The taxi slowed down and weaved its way over to the right lane toward the exit. Winter heard a rumble behind them and turned around. The airport bus had caught up, apparently poised to zip into the priority lane a hundred yards ahead.

“It’s a tough time for them,” Winter said.

“What did you say?”

“They’ve got a lot to work through before they can come to terms with Per’s death.”

“Fucking idiot!” the taxi driver screamed. His eyes, which had suddenly turned wild, snapped to the rearview mirror. The bus had screeched to a halt a few inches behind them. “Those assholes are out of their minds,” he said to Winter’s reflection. “They drive like there’s no tomorrow.”

Winter put his hand over the phone. “They’ve got a schedule to keep.”

The driver snorted.

“What did you say?” his mother asked.

“Nothing.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’re at the airport now.”

“Don’t forget to call your sister.”

“I promise. Bye, Mom.”

“Watch out in Lond…”

But he had already lowered the phone and hung up.

At check-in, a murmur of expectancy ran through the long line to Winter’s right; the Canary Islands were a popular destination. Handing his ticket and passport to the attendant, he requested an aisle seat, in an exit row if possible to leave more room for his long legs.

While the attendant prepared his boarding pass, he thought about all the passenger lists his team had received. It was a thankless task, trying to keep track of everybody who had flown from Gothenburg to London the past two months, mainly for the purpose of having something to shove in the face of the reporters and police honchos demanding signs of progress. When we’ve got three thousand more officers and two extra years to work on the case, he thought, we’ll go through all the lists and hope that nobody was traveling under a false name.

Was Macdonald’s group in the same predicament-staring at a pile of passenger lists, never knowing what they might show? After receiving his boarding pass, Winter watched his suitcase bounce away on the conveyor belt. He smiled at the attendant, then walked upstairs to security.

Djanali could see her breath. The cold shadows under the apartment building smarted after the sunshine at the end of the street.

“You’re not so used to this kind of thing, are you?” Halders asked.

“What do you mean?”

“All this cold. It must come as quite a shock to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They call it snow.” He snatched imaginary flakes out of the air.

“You don’t say.”

“They’ve never seen it back where you come from, right?”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“But I want to hear you say it.”

Halders watched his breath drift away, turned his head and looked down at Djanali’s face. “ Ouagadougou.”

“Excuse me?”

“ Ouagadougou, the place you come from.”

“Okay.”

“The capital of Burkina Faso.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Formerly known as Upper Volta.”

“Never heard of it.”

“ Burkina Faso,” he repeated.

“Is it anywhere near East Hospital in Gothenburg, where I was born?”

“The Ouagadougou branch.”

They both burst out laughing.

They opened a gate just down the street from the scene of the murder. It was their second round of the neighborhood, and they were looking for people who hadn’t been home before or had failed to return their calls. A little walkway ran from the entrance to the stairs that led up to Jamie’s apartment.

The late-morning sun was like a forty-watt bulb, startling by its very existence after the long winter.

Ringing the bell on the second floor, Djanali heard a hissing sound from somewhere else in the building, a voice in the apartment above and finally someone approaching the door. A man opened it all the way. He was somewhere between thirty-five and forty, with bushy hair, wide suspenders over a white shirt and unbuttoned cuffs as if he were in the middle of dressing, maybe for a party. An unknotted tie was draped around his neck. Must be a party, Djanali thought, a midweek bash for the fast crowd. He looks rather elegant in a degenerate kind of way, his hands trembling slightly, his eyes watery. A drinker.

“Can I help you?”

“Mr. Beckman?” Halders asked.

“Yes?”

“We’re from the police.” Halders employed his usual bumbling swagger.

He’s in his element here, Djanali thought, invading somebody’s privacy like this. That’s why he does the same thing year after year and never gets promoted. He doesn’t understand his own mind, or else he understands it all too well and there’s no longer anything he can do about it.

“And?” Beckman said, fiddling with his tie.

Italian, Djanali thought. Silk, could be expensive. Winter would know. “Do you mind if we come in for a second?” she asked.

“What for?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

Halders pointed at the stairs to remind him that anybody could be listening. “May we come in?”

Apparently convinced, or perhaps feeling like a couple of burglars had threatened him at gunpoint, Beckman backed up. Closing the door behind them, he ushered his guests through the hallway into a room that was bigger than any they had seen in the other apartments. Djanali took note of the height of the ceiling, the stucco, the amount of space, everything that had been so hard to judge in Jamie’s apartment. “You’ve got a big room here,” she said.

“I knocked out a wall,” Beckman explained.

“All by yourself?” Halders asked.

Beckman looked at Halders as if he were a comedian whose punch line hadn’t sunk in yet. “Is it about the murder?” he asked, turning to Djanali.

Halders stared at the far wall while Djanali returned Beckman’s gaze.

“The murder of the kid next door,” Beckman clarified.

“Yes,” Djanali said. “We have a couple of questions for you.”

“Okay.”

“Were you home around the time it happened? That would be about eleven-thirty at night.”

“I think so. But I had a flight to catch early the next morning.”

“When did you find out about the murder?”

“A few hours ago, as soon as I got back. It’s all over the place. Not that I watch much television, but they talk about it constantly. I’ve seen the headlines too.” He pointed at a pile of newspapers on the table.

Djanali walked over and saw the two most recent editions spread out on the floor. “So you just returned from a trip?”

“Early this morning.”

“Where did you go?”

“What difference does that make?”

“If it doesn’t make any difference,” Halders said, “you might as well answer the question.”

“I was on vacation in Grand Canary,” Beckman said. “Can’t you tell by my face?” All of a sudden he looked worried that he hadn’t gotten a suntan and had wasted all his money. He went out to the hallway, came back with a little tote bag and took out a ticket envelope. “Here’s the proof.”

“Do you remember ever seeing the kid?” Halders asked, not bothering to look at the envelope.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Did you ever see him go in or out of the building?”

“Sure.”

“You did?”

“We must have kept the same hours, because I caught sight of him a few times late at night. I’m a streetcar driver,” Beckman explained.

That makes a lot of sense, Djanali thought. Late hours are what I associate with streetcars-sometimes so late they don’t come at all. He looks more like a bank manager. She imagined Winter sitting calmly in a glass booth as his streetcar wound its way through the city. “Was he alone?” she asked, suppressing the image of Winter.

“What?”