“I guess you’re right.”

“So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“When do you go to London for real?”

“Day after tomorrow, I think.”

“I haven’t been there in ages. Longer than I care to remember.”

“I’ve heard you say that before. Why don’t you just pick up and go?”

“You’re there pretty often, aren’t you?”

“Not as much as I used to be.”

“You’re always buying tailor-made shoes on that exclusive street. Don’t tell me you’re not different, Erik.”

“Everybody’s different.”

BERGENHEM HAD TlPTOED AROUND ONE OF THOSE PLACES A FEW times long ago. The only thing he remembered was pink flesh everywhere he looked and a sheepish feeling that clung to him afterward.

He parked half a block away and crossed the street toward Riverside. It was the fourth strip joint he’d been to. He had also stepped inside a couple of others that didn’t flaunt themselves as openly.

The entrance to Riverside was discreet enough-a steel door in a nondescript brick wall and a sign next to it showing the hours. He immediately found himself in a large room with magazines along the wall like the browsing room of a library. A handful of men were hanging around the racks. Overcome with the feeling that invisible eyes were watching him, he walked over to the left wall, glanced at the men and continued on.

At the far end of the room was a doorway with a curtain hanging down and a man in a little booth. Bergenhem paid the cover charge and ducked through the drape. He hung up his coat in an untended cloakroom and sat down at one of the tables. Four other men were there, each seated alone. A young woman came over and asked him what he wanted to drink. He ordered a light beer. She walked out through a swinging door and came back with a bottle and an empty glass. “Welcome to Riverside.” She smiled.

Bergenhem nodded and felt like an idiot, just the way it had been at the other clubs. Should I invite her to sit down? he asked himself. Isn’t she supposed to make the first move?

“The show starts in five minutes,” she said, smiling again.

Bergenhem nodded once more. Does she wonder why you’re here? Is she a student working her way through college who thinks you’re repulsive?

What difference does it make? You’re just doing your job. People can probably tell you’re a cop as soon as you walk in the door.

The show began. Tina Turner’s voice blasted over the speakers. Two women danced at either end of a little dais that served as a stage. They moved their hips faster and faster. Bergenhem couldn’t help but think of an aerobics class.

The show was over in fifteen minutes, and he had seen about all there was to see. One of the women’s nipples had been big and brown, seeming to cover half her breasts.

The other woman was younger and didn’t follow the music as well. Maybe she was new at this. Her slender body seemed to shiver under the floodlights.

She had sat on a stool with her back to the audience, spread her legs and looked over her shoulder with feigned coquettishness in her eyes. She wasn’t a very good actress yet. Compassion, maybe shame, swept over Bergenhem. She’s an outsider, he thought, just like me. She’s not used to being gawked at through a red glare.

Nobody feels any better after watching this, he thought-or horny, not even when they make those little circular movements with their breasts. All I feel is a longing for fresh air.

She looks wounded, he thought. She’s hiding inside her skin, and something even more frightening is waiting for her when she steps off the stage. Performing for strangers is her only refuge.

He stood up and walked through a door on the left side into the movie section. Riverside had thirty private screening rooms, each with a remote control device, a wastebasket and a roll of toilet paper. It also featured three rooms with large screens that showed the same kinds of movies as the other clubs he had been to.

The sounds and the writhing bodies were all alike. The first time Bergenhem had sat in one of these rooms, he’d hoped to be turned on, but he’d simply been exhausted after a little while, the tightness in his groin gone slack.

Just like the other times, he felt like a Peeping Tom even though the spectacle didn’t really interest him.

He’d browsed through the racks at all the clubs but found nothing out of the ordinary. Tucked away among the inner aisles were various scat magazines, but that wasn’t so unexpected. Somebody was always standing around the rack pretending he just happened to be passing by. It was an odd sight, as if the man were about to break away in every direction at once.

The movies Bergenhem had seen were provocative but not violent in any way. At a couple of clubs, he’d asked about the kind of stuff he was looking for and got only a puzzled look in return. No surprise there either.

It was necessary preparation, even if it didn’t yield any results, and now he was ready for his next move.

Winter sat in his office examining the composite sketch Beckman had reluctantly helped them create, but he knew what a chancy proposition it was. A front view based on what Beckman had seen from the back and side wasn’t much to go on. He stared at the sketch for a long while, but nothing registered.

They had told Beckman to spend some time thinking about his streetcar routes, when he had driven and what he had seen. Ringmar had said, “Good luck,” prompting incredulous glances from both Winter and Beckman.

Winter removed his coat from the hook by the door, then walked through the corridor to the elevator. Rain lashed against the window in the entryway.

It’s the worst kind of rain, Winter thought. This damn shit does nobody any good. The snow is already shoveled away, there’s plenty of groundwater, and all it does is seep under your collar and make everything colder until your mood is subfreezing as well. And I was so happy just a week ago.

Winter took the shortest route to Douglas Svensson’s Kobbarnas Road address and parked next to a handicap spot.

Standing in the fourth-floor living room, he could see police headquarters off in the distance.

“I already talked to the cop… police once,” Svensson said.

“Once isn’t always enough.”

“What?”

“Sometimes we need to follow up with more questions.” Winter pondered whether Svensson was the right type for a bar owner. He looked like somebody who’d been shoved up onstage and forced to talk. Winter had never been to his bar. Who knows, maybe he was more cheerful when he was in his element.

“Okay, have a seat,” Svensson said.

The police had talked with the two acquaintances of Jamie whose names Svensson had given to Bolger, who in turn had passed them on to Winter. The officers hadn’t turned up very much, other than that the kids might be gay but didn’t know whether Jamie was or not. It would have become obvious soon enough, they had said, and Winter had wondered what they might mean. That was all they were willing to say on the subject. He had the impression they were afraid.

Something was missing.

Svensson sat down uneasily and waited for him to begin.

Finally Winter slipped the composite sketch out of his briefcase and handed it to him. “Can you tell me whether you recognize this face?”

“Who is it?”

“I just want to know whether there’s anything in the face that’s familiar to you.”

“Anything? Like the nose or the eyes?” Svensson looked down at the picture, turned it at different angles and glanced up at Winter. “It looks like a Martian.”