“Why Sweden in particular?” Macdonald asked.

“Why not?”

“Did he have any special reason?” Macdonald heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Karen had walked in with the afternoon tea. He could smell warm scones. “Was there some reason for picking Sweden?” he repeated.

“No, except that he had a pen pal in Gothenburg a long time ago,” Karen said, sitting down next to Winston. She laid out cups and little side plates.

“That’s why he went,” Winston said.

“How did he find out about the program?”

“Through his school here,” Karen said.

“Geoff always wanted to be an engineer, and the curriculum appealed to him. The school had an English name. Chandlers or something like that.”

“Chalmers,” Karen corrected him.

“Chalmers.”

Karen turned to Macdonald. “He received a letter too.”

“From Chalmers?”

“No. Somebody wrote to him from Gothenburg, and that seemed to convince him that he should apply.”

Macdonald could tell how hard it was for her to string so many words together all at once. “A personal letter?” he asked.

“What other kind is there?”

“Was it from his old pen pal?”

“We never found out,” Karen said.

“He kept it to himself,” Winston said, “which was perfectly understandable, but he didn’t want to say who it was from either.”

“Just that he had gotten a letter,” added Karen.

“From Sweden?” Macdonald asked.

“Gothenburg,” Winston answered.

Macdonald heard another train in the distance. The strident sound gradually filled up the house. “And he didn’t mention anything about the letter after he got there and moved into the dorm?”

“Not a word,” Winston said.

“Did he say who else he met there?”

“No.”

“Not anybody?”

“He was killed just a few days later, for God’s sake,” Winston shouted. His gaze turned malevolent. Suddenly he slumped to the floor and lay there facedown. “Get out,” he said, his voice muffled by the carpet.

Karen looked at Macdonald as if apologizing for their grief.

They’ve got no reason to apologize, Macdonald thought. I’m the intruder here.

He said good-bye and went out into the late-afternoon sunlight. Tattered clouds hovered in the western sky. Another hour and it would be completely dark. He turned on the ignition, made a U-turn and drove up to Station Rise, parking at the little depot where the trains took aim at the Hilliers and their anguish. The spot was barely legal, but he went into the Railway Pub anyway, ordered a Young’s Winter Warmer and waited for the foam to evaporate, but not a second longer.

THE MORE THE CORE GROUP SHRANK, THE HIGHER THE STACKS of paper seemed to grow. Cartons and file folders filled up with bizarre evidence-hair, skin, a piece of a fingernail, impressions, marks, bits of clothing, photos that showed the same scene over and over from different angles, a watchcase echoing the cries for help that Winter had heard the last time he was in the room.

Winter had talked to Pia Fröberg, and she didn’t think that all the blows had come at once. She was a top-notch coroner, meticulous. Now, with the remainder of his team gathered in the conference room, he took out a scrap of paper with his notes on it. Geoff Hillier had died of suffocation. The details of his long agony were familiar to everyone in the room.

“How long did it go on?” Fredrik Halders asked. The detective inspector had just turned forty-four. He had stopped combing his hair over his bald spot the year before and left the rest in a crew cut, which had relieved him of the need to smile awkwardly every time someone spoke to him.

“It was a long performance,” Winter said.

“No intermissions?”

“Quite a few,” Ringmar said.

“The first and last wounds were three or four hours apart,” Winter explained. “That’s the best estimate they can come up with.”

“Fucking sadist,” Bergenhem said.

“Yes,” Ringmar said.

“Geoff ’s upper arms were uninjured,” Möllerström said.

“That’s where the bruises are,” Djanali said.

“He must be a strong son of a bitch,” Halders said. “How much did Geoff weigh?”

“Close to a hundred and eighty,” Möllerström answered. “And he was six foot one, so dragging him around was no easy task.”

“If that’s what he did,” Djanali said.

“That’s what he did,” Ringmar said.

“Something like it anyway,” Möllerström said.

“Size ten-and-a-half footprints spinning around the room,” Bergenhem said.

“The only place where he could get hold of him,” Halders said.

“You didn’t have to explain that,” Djanali scoffed.

“Worn-down heels, but with a distinct pattern on the edge,” Möllerström continued.

Winter had asked the group to keep talking. It was a kind of inner monologue turned up for everyone else to hear. Details, thoughts, analyses, day in and day out, new stuff and old, the latest evidence. Don’t hold anything back, let everyone know. They whittled the facts down until the edges took shape and they could start putting it all together.

“How did he manage to sneak out?” Bergenhem asked.

“He changed while he was still there,” Winter answered.

“Even so,” Bergenhem said.

“He bided his time,” Winter said.

“There was a bathroom in there,” Djanali pointed out.

“But still,” Bergenhem said.

“He might have run into two or three people on the way out,” Ringmar offered.

“I’ve been reading some background material,” Winter cut in, “and it seems like everyone looked the other way. Students don’t want to stick their noses into other people’s business these days.”

“It was different back in my time,” Halders mused.

“You went to college?” Djanali asked, her eyes wide open.

Halders sighed.

“Then there are those marks on the floor,” Möllerström continued.

“I don’t understand how they can know for sure that it was a tripod,” Halders said.

“That’s why you’re here and they’re there,” Djanali said.

Halders sighed again. “A damn tripod.”

A damn tripod, Winter thought. It didn’t have to mean anything. When they had finished interviewing all the potential witnesses, knocked on a thousand doors, entered all known psychopaths in the database, recorded everybody’s comings and goings down to the last detail, completed the inquiry into the victim’s background, examined and compared the particles found at the scene of the crime, made a million phone… “Have we traced all the calls that were made from the phone in the hallway of the dorm?” he asked.

“We’re working on it,” Ringmar said.

“I want a list.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll take care of it. How about the Malmströms?”

Winter thought for a minute. “Yes, all the calls from their house too.” The tripod. What was attached to the top of it? he wondered. And what had happened to the device after the murder? That’s what would tell them all they needed to know. A videotape somewhere. Or several, or one with different segments, or…

“We’ve got witnesses from the Brunnsparken area,” Möllerström said.

“Have you finished going around the neighborhood a second time?” Bergenhem asked.

“Almost,” Ringmar answered.

“I want a report of everything the neighbors have to say by tomorrow morning,” Winter ordered. “Something doesn’t jibe here.”

“I have something I want to show you,” the man had said offhandedly, taking the items out of his duffel bag as they stood in front of Jamie’s building. Then he had continued along Drottninggatan Street, and Jamie had gone to work.

Now he rang the doorbell just as Jamie was stepping out of the shower.

The anticipation was almost too much to bear. A thrill of expectation rippled down Jamie’s back as the warmth slowly filled his groin. It was a pleasant feeling. This could be for real.