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  'No.' Bergenhem repeated Winter's word, knowing where he was heading.

  'If this hypothetical reasoning leads us to wonder what he wanted to hide, it might have to do with his orientation,' Winter said.

  'Yes,' Bergenhem agreed.

  'So what is he trying to hide from us?' Winter inhaled again and looked at Bergenhem.

  'That he's gay,' said Bergenhem. 'He made some kind of contact, this false newspaper boy responded positively, maybe they were heading for Smedsberg's room, and all hell was let loose on the way there.'

  'But we're living in the twentieth century in an enlightened society,' Winter said. 'Or in the twenty-first, to be precise. And isn't it a bit odd for a young man to want to conceal his orientation to the extent of shielding a person who tried to murder him?'

  Bergenhem shrugged.

  'Well, isn't it?' asked Winter again.

  'We'll have to ask him,' said Bergenhem.

  'We shall. Why not? It would explain a great deal.'

  'One other thing,' Bergenhem said.

  'Yes?'

  'It's connected.' Bergenhem looked at Winter. 'Where are the newspapers?'

  'Yes.'

  'He was carrying a bundle of papers, but not a single subscriber received one and we haven't found any.'

  'We haven't looked,' Winter said. 'We've assumed that the papers were delivered.'

  'That's true, of course.'

  'They might be around there somewhere. A pile of them. It would be useful if we could find them, wouldn't it?'

  'Yes.'

  'But when we spoke to the newspaper delivery people, we'd taken Smedsberg's word for it that he'd seen a newspaper boy at that particular time.' Winter scratched his nose. 'Why do we believe that if we've had reservations about other parts of his story?'

  'So we need to find other witnesses who saw a fake newspaper boy at that place and at that time,' said Bergenhem.

  'Yes, and we've already started on that.'

  Bergenhem stroked his hand across his forehead, from left to right. His four-year-old daughter had already acquired the same habit.

  'This line of reasoning could throw new light on the other attacks,' he said.

  'Or cast a shadow over them,' Winter said. 'Maybe we should soft-pedal a bit, not get ahead of ourselves.'

  Pedal, he thought the moment he'd said it. A bicycle. Perhaps the attacker had ridden up on a bike. That would explain the speed, the surprise. A silent bike. Soft tyres.

  'But just think,' Bergenhem continued, 'four attacks, no witnesses to the actual violence, no trace of the attacker. The victims didn't see or hear anything, or not much at least.'

  'Go on,' Winter said.

  'Well, maybe they all made contact with the person who clubbed them down.'

  'How? Did he pose as a newspaper boy every time?'

  'I don't know. Perhaps he posed as something else, somebody else, so as not to scare them.'

  'Yes.'

  'Have we checked this newspaper boy business in connection with the other cases?' Bergenhem asked.

  'No. We haven't got that far yet,' said Winter.

  'It would be worth following up,' Bergenhem said. 'We haven't asked the people living in the areas concerned about newspapers.'

  Yes, Winter thought. You don't get answers to unasked questions.

  'And then,' Bergenhem said, 'there's the business of the other victims' orientation.'

  'All gay?'

  Bergenhem made a gesture: could-be-a-possibility-but- how-do-I-know.

  'Young gays who spotted an interesting possibility and paid dearly for it?' asked Winter.

  'Could be,' Bergenhem said.

  'So they fell victim to a gay-basher? Or several? A gay-hater?'

  'It's possible,' said Bergenhem. 'And I think there's just one attacker.'

  'And what's the orientation of this man of violence?' Winter asked.

  'He's not gay himself,' Bergenhem replied.

  'Why not?'

  'I don't know,' said Bergenhem. 'It doesn't feel right.'

  'Are gays non-violent?'

  'Gay-bashers aren't homosexual, surely?' said Bergenhem. 'Is there such a thing as a gay gay-basher?'

  Winter didn't respond.

  'This attacker isn't gay,' said Bergenhem. 'I know we can't rule anything out, but I already have a very strong feeling that it isn't the case here.'

  Winter waited for Bergenhem to say more.

