“I’ve also got some news,” said Winter, and summed up his Christmas Eve night in one minute flat. They were approaching Backaplan. He turned right, then left. He could feel the adrenaline pumping through his body, creating a heat that cooled him down.

“It could be coincidence,” said Ringmar. “He just happens to stutter like others do, and has a bird like others do.”

“No, no, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

“We need to take a look at where he lives no matter what,” said Winter and parked. He could see the discreet blue light on his colleagues’ car illuminating the sky over the residential area where Jerner lived in one of the three-story apartment blocks. It looked almost like a new day.

The Hisingen police were waiting outside the building. They had switched off the blue light now. Their squad car was covered in dirt, as if they’d had to cross a muddy field in order to get there.

“We weren’t sure if the flat was in A or B,” said one of the inspectors, gesturing toward the entrance doors.

“Has anybody entered or left?” asked Winter.

“Not since we arrived, ten minutes ago.”

Another car arrived and parked in the parking lot opposite the buildings. A man got out, carrying a small case.

“The locksmith,” said Winter, gesturing in his direction. “That was quick.”

The smith opened the front door for them. Jerner lived on the second floor, the door on the right. Winter rang the bell and heard the ringing inside the apartment. He drummed with his fingers on the yellow tiled wall that resembled the corridors at police headquarters. The echo died down and he rang again. There was a scraping noise behind the door opposite. The neighbor was evidently watching them through the peephole.

“Open the door,” he said to the locksmith.

“Is there anybody in there?” asked the locksmith.

“I don’t know,” said Winter.

The locksmith looked scared, but he had the door open within twenty seconds. After the click he practically leaped to one side. Winter opened the door with his gloved hand. He crossed the threshold with Ringmar close behind him. The two uniformed officers waited on the landing. Winter had asked the locksmith to wait as well.

The hall was lit up by streetlights shining into a room at the far end. Street lighting was slowly beginning to mix with the faint light of dawn. Winter saw an open door and the corner of a sofa.

“I’m going to switch on the light,” he said.

He could see Bertil blinking. The light seemed very bright.

There were shoes scattered all over the floor, items of clothing. There was something at his feet and he bent down and saw that it was a length of cord, frayed at one end.

He stepped over a man’s boot. Ringmar went into the room at the end of the hall, and switched on a light. Winter joined him and stopped dead to stare up at the ceiling that Ringmar was also staring at. There was no other possible reaction.

“What the hell…” said Ringmar.

The ceiling was split into two. On the left it was black with bright yellow stars some fifteen centimeters in diameter. On the right was a blue sky.

The sofa was red and there were several video cassettes on the table, which was low and wide. There was a television set to the left and a VCR on top of it.

Things were scattered over the wrinkled carpet. Winter squatted down again. He could see a toy car, a green ball, a watch.

He was prepared for this. Ringmar wasn’t.

“Jesus,” said Ringmar. “It’s him. It is him.”

Winter stood up straight again. He was aching all over; it felt as if he’d broken every bone in his body during the last twenty-four hours.

They moved quickly through the apartment. The bed was a mess. There were newspapers on the floor. There were remains of food on the table, butter, bread. On the floor next to the sofa was a plastic cup with a spoon in it. Inside the cup were remains of food, something yellow.

There was a little sock half a meter from the cup.

Winter bent down over a cushion on the sofa and thought he could see small, fine strands of hair.

An unpleasant smell pervaded the flat, a most unpleasant smell.

“He’s not here,” said Ringmar, emerging from the bathroom. “The boy’s not here.”

Good for you, thinking first and foremost about the boy, Winter thought.

They examined all the closets, every nook and cranny, looked underneath everything, looked up as well.

In the bedroom Winter found a thin cord tied to one of the bedposts. There were red stains on the cord. He leaned over the bed and saw a green parrot hanging with its beak pointing toward the wall. It was no bigger than the stars in the sky.

“Did he leave without taking that with him?” asked Ringmar, peering from behind Winter.

“He doesn’t need it anymore,” said Winter.

“What does that mean?”

“You’d rather not know, Bertil.” Winter took his mobile from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “And I’d rather not tell you.” He almost dropped it. Suddenly, he was no longer in full control of his movements. “Jerner has a car. We’d better see if it’s parked outside.”

He rang for all the reinforcements available.

They were still alone in the apartment some minutes later. Winter had phoned Bengt Johansson and then Hans Bülow. They were now faced with a hunt.

There was water on the bathroom floor, and on the drain board in the kitchen. Jerner wasn’t on the other side of the world. Micke wasn’t far away.

Winter had gone out and checked the parking lot, but there was no point. Within the next half hour everybody in this building would be telling the police everything they knew and had seen.

“Didn’t anybody react to the fact that he had a little boy in his apartment?” Ringmar wondered.

“Did anybody see?” asked Winter. “He might have waited until it got dark and then carried the boy up.”

“But later?”

“They never went out.”

Ringmar turned away. Winter stood in the middle of the room. He contemplated the video cassettes in their black cases. He went to the table and lifted them up, one after another. There were no markings, no text.

He looked around. There was a shelf of cassettes on the right, most of them marked. Videos he’d bought. He knew that pedophiles copied their films onto innocent thrillers or comedies. Winter had sat watching films containing everything possible under the sun-at any moment an entirely different sequence could appear, a child who… who…

But he didn’t need to do that now.

Pedophile. If Jerner wasn’t a pedophile, what was he? Winter wasn’t sure.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a camera in here, Bertil?” he said, waving a cassette at Ringmar.

“No.”

There was no cassette in the VCR. Winter picked an unmarked cassette at random, put it into the player, found the video channel, and started the tape. Ringmar came to stand beside him. They waited while the initial blurred images and buzzing passed.

The picture suddenly jumped onto the screen, unexpectedly sharp.

Trees, bushes, grass, a soccer field. Children in a long line. Adults at both ends and in the middle. A woman’s face that Winter recognized. Another of the women was pointing a camera in various directions. The sound was vague, streaky.

The woman suddenly started to grow as the zoom came into play. Her camera was directed at Winter as he stood beside Ringmar in this disgusting room.

We had him, Winter thought.

I had him, I talked to him. Micke was here while he was with me. It was only half a day ago. One night. But I didn’t see.

Jerner had stood exactly where Winter was standing now and seen the camera pointing at him. What had he thought? Did he care? Did he think the video camera and the cap would protect him?