“This is Detective Inspector Fredrik Halders.”

Smedsberg was in Ringmar’s office in an hour. He won’t run away, Halders had said.

“Please sit down,” said Ringmar.

Smedsberg sat down on the modest visitor’s chair.

“Shouldn’t we go to another room?” said Halders.

“Oh yes, of course,” said Ringmar. “Please come this way, Gustav.”

“What’s this all about?” asked Gustav Smedsberg.

“What was that?” said Halders.

“I don’t underst-”

“Are you still sitting down?” said Halders.

“It’s only two floors down, “ said Ringmar.

Neither of the police officers spoke in the elevator. Smedsberg looked as if he were on the way to the electric chair. Either that or he’s the type who always looks worried, Halders thought.

It was not a cozy room. It was the opposite of the interview rooms set up to make a child feel secure. There was a nasty lamp on the desk and an even worse one hanging from the ceiling. There was a window, but the view of the ventilation duct was unlikely to raise anybody’s spirits. The room seemed to be fitted out for its purpose, but everything was accidental-a window in the wrong place, a ventilation duct in the wrong place.

“Please sit down,” said Ringmar.

Smedsberg sat down, but cautiously, as if he expected a different instruction from Halders, who he was looking at now. Halders gave him a friendly smile.

Ringmar switched on the tape recorder that was standing on the table. Halders was fiddling with the tripod for the video camera, which was making a humming noise, the coziest thing about the room.

“Will you be celebrating Christmas at home this year, Gustav?” asked Ringmar.

“Er… What?”

“Will you be celebrating Christmas at home on the farm, with your dad?”

“Er… No.”

“Really?”

“What difference does it make to you?” asked Smedsberg.

“It’s just standard interview technique,” said Halders, who was still next to the camera but leaning over the desk. “You start with something general and then come around to the heavy stuff.”

“Er… Hmm.”

“Why have you been threatening Aryan Kaite?” asked Ringmar.

“The heavy stuff,” said Halders, gesturing toward Ringmar.

“Er…”

“You seem to have a limited vocabulary for a student,” said Halders.

“We have been informed that you threatened Aryan Kaite,” said Ringmar.

“W… What?”

“What do you have to say to the accusation that you threatened him?”

“I haven’t threatened anybody,” said Smedsberg.

“We have been informed that you did.”

“By whom?”

“Who do you think?”

“He would never da-”

Ringmar looked at him.

“What were you going to say, Gustav?”

“Nothing.”

“What happened between you and Aryan, Gustav?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Something happened between the two of you. We want to know what. We might be able to help you.”

Smedsberg looked as if he might be smiling. Ringmar saw the smile come and go within a fraction of a second. The camera saw it. What did it mean?

“What really happened between you and Aryan, Gustav?”

“I already told you, a hundred years ago. It was a girl.”

“Josefin Stenvång,” said Halders.

“Er… Yes.”

“But that’s not all, is it?” Ringmar eyed Smedsberg. “There are other reasons as well, aren’t there?”

“I don’t know what he told you, but whatever he said, it’s wrong,” said Smedsberg.

“But you can’t know what he’s said, can you?”

“It’s wrong in any case,” said Smedsberg.

“What’s the truth, then?”

Smedsberg didn’t reply. Ringmar could see something in his face that he thought he recognized. It wasn’t relief. It was at the other end of the emotional register, the dark side.

“It will be better for you if you tell us.”

That same smile again, like a flash of cynicism, combined with the darkness in the boy’s eyes. What has he been through? Ringmar didn’t know, couldn’t begin to guess.

“Gustav,” said Ringmar, “that story you told us about how you were attacked on Mossen-it’s not true, is it?”

Smedsberg said nothing. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“You were never attacked, were you?”

“Of course I was.”

“It doesn’t matter if you change your story.”

“Of course I was,” Smedsberg said again.

And again: “Of course I was.”

Are we talking about the same thing? Ringmar thought.

“Were you attacked by your father, Gustav?” Ringmar asked.

Smedsberg didn’t answer. That was an answer in itself.

“Was it your father who attacked you at Mossen, Gustav?” Ringmar asked.

“No.”

“Did he attack you at home, Gustav?”

“It doesn’t matter what he said.”

“Who, Gustav? Who said what?”

Smedsberg didn’t answer. Ringmar could see that the kid wasn’t feeling well now, not well at all. What the hell was he concealing? Is it something that has nothing to do with this business? Something worse?

Ringmar looked at Halders, and winked.

“That story about the branding iron you told us the first time we met-you made it up, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” said Smedsberg.

“Nobody uses those things, do they?”

“Not nowadays, maybe.”

“And they’ve never used them at your farm,” said Halders.

A special look in Smedsberg’s eyes again, something different this time. Is he playing games with us? Ringmar wondered. No, it’s something different. Or it might be a game, but not his.

“What made you think of that branding iron, Gustav?”

“Because it looked like it.”

Oops, Ringmar thought.

Halders seemed to be waiting for more.

“Haven’t you been able to check it out?” asked Smedsberg.

“Check what out?” asked Halders.

“The iron, for Christ’s sake!”

“Where would we be able to do that?”

Smedsberg looked at Halders, and now there was something different in his eyes. Perhaps it was desperation now, and insecurity.

“Do I have to spell everything out for you?” he said.

“He hasn’t told us a single thing,” said Halders, as they drove past Pellerin’s Margarine Factory.

“Or everything,” said Ringmar.

“We should have grilled those other two student brats right away,” said Halders.

“You’re talking about people who have been badly assaulted,” said Ringmar. “One of them so badly that he was on the point of being a permanent invalid.”

“He’ll recover,” said Halders. “He’ll be OK.”

“Still,” said Ringmar.

“He’ll be able to play for the Blue and Whites six months from now,” said Halders. “Even if he’s still lame. Nobody would notice the difference on that team.”

“You must be getting them mixed up with Örgryte soccer club,” said Ringmar.

“I think the most important thing now is to go out there again,” said Winter from the backseat.

He watched the townscape change and eventually disappear. Forests and an endless network of lakes now. Commuter trains.

He had been poring over the transcripts of the interviews with the children and trying to conjure up a picture of the man who had talked to them, done other things. He’d searched and searched. There was something he could make use of. The man had a parrot who might be called Billy. Winter had gone back to Simon Waggoner with ten toy parrots in ten different colors, and Simon had picked out the green one.

Simon had also pointed at the red one.

The man might well have been in his forties, possibly a worn-out thirty-year-old, possibly a fit and active fifty-year-old. Winter had been talking to Aneta Djanali when Halders and Ringmar returned from interviewing Smedsberg.

“We sent him home,” Ringmar had said.

“Hmm,” said Winter.

“I think it’s the best thing for now.”

They had made up their minds to make the journey out to the flats.