Bergenhem introduced himself and Winter.

"I think he lives across the street," said the man, still chewing. "Lots of foreigners live around here." He finished chewing, and swallowed. "Far too many." He eyed Winter, who was behind Bergenhem. "What did he do?"

"Where exactly?"

"You what?"

"Can you show us exactly where he lives, please?"

"Yeah, OK. Hang on, I'll just get my sandals."

They walked through the courtyard. "Number eighteen," said the man. Two small children were playing on the swings in the sunshine. On the bench next to the swings was a woman dressed in black.

"Like I said, darkies wherever you look," said the man, indicating the children on the swing.

"Shut your trap," said Winter.

"Eh?…" said the man, stopping dead in his tracks. The children put their feet down and stopped the swings and stared at the men in front of them. "You don't talk like that around…," the man started to say.

Winter was striding toward number eighteen. Bergenhem followed him. The man turned to face him, and then Winter.

"I'll call your boss," shouted the man in the string vest.

They went inside and rang all the doorbells. About half of the occupants answered, but nobody recognized the boy's face. Bergenhem showed them the photo. Nobody had read the local newspaper.

At four apartments there was no answer.

"Hmm," said Bergenhem.

"The housing association that owns the apartments," Winter said.

"We've already talked to them."

"Check again."

They went back. Winter could see the sweat on Bergenhem's back through his shirt. They passed the tallest of the buildings.

"This is where Mattias lives," said Bergenhem. "Jeanette Bielke's exboyfriend."

"Hmm."

"That building."

"I know."

"Have you been to his place?"

"Not yet."

Winter's mobile rang.

"It wasn't consummated rape," said the male doctor who was standing in for Pia Froberg. "Anne Nöjd."

"I see," Winter said.

"Have you heard from the coroner's office?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid."

There was a short pause. Winter could hear paper rustling.

"A belt or some other thin… object," said the pathologist.

"Such as a dog leash? Could she have been strangled with a dog leash?"

"Yes. That's one possibility."

"Can you be more precise?"

"Not just yet."

They were by the sea at six-twenty. Some Swedes were on their way home to their barbecues. The new Swedes were carrying their barbecues down to the shore.

"We'll bring a throwaway grill with us tomorrow," Angela said. "You can get them at gas stations." She was undressing Elsa. "I can't resist the wonderful smell of their grub any longer." She was watching two women dressed in black who were starting to cook dinner on the beach.

"I'm all for that," said Winter, lifting up Elsa, who screamed and giggled as he swung her up and down and carried her down to the water's edge, which was receding as dusk approached.

Elsa was sitting on his shoulders when they waded in. He squatted down and let her feel the lukewarm water. There were too many jellyfish, but the water was ideal. He lifted Elsa up, held her around her hips, and spun around and around. Light dazzled. The horizon disappeared. He stopped, feeling how dizzy he was. When it eased he realized that there was something nagging in his mind. He searched for what it was as Elsa wriggled in his arms.

It was something he'd heard and seen, just as bright and dazzling as when he'd been spinning around. One second, two. He'd seen it. Seen it.

He heard voices and looked down. Two teenaged girls were asking if they could hold Elsa.

"Ask her," he said.

She said they could.

Everything was darker as they drove home. He picked Elsa up-she was in too deep a slumber to awaken.

Angela served white wine. They sat in the kitchen, listening to the evening.

"You need a vacation," she said.

"Two weeks to go."

"Can you really go on leave if you haven't solved this case? Cases."

"Yes."

"Really?"

"It could be just as well. For the sake of the investigation."

"I don't believe that for a minute."

"Would you believe it, gone already." He gazed at his empty glass.

"I'll get the bottle."

She filled him up, and he took another sip.

"A penny for your thoughts, Erik."

"Right now?"

"When else?"

"What a marvelous evening it is."

"One in a thousand." She looked at him. "You were thinking about something else, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"You didn't look pleased."

He took another sip, and put down his glass.

"I was thinking about the murders, of course. The girls." He turned to face her.

"You can't just turn off. Can you?"

"No. I don't think so. They're wrong, the ones who say that you can," he said. "OK, you can turn it off for a while, do something else. But then it comes back."

She nodded.

"Tonight two teenage girls wanted to hold Elsa. That's when it came back. Lots of images."

"You looked unusually far away when you came out of the water."

"Something hit me."

"May I ask what?"

"I can't quite put my finger on it. It hit me that I knew something… new. I think. Something important."

Winter called Halders. He'd just gotten up and was sitting on the balcony. Invisible birds were singing from a sky where two jets had painted a cross.

"I'll see what I can do," Halders said.

"How are things?"

"It's hot already."

"How's it going?"

"I said I'll see what I can do, didn't I?"

"OK, OK."

Halders looked up and saw a new cross. The old one had already melted into the sky.

"As you can hear, there's still a bit of the grumpy old Halders left," he said.

"There's hope yet, then."

"I'll be coming in shortly," Halders said.

"We'll try to find the flat where one missing boy lives in the meantime."

"You'll have to do that, at least." Halders paused. "I'll pay a visit there later."

He took the road alongside the river. The white pleasure boats twinkled on the water like sparklers. The asphalt felt soft under the tires. It smelled like a different country. Julie Miller was singing "Out in the Rain" on Halders's CD player. Halders turned up the volume and sang his way through his journey westward as the sun punched at the roof of his car.

As he turned off the roundabout the silencer on his exhaust suddenly gave way. People turned their heads to stare at him.

The high-rise buildings in Frolunda swayed like drunks in the thin air. He parked outside one of them, diagonally opposite McDonald's.

The elevator didn't work. He took the stairs up to the sixth floor. There was graffiti all over the walls, letters on cracked concrete. Stains everywhere, like black blood. A smell of piss and cooking had solidified in the stairwell between floors. Children screamed through closed doors, grownups shouted in a thousand different languages. He passed a man in a turban, a woman behind a veil, a man in a vest who passed by hugging the wall. He could see the madness in the man's eyes.

A door opened on the fifth floor and a young woman emerged with a double stroller containing two small children, who looked up at him in silence. The woman pressed the elevator button. "It's not working," Halders said. She pressed again. "I have to go and buy food," she said.