“Was he by himself when you saw him?”

“Not every time.”

“No?” Halders asked.

“When was the last time you saw him with someone else?” Djanali asked.

Beckman seemed to be deep in thought. Suddenly the scene he was trying to conjure up appeared before his mind’s eye and the blood drained from his face. Taking a step to the side, he grabbed the table. “Gawd,” he said.

Halders stepped forward to support him. “What’s going on?”

He sees something very clearly, Djanali thought, and he’s wondering whether it was the devil himself. Don’t put words in his mouth. This is one of those precious moments you can’t afford to ruin. “When was the last time you saw him with someone else?” she repeated.

“It must have been that…” Beckman stammered.

“What did you say?”

He cleared his throat and got his voice back. “I saw him and a man together.” Then he fell to all fours. “Just a minute.” He leafed through the newspapers on the floor. “There was a date someplace.”

They could have told him the date but let him go on looking.

Beckman stood up with one of the newspapers in his hand. “Jesus Christ,” he said, examining his copy of the ticket. “It was the same night.”

“The same night as what?” Halders asked.

“The same night it happened,” Beckman said, looking from Halders to Djanali. “That must be when it was.”

“And you just figured that out?” Halders asked.

“My flight left early the next morning.”

“ Grand Canary?”

“Yes, Puerto Rico.”

“Are you telling me there’s a Puerto Rico in Grand Canary?”

“Yes, that’s the name of the resort, I think.” Beckman seemed to be second-guessing himself about where he had spent the past few weeks.

“Wherever you were, they sell Swedish newspapers,” Halders said.

“I didn’t read the papers,” Beckman said. He looked like someone had knocked the wind out of him.

Djanali made a sign to Halders to ease up.

“This is the first time I suspected anything,” Beckman continued.

“I understand,” Djanali said.

“The first time,” he repeated.

“Would you recognize the man who was with Jamie Robertson if you ran into him again?” Djanali asked.

Beckman threw out his hands. “I saw him mostly from the back.”

“But you’re sure it was a man, right?”

“Yes, and quite tall. They were going up the stairs when I passed by on the walkway. Or maybe they were waiting for the elevator.”

Halders looked at Djanali, then returned his gaze to Beckman. “We’d like you to come with us so we can discuss this in a little more detail.”

“More detail? Am I a suspect or something?”

“You have some very interesting information, and we want to give you the chance to remember as much as possible.”

“I’m awfully tired right now.”

Look, pal, Halders thought, don’t make me say that we can hold you for six hours and get an extension for another six.

“Okay, sure,” Beckman said after a slight hesitation. “If you’ll just excuse me for a minute.” He made a bolt for the bathroom, and they heard him vomit.

“What time does Winter’s plane take off?” Halders asked.

“Right now, I think.” Djanali glanced at her watch. “He said a quarter to eleven, and that’s in ten minutes.”

“Call him.” Halders pointed to the right pocket of Djanali’s jacket.

She took out her phone and dialed Winter’s number. “No answer.”

“He’s already turned off his phone and started to think about ordering a drink and flirting with the flight attendants.”

More retching from the bathroom.

“Call the airport,” Halders said.

“I don’t know the num-”

“ 941000.”

“You’re a walking phone book.”

“Just ask me anything.”

Djanali told the agent what she needed, and two minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave the gate, the woman who had just taken Winter’s boarding pass announced his name over the loudspeaker. Half an hour later he stepped out of his car in front of police headquarters.

BECKMAN HAD SPENT HlS VACATlON DRINKING ON THE TERRACE of the Altamar Aparthotel, gazing out at the northern horizon. He had been sober on the plane home. End of story.

He wasn’t the first person they’d brought in for questioning. But this was something different, Winter thought as he took the elevator up, briefcase in hand. His luggage would arrive later.

Beckman was suffering minor withdrawal symptoms, far from delirious but with an unsteady gait that made him look like he was listening to funk.

Winter sat across from Beckman: what a homecoming for him, and to think I never even got off the ground.

The tape recorder hummed, registering a short, clear laugh that echoed through the corridor outside.

“I don’t remember very much,” Beckman said after they had dealt with the formalities.

“What time did you get home from work the night you saw Jamie Robertson with this man?”

“A minute or two after midnight. But that’s not what actually happened.”

“What didn’t actually happen?”

“It’s like this. I went out, and then I came back and thought I saw the man again.”

“You saw him a second time?”

“I had dropped my scarf somewhere. It might sound weird, but I couldn’t find it and I thought it must have fallen off while I was buttoning up my coat in the doorway, so I went back and saw him from behind as he walked up the stairs.”

“Was he by himself then?”

“Yes, the second time he was by himself.”

“Can you describe what he looked like?”

“That’s not so easy.”

“Try anyway.”

“But there was something else about him too.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know how to put it.”

The laughter returned, a little softer as if it had bounced off the wall at the end of the corridor.

Maybe the laughter will calm him down, Winter thought. Or just confuse him even more. Right this minute we’re ransacking his apartment. He killed Jamie and caught the first available flight. He’s going to confess any minute, and then the other murders too. Maybe he went to London. Maybe tonight we can celebrate and hope for a decent interval before the next case. Everything depends on coincidence, a stroke of luck or a wide net that pulls in just the fish you’re looking for. As long as we stick to our routines, if we’ve got our catch, it’s just a matter of waiting until he stops flailing.

“There was something about him I recognized,” Beckman said. “Now that I’ve had the chance to think about it a little.”

Winter nodded. The central air droned like the murmuring of a heart, suffocating the room in its own odor of perspiration mixed with stale cologne from some other era. The afternoon radiance was waning, the fluorescent lights casting deeper shadows. Winter hadn’t turned on his desk lamp yet. He nodded again to Beckman.

“It was his jacket. That must be what made me think about it now, or what I recognized then.”

“You recognized his jacket?”

“Yes, I don’t know why, but I flashed on something I’d seen on the streetcar.”

“The streetcar?”

“When you sit in a booth like that all day long, you pick up on little things about people. Not as much now as when we had the same route every day, but still.”

Beckman’s hand trembled as he raised a glass of water to his lips, but he managed not to spill it. “You begin to notice regular passengers,” he continued, putting the glass back down.

“So you remembered this guy?” Winter asked.

“I’m pretty sure I had a passenger a few times who wore a jacket like that, but nothing else comes to mind.”

“What was so special about the jacket?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“The color?”

“It was a black leather jacket, but that’s not it.”

“The kind of leather?”

“No,” Beckman said, drawing out the word. “I can’t put my finger on it.”