“I can’t explain it,” she said.

“I understand what you’re saying.”

“Yes.”

“Of course, you should stay here over Christmas,” he said again.

“Let me think about it,” she said. “Maybe it’s best for all concerned if we go to Spain, Elsa and I.”

Five days, he thought out of the blue. It’ll be all over in five days. It’ll be over by Boxing Day.

He knew already that wasn’t going to be something to look forward to. Regardless of what happened, he knew there was something dreadful in store after the Christmas holiday. Or during it. He knew that he would be surprised, find questions and answers that he hadn’t formulated. He would be left with unanswered questions. See sudden openings that had previously been welded together. And new walls. But he would be on the way all the time, really on the way, and this moment at this table would be the last bit of peace he would have. When would he be able to return here, to this? To peace?

“Will you marry me, Angela?” he asked.

The telephone rang the moment he plugged it in again. It had just turned midnight. Nothing new on his mobile, and nobody had that number unless he’d given it to them personally. Hans Bülow wasn’t among those.

“What’s going on, Erik?” asked Bülow.

“What do you want to know?”

“You’ve sent out an appeal for information about a four-year-old boy called Micke Johansson?”

“That’s correct.”

“What happened?”

“We don’t know. The boy is missing.”

“In Nordstan? In the middle of the Christmas rush?”

“That’s precisely where and when such things happen.”

“Has it happened several times, then?” asked Bülow.

“I meant in general. Children get lost when there are lots of people around.”

“But this one hasn’t come back?”

“No.”

“It’s been almost a full day.”

Winter said nothing. Bülow and his colleagues could follow the hands on a clock just as well as he could.

Angela moved in bed. He went quickly out into the kitchen and picked up the receiver of the wall telephone. The reporter was still there.

“So somebody kidnapped the boy?” said Bülow.

“I wouldn’t use that term.”

“What term would you use?”

“We don’t know yet what happened,” said Winter again.

“Are you looking for the boy?” asked Bülow.

“What do you think?”

“So he disappeared.” Winter could hear voices in the background. Somebody laughed. They should be crying, he thought. “It sounds like a very serious business,” said Bülow.

“I agree,” said Winter.

“And then there was the abuse of that English boy.” Winter could hear the rustling of paper near Bülow’s telephone. “Waggoner. Simon Waggoner. He was evidently kidnapped as well and mistreated and abandoned.”

“No comment,” said Winter.

“Come on, Erik. I’ve helped you before. You ought to know by now, after all the contact you’ve had with the media, that facts are better than rumors.”

Winter couldn’t help laughing.

“Was that an ironic laugh?” asked Bülow.

“What makes you think that?”

“You know I’m right.”

“The statement is true but the messenger is false,” said Winter. “I deal in facts, you deal in rumors.”

“That’s what can happen when we don’t get any facts to work with,” said Bülow.

“Don’t work, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t write anything until you know what you’re writing about.”

“Is that how you work?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you sit around doing nothing until you get a little piece of the jigsaw?”

“I wouldn’t find a little piece of the jigsaw if I sat around doing nothing,” said Winter.

“Which brings us back to the point of this conversation,” said Bülow, “because I’m also doing something to find a little piece of the jigsaw that I can write about.”

“Ask me again tomorrow evening,” said Winter.

“I have to write about this now,” said Bülow, “tonight. Even you must understand that.”

“Hmm.”

“We’ve already got facts in connection with the Waggoner case.”

“Why are you waiting to publish them, then?” asked Winter.

Winter could hear that Bülow was hesitating before answering. Was he going to say “no comment”?

“We’ve only just gotten hold of them,” said the reporter. “In connection with the appeal for information about the other boy.”

“Oh.”

“Can you see a connection, Erik?”

“If I say yes, and you write that, it’s hard to see what the consequences would be,” said Winter.

“Nobody here is going to create panic,” said Bülow.

Winter was about to burst out laughing again.

“What creates panic is the indiscriminate spreading of unconfirmed rumors, and I’m looking for facts,” said Bülow.

“Haven’t we had a conversation about that very topic before?” said Winter.

“Is there a connection?” asked Bülow again.

“I don’t know, Hans. I’m being completely honest with you. I might know more tomorrow or the day after.”

“That’s Christmas Eve.”

“And?”

“Will you be working on Christmas Eve?” asked Bülow.

“Will you?”

“That depends. On you, among other things.” Winter heard voices in the background again. It sounded as if somebody was asking Bülow a question. He said something Winter couldn’t hear and resumed the conversation. “So you don’t want to say anything about a link?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t raise that question just now, Hans. It could make a mess of a lot of things. Do you follow me?”

“I don’t know. I’d be doing you yet another favor in that case. Besides, I’m not the one who makes all the decisions here,” said Bülow.

“You’re a good man. You understand.”

The alarm clock woke him up from a dream in which he had rolled a snowball that grew to the size of a house, and kept on rolling. An airplane had passed overhead, and he’d been sitting on top of the snowball and waved to Elsa, who had waved back jerkily from her window seat. He hadn’t seen Angela. He had heard music he’d never heard before. He’d looked down and seen children trying to make an enormous snowball, but nothing had moved, not even Elsa’s hand as the airplane had passed by and vanished into a sky, where all the colors he’d seen earlier had been mixed together to form gray. He’d thought about the fact that when all those brilliant colors were mixed, the result was simply gray-and then he’d woken up.

Angela was already in the kitchen.

“The snow’s gone,” she said. “As you predicted.”

“There’ll be more.”

“Not where we’ll be.”

“So you’ve made up your mind?”

“I want some sun.” She looked at Winter, held up one of her bare arms. “I damn well want a bit of sun on this pale skin. And a bit of sun in my head.”

“I’ll join you on Boxing Day.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Or the day after.”

“Should we stay there over New Year’s?”

“At least.”

“Have you spoken to Siv?”

“I’ll call her now. I wanted to be certain what you were going to do.”

She leaned over the table. There was a teacup in front of her, the radio was mumbling in a corner, words full of facts.

“Erik? Were you serious last night? Or were you just prepared to do anything at all in order to be allowed to stay at home and spend Christmas on your own, thinking to your heart’s content?”

“I was as serious as it’s possible to be.”

“I’m not sure how to interpret that.”

“Give me a date. I’m fed up with calling you my partner or my fiancée,” he said.

“I haven’t said yes yet,” she said.

Winter’s mobile rang as he was shaving. Angela handed it to him.

“That cap has popped up again,” said Ringmar.