  'Mind you, it's too early to think anything about anything,' Bergenhem said.

  'Not at all,' said Winter. 'This is the way we make progress. Talking it over. Dialogue. We have just talked ourselves into a possible motive.'

  'And that is?'

  'Hatred,' said Winter.

  Bergenhem nodded.

  'Let's assume for the moment that these four young men don't know one another,' said Winter. 'They have no common background, nothing like that. But they are linked by their sexual orientation.'

  'And the attacker hates gays,' said Bergenhem.

  Winter nodded.

  'But how did he know that his victims were gay? How could he be so sure?'

  'He didn't need long,' said Winter. 'Only long enough to be invited home with them.'

  'I don't know . . .'

  'You were the one who started this line of reasoning,' Winter said.

  'Was I?'

  'Yes.'

  'OK. But perhaps the attacker knew all four of them.'

  'How could he?'

  'It could in fact be that he has the same predilections. Maybe they knew each other from some club. The Let's All Be Gay Club, I don't know. A pub. Confidential contacts. In any case, it developed into a drama of passion.'

  'With quite a lot of people involved,' Winter said.

  'There could be more yet,' said Bergenhem.

  Winter scratched his nose again. It was possible that they were on entirely the wrong track. There again, they might have made progress. But this was only a conversation, only words. Words were still the most important tools in existence, but everything they'd been talking about now needed to be followed up with questions and more questions and actions and visits to streets and staircases and new interviews and telephone interviews and reading after reading after reading after run-through after run-through.

  'There's another question as well,' said Winter, 'and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.'

  'What's that?'

  'If there really was a fake newspaper boy there, if we can get Smedsberg's claim corroborated by others, how could this person have known that he would be able to operate that morning undisturbed?'

  Bergenhem nodded.

  'He must have known the real one was indisposed, surely? Otherwise the real one and the fake one might have bumped into each other. But she didn't turn up. How could he have known that?'

  8

  Ringmar was standing by the window, looking out at his November lawn that no longer needed mowing; he was grateful for that. It was large, and lit up by the lantern over the front door of his house and the street lights on the other side of the hedge.

  The rain falling on to the garden covered it like a shroud. Wind was whistling through the three maples whose crowns he had watched developing over the twenty years they had lived in the house. For twenty years he had been able to stand by this same window watching the grass grow, or resting, as now. Luckily enough, he'd had other things to do. But still. He was thirty-four when they'd bought the place. Even younger than Winter. Ringmar took a swig of the beer glittering in its thin glass. Younger than Winter. For a while, quite a long while, before even Winter grew older, that had been a set expression in the Gothenburg CID, even the whole force, in fact. Nobody was younger than Erik. A bit like the slogan 'Cooler than Borg', which he'd seen in one of the news sheets when he'd been a UN police officer in the buffer zone in Cyprus aeons ago. That was before Moa's time, even before Birgitta's time. Before Martin's time.

  He took another drink, listened to the wind and thought about his so
n. Strange how things could turn out. His twenty-five-year-old daughter lived at home with them, temporarily; but it could take some time for her to find a new flat. His twenty-seven-year-old son hadn't even sent them his current address. Martin could be in a buffer zone, for all he knew. Aboard a ship on the other side of the world. Propping up a bar round the corner in Vasastan. Gothenburg was big enough for him to hide himself away if he wanted to. If nobody looked for him. And Ringmar didn't look for him. No active search for a son he'd heard nothing from for almost a year. No looking for somebody who didn't want to be found. Moa knew that the little brat was alive, but that was all.

  But he did search for him inwardly instead, tried to work out why.

  Surely he'd been fair to the lad? Tried to be there when he was needed. Was it because of his damned job, when it came down to it? His peculiar working hours? The traces of post-traumatic stress that were not always just traces?

  The memory of a dead child's body wasn't something you could rinse off in the shower the same night. The little face, the gentle features that could no longer really be made out. Younger than anything else, and that was the way it would always be. Finished, finished for ever.

  Ringmar emptied his glass. I'm rambling, he thought. But the children have been the worst.

  Now I'm longing for a conversation with my only son.

