is ridiculous.”

Ringmar looked at the boy, who still seemed to be freezing cold in his thin clothes. Ringmar could lock him up for the night, but it was too soon for that. Or perhaps too late. But the evidence was too thin.

“I’ll show you out, Gustav.”

29

WINTER CALLED ANETTE RIGHT AWAY, FROM THE NURSERY-SCHOOL manager’s office. She was at home and Winter could hear the humming of the exhaust fan in the background. Or perhaps it was a hair dryer. It stopped.

Camera? Yes, what about it? Yes, she had it on hand. The film wasn’t finished. Yes, he could come and get it.

Winter sent a car to Anette’s flat. The camera really was a very simple one. One of the technical division’s labs had the film developed and copied after Winter had returned to his office.

He had the photographs on the desk in front of him now. They hadn’t been taken by an expert photographer. Everything was overexposed and slightly blurred. All of them were of children, mostly in a location Winter recognized: the grounds of Elsa’s nursery school. Some of the pictures featured members of staff he knew.

The park, the soccer field. A long line of children.

A man with a video camera could be seen in the background, perhaps thirty meters behind them. His face was hidden by the camera. That particular picture was sharper than the others, as if it had been taken by a different photographer. The man was wearing a cap. Winter couldn’t make out the colors.

The man was wearing the kind of jacket you often see on elderly men who buy their clothes at charity shops. It was impossible to see what kind of trousers he was wearing. More careful copying was necessary, and a bigger enlargement.

Anette had taken two pictures in which the man was visible in the background, but not in succession.

In the second one he had turned his back on the camera and was evidently walking away. The jacket could be seen more clearly. It could easily have been made in the 1950s.

Perhaps the trousers as well. You couldn’t see his shoes, the grass was up to the man’s calves. Nor could Winter see the video camera.

“Is it still glued to his face?” asked Halders, who was poring over the photograph. “The video camera, I mean.”

They were meeting in the smaller conference room: Winter, Ringmar, Halders, Djanali.

“It’s not visible,” said Winter.

“He dresses like an old man, but he’s not an old man,” said Djanali.

“What exactly does an old man look like?” Halders asked.

“You’re not going to goad me into going on about that,” said Djanali.

“But seriously, what is characteristic of an old man?” said Ringmar.

“He doesn’t have the bearing of an old man,” said Djanali. “He’s just chosen to dress like one.”

“Clothes make the man,” said Halders.

“The question is what this particular man has done,” said Ringmar, looking at the photograph that could possibly feature the abductor. He felt strangely excited.

“He was filming the children,” said Winter.

“That’s not a crime,” said Ringmar, rubbing one eye. Winter could see tension in Ringmar’s face, more noticeable than usual. “There are normal people who film anything in sight.” Ringmar looked up. There was a red patch over one eye. “He doesn’t have to be a pedophile or a kidnapper or a child molester.”

“But he could be,” said Djanali. “We have a crime on our hands. And he could be the one who did it.”

“We’ll have to work on the picture,” said Winter. “Or pictures, rather. Maybe it’s somebody we can recognize from the archives.”

“The camera looks new. It doesn’t fit in with the dress code,” said Halders.

Nobody was sure if he was being serious or not.

It was so crowded that it was difficult to move your feet. A teeming mass of people, and he was sweating, and if it hadn’t been for that woman with the stroller ten meters ahead of him, he wouldn’t have been here at all, no, certainly not. He’d have been at home, on his own.

It had looked as if the child was sleeping when they were outside the Nordstan shopping center. Then they went inside, the black sea of people walking, walking, walking, shopping, shopping, shopping.

“The day before the day before the day before the day!” somebody yelled, or something of the sort. But what did he care about Christmas? Personally? Christmas was a time for children. He wasn’t a child. But he had been one, and he knew.

It was a good idea. He’d had it before, but now it was stronger than ever. Christmas was a time for children. He was on his own and wasn’t a child. But he knew what children liked at Christmas time. He was nice and he could do everything that would make Christmas really fun for a child. Really fun!