He kept on staring at his idiotic neighbor. It looked as if the stupid bastard were fixing up some more floodlights in one of the maple trees. Ringmar slammed the bottle down onto the glass table with a loud bang and went out onto the veranda facing the lights. He didn’t feel the frost through his socks.

“What the hell are you doing now?” he yelled straight across the flashing Dipper and the Great Bear and the Little Bear and everybody and their brother.

The neighbor’s discolored and moronic face turned to look at him.

“

What the hell are you doing?!” screeched Ringmar, and even as he did so he recognized that this was not the way to behave, that you didn’t take out your own frustration or worries on other people, he knew that full well, but just then he didn’t give a shit about that.

“What’s the matter?” asked the neighbor, who Ringmar knew was some kind of administrator in the health service. A real butcher, in other words, as Winter’s Angela would have said. I’ll bet that bastard administrates fucking light therapy at the hospital, Ringmar thought.

“I can’t take any more of your stupid lights in my face,” said Ringmar.

The neighbor stared back with his stupid face. How can anybody like that be allowed to live? Where are you, God?

“My whole house is bathed in light all night long from your goddamn yard, and it only gets worse,” said Ringmar in a louder voice than usual, to make sure the administrator heard. “Thank God Christmas will be over soon.” He turned on his heel, went back inside, and slammed the door behind him. He was shaking. I managed that quite well. Nobody got hurt.

He was woken up at midnight, out of a dream that was brightly lit.

“Bertil, it’s Erik. I need your help. I know it’s late, but it can’t be helped.”

He could see the light was on in Winter’s office as he crossed the parking lot. It was the only lit window in the north wall of police headquarters.

A man was sitting on the chair opposite Winter.

“This is Bengt Johansson,” said Winter. “He’s just arrived.”

Ringmar introduced himself. The man didn’t respond.

“Have you been there?” Ringmar asked, turning to Winter. “To Nordstan?”

“Yes,” said Winter. “And I wasn’t the only one searching. But the place is empty.”

“Oh my God,” said Bengt Johansson.

“Tell us your story one more time,” said Winter, sitting down.

“This isn’t the first time,” said Johansson. “It’s happened once before. They called from the kiosk. It was only a few minutes that time.”

Ringmar looked at Winter.

“Tell us about what happened,” said Winter.

“She was supposed to pick up Micke,” said Johansson. “And she did. Eh! We’d agreed that they’d go out for an hour or so and buy some Christmas presents, and then she’d bring him back home to me.” He looked at Ringmar. “But they never showed up.” He looked at Winter. “I called her at home, but there was no answer. I waited and called again. I mean, I had no idea where they might go.”

Winter nodded.

“Then I called various people I-we-know, and then I checked the hospital.” He mimed a phone call. “And then, well, then I called here. Criminal emergency, or whatever they call it.”

“They called me,” said Winter, looking at Ringmar. “The mother-Carolin-had left the kid at H & M near the entrance, and vanished.”

“And vanished?” said Ringmar.

“Shortly before six. Loads of people. They closed at eight.”

Winter looked at Johansson. The man seemed as if he had come face-to-face with a horror that must have been worse than anything Ringmar had dreamed recently.

“Bengt here started calling when they didn’t turn up. And eventually got through to us, as he said.”

“Where’s the boy?” Ringmar asked.

“We don’t know,” sighed Winter. Johansson sniffled.

“Where’s the mother?” asked Ringmar. “Is the boy with her?”

“No,” said Winter. “Bengt mentioned a few places he hadn’t gotten around to phoning, and she was in one of them.”

“What kind of places?”

Winter didn’t answer.

“Pubs? Restaurants?”

“That kind of place, yes. We found her and identified her, but the boy wasn’t with her.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Nothing that’s of any help to us at the moment,” said Winter.

Johansson showed signs of life.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“Is there someone who can keep you company for the time being?” Winter asked.

“Er, yes. My sister.”

“One of our colleagues will give you a lift home,” Winter said. “You shouldn’t be on your own.”

Johansson said nothing.

“I’d like you to go home and wait,” said Winter. “We’ll be in touch.” Maybe somebody else will be in touch as well, he thought. “Could you call Helander and Birgersson, please, Bertil?”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Ringmar. They were still in Winter’s office. Winter had tried to get in touch with Hanne Östergaard, the police vicar, but she was abroad on Christmas leave.

“A family drama of a more difficult kind,” said Winter. “The mother left the boy all alone and hoped that some kind soul from the staff would look after him. Or some other generous passerby.”

“Which might be what happened,” said Ringmar.

“It looks like it.”

“But now he’s disappeared,” said Ringmar. “Four years old.”

Winter nodded, and drew a circle with his finger on the desk in front of him, and then another circle on top of that.

“Where’s the mother now?”

“At home, with a couple of social workers. She might be on her way to Östra Hospital by now-I expect to be informed at any minute. She’d been drinking at the pub, but not all that much. She’s desperate, and very remorseful, as you’d expect.”

“As you’d expect,” said Ringmar.

“She went back after a while, she couldn’t say how long, but the boy was no longer there, and she assumed he’d been taken care of by the authorities.”

“Did she check via the emergency police number?”

“No.”

“And she never called her husband? Bengt Johansson?”

Winter shook his head.

“They are divorced,” he said. “He has custody.”

“Why did she do it?” Ringmar asked.

Winter raised both arms a bit.

“She can’t explain it,” he said. “Not at the moment, at any rate.”

“Do you believe her?” asked Ringmar.

“That she abandoned the boy? Yes. What’s the alternative?”

“Even worse,” said Ringmar.

“We have to work with all possible alternatives,” said Winter. “We need to check the father’s alibi as well. The important thing is that the child is missing. That’s what we need to concentrate on.”

“Have you been to their home? The Johanssons’? The father?”

“Yes,” said Winter. “And we’re tracking down everyone who was working at the time on that floor of the shopping center. The first.”

“So somebody might have abducted the kid?” said Ringmar.

“Yes.”

“Is this a pattern we recognize from before?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly,” said Ringmar. “But it doesn’t really fit in with the previous cases. The others.”

“It might,” said Winter. “This boy, Micke, went to a nursery school in the center of Gothenburg. Not all that far away from the others we are involved with, including mine-or Elsa’s rather.”

“And?”

“If there’s somebody stalking the day nurseries from time to time, keeping them under observation, it’s not impossible that the person concerned could follow somebody after they’ve picked up their child.”

“Why?”

“To see where they live.”

“Why?”

“Because he or she is interested in the child.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason as in the earlier cases.”