  The telephone on the wall by the kitchen door rang. At the same time a little flock of small birds took off from the lawn, as if frightened by the noise.

  Ringmar walked over to the telephone, putting his glass down on the work surface, and lifted the receiver.

  'Hello, Bertil speaking.'

  'Hi, Erik here.'

  'Good evening, Erik.'

  'What are you doing?'

  'Watching the lawn resting. Drinking a Bohemian pilsner.'

  'Do you think you could have a word with Moa?' Winter asked.

  'What are you talking about, Dad?'

  'To tell you the truth, I don't really know.'

  'This isn't something you've thought up yourself.'

  'Not in that way,' he said.

  He was sitting in the armchair in her room that had been there as long as the room had been hers. Twenty years. She usually sat by the window, looking at the lawn, just like her father.

  'Not in that way?' she said from her bed. 'What does that mean?'

  'To tell you the truth, I don't really know,' he said again, with a smile.

  'But somebody has dreamt up the suspicion that Jakob Stillman is gay, is that it?'

  'I don't know that I'd use the word "suspicion".'

  'Call it whatever you like. I'm just wondering what all this is about.'

  'It's about this job I have, among other things,' said Ringmar, shifting his position in the puffy armchair that was starting to sag after all these years. A bit like me, he thought. 'We're testing various theories. Or hypotheses.'

  'Well this one is way off the mark,' she said.

  'Really?' he said.

  'Completely wrong.'

  'But you've said you don't know him,' Ringmar said.

  'He has a girlfriend. Vanna. I sent her to see you, if I'm not completely mistaken.'

  'You're not mistaken.'

  'Well then.'

  'Sometimes it's not as straightforward as that.'

  She didn't respond.

  'Well?' he said.

  'What would it mean, anyway?' she asked. 'If he did turn out to be gay?'

  'To tell you the truth, I don't really know,' Ringmar said.

  'What exactly do we know?' asked Sture Birgersson, who was just about to light a new John Silver from the stub of his old one. The head of CID was standing in his usual place, in front of the window, behind his desk.

  'I thought you'd given up?' Winter said.

  'My lungs feel better,' Birgersson said, inhaling. 'I thought I'd better make a new resolution.'

  'A healthy approach,' said Winter.

  'Yes, glad you think so.' Birgersson held the cigarette in front of him, as if it were a little carrot. 'But we have other questions to consider here, methinks.'

  'You've read the notes,' said Winter.

  'Do you need more people?'

  'Yes.'

  'There aren't any more.'

  'Thank you.'

  'If things get worse, I might be able to dig out a few more,' said Birgersson.

  'How can things get any worse?'

  'Another victim, for Christ's sake. Perhaps one who dies.'

  'We could easily have had four dead bodies,' said Winter.

  'Hmm.' Birgersson lit his cigarette using the glowing butt. 'Bad, but not bad enough.'

  'Four murders,' said Winter. 'That would be a record, for me at least.'

  'And for me.' Birgersson walked round his desk. Winter could smell the tobacco. As if the old tobacco factory down by the river had come back to life. 'But you're right. It's nasty. What we're landed with might be a serial killer who hasn't actually killed.'

  'Assuming it's the same person.'

  'Don't you think it is?'

  'Yes, I suppose I do,' said Winter.

  Birgersson leaned backwards and picked up three pieces of paper from his desk. Apart from them, it was empty, clear, shiny. There's something compulsive about him, Winter thought, as he always did when he was standing there, or sitting, as he was at the moment.

  Birgersson read the documents again, then looked up.

  'I wonder if this gay theory is valid,' he said.

  'It's only you, me, Lars and Bertil that know about it,' said Winter.

  'That's probably just as well.'

  'You've taught me to investigate through a bifocal lens.'

  'Have I really? That was pretty well put.' Birgersson stroked his chin. He looked Winter in the eye, possibly with just a trace of a smile. 'Can you remind me what I meant by it?'

  'Being able to look down and also forwards at the same time. In this case, investigating several motives in parallel.'

  'Hmm.'

  'It's obvious really,' said Winter.