“Then I’ll ask it again: Have children been picked up by a man at playgrounds? Or simply approached? Are the police aware of any such cases?”

“I can’t answer that question at this moment for reasons connected with the case,” said Winter.

“Well, that’s a pretty clear answer, isn’t it?” The male reporter looked at Winter. He was wearing a leather jacket and had long black hair and a black mustache, and his whole body language expressed an attitude that Winter often came across in journalists, a sort of rueful arrogance that suggested that the truth wouldn’t make anybody happier, just as lies wouldn’t make people all that much unhappier. Perhaps in fact it was better to take lies with you on a journey that wasn’t anything special, and life wasn’t anything special.

“So there is a link?” the reporter persisted.

“No comment,” said Winter.

“Have children been kidnapped from day nurseries here in Gothenburg?” asked another reporter, a woman Winter didn’t recognize as an individual but was familiar with as a type.

Winter shook his head.

“What kind of cover-up is this?!” shouted a young man who seemed to have wandered into the room from a film, and with exaggerated gestures he started making his way toward the stage where Winter had hitherto been the only entertainer: “What are you trying to conceal from the public?”

“We are not concealing anything,” said Winter.

“If you’d laid your cards on the table from the start, Micke Johansson might not have been kidnapped,” said the young reporter who was now only a meter away from Winter, and looked up at him. Winter could see that the man’s eyes were bloodshot, and it might not have been only from excitement.

“Cards on the table? This is not a game of cards,” said Winter.

He also thought about the man in the checked cap who had been filming the children as they crossed the soccer field. They had good enlargements now, but he had waited before making the pictures public. Had that been a mistake? He hadn’t thought so thus far. The flood of tips would be even more overwhelming and difficult to oversee, running off in all directions. Who would be able to absorb all this, sort it, filter it? He didn’t have the resources, the staff. Perhaps he could borrow this big group of people in front of him, a onetime thing. No, he didn’t have the time to coach them.

“I declare this press conference closed,” he said, and turned his back on the big flood of questions that always comes when the event is over.

33

WINTER TRIED TO TALK TO BENGT JOHANSSON. THERE WAS A framed photograph of Micke on the desk, and also a PC.

Micke was climbing up a jungle gym with an expression on his face suggesting that he wanted to climb up, up, up. There was wind in his hair and in the trees behind him. He was wearing overalls, blue or possibly black. His tongue was visible between his narrow lips.

Johansson sat on his swivel chair swaying back and forth, back and forth as if he were merely a part of an intricate balancing system. Which is what he is, in a way, Winter thought. He’s swaying on that chair in order to keep his balance, whatever good that might do him.

Johansson had just come home from the hospital. It wasn’t easy to talk to him, but it was necessary. Now more was expected of him.

Johansson looked up.

“Is it true that this has happened before?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“That Micke isn’t the first.”

He’s forgotten, Winter thought. Repressed it.

“I told you at the hospital about another boy. Simon Waggoner. And about our suspicions regarding a man who makes contact with children.”

“Hmm.”

“I asked you if you’d seen or heard anything that you maybe didn’t think twice about at the time but which stayed in your mind. Anything suspicious.”

“Yes, yes.” He sounded very weary.

Now he has seen the newspapers. Winter saw a newspaper on the floor, folded up, or rather crunched up behind Johansson. The words of the press weigh more heavily than mine. It becomes clearer when it’s written down.

“And now I want to ask you again,” said Winter. “Has anything occurred to you?”

Open questions. He felt that to some extent he was in the same interview position as with a child. Bengt Johansson was traumatized, his own private hell had fallen in on him.

“What might that be?” asked Johansson.

“Well, for example, have you ever noticed a stranger talking to Micke? Or trying to talk to him?”

“You’ll have to ask the nursery-school staff about that.”

“We have.”

“And?”

“No. Nobody noticed anything.”

“I’m with Micke for nearly all the rest of the time,” said Johansson. “It’s him and me.” He looked up. “The one you should talk to is Car… Carolin. My ex-wife.” He looked again at the photograph. “Jesus Christ…” He buried his face in his hands. “If only I’d known, if only I’d realized. Oh, God!”

“If only you’d known what?” Winter asked.

“What she… what she intended to do.” He looked up again at Winter with his bloodshot eyes. “That she’d intended… that she wanted…” And he burst out crying. His shoulders started to shake, slightly at first, then more and more violently.

Winter stood up and walked over to him, kneeled down and embraced the man as best he could, and it was sufficient. He could feel the man’s movements echoing in his own body, his spasms, his noises close to his own face. He could feel the man’s tears on his own cheek. It’s part of the job. This is the work I’ve chosen to do. This is one of the better moments. It’s not much of a consolation, but it’s an emotion shared with a fellow human being.

Bengt Johansson gradually calmed down. Winter continued to embrace him, waist hold, half nelson, whatever-he didn’t need any macho excuse. The man snorted loudly.

Neither of them spoke. Winter could hear the sound of passing cars. There was an overhead streetlight outside, flashing at intervals through the open venetian blinds.

Johansson disentangled himself.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Winter asked, rising to his feet. “Would you like something to drink?”

Johansson nodded.

Winter went to the kitchen that was next to the bedroom they had been sitting in: Johansson’s king-size bed, the desk, the photograph of Micke.

Winter took a glass from the drain board, waited until the tap water turned cold, filled the glass, and took it in to Johansson, who drank deeply and said: “I don’t think I can cope with this.”

“I understand that you are going through hell,” said Winter.

“How can you understand? Nobody can understand.” Johansson shook his head. “How can you understand?”

Winter stroked the right side of his head with his right hand. His hair felt cool, like something that was a secure part of himself. He could see Angela’s face seconds after they had hacked their way into that horrific apartment where she’d been held captive. His thoughts when she had disappeared, his thoughts about her thoughts when she was held there. Not knowing what she had been feeling, what she had been thinking. That had been the worst part of all.

“I’ve been there,” he said.

It was Halders who took the call, via Möllerström.

“I take it you are looking for me.” It was Aryan Kaite’s voice at the other end of the line.

“That was a hell of a long piss break you took, kid,” said Halders. “Three days.”

Kaite mumbled something.

“Can you tell me where you are?” asked Halders. “Or are you still straining away somewhere?”

“I’m at Josefin’s place.” Halders heard a voice in the background. “Josefin Steinv-”

“Stay where you are,” said Halders. “I’m coming.”

“There’s some… something else as well,” said Kaite.