“It’s a computer image based on what a witness told us.”

“A computer-you’re putting me on, surely.”

“No.”

“Amazing.”

“So you recognize the face?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“Not even the nose.”

Winter’s next move had to be decisive. “What was Jamie like?” he asked.

“What?”

“Did he get along with people?”

“What people?”

“Let’s start with you and his coworkers.”

“It’s just me and one other person,” Svensson said. “Plus someone who’s been working part-time since Jamie was murdered.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“My question was how well you got along.”

Svensson seemed on the verge of answering but apparently changed his mind. A shadow flitted across his face as if the reality of Jamie’s death had struck him for the first time. His features turned gray and his gaze wandered off in a new direction. “We always got along. Everybody liked Jamie, and his English-or Scottish, I should say-was a drawing card.”

“Did he ever get into arguments?”

“With one of us? Never.”

“How about with anybody else?”

“What about?”

“It’s fairly common.”

“At my place?”

“In general.”

“Those are places that hire nutcases as bouncers. We don’t use bouncers, so we don’t have to worry about nutcases. I don’t even have a cloakroom.”

“Fine,” Winter said, “but let me ask the question a different way. Were there any regular customers Jamie talked to more than others?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

“You’ve got regulars, right?”

“Lots of them, more than the city jail, I’d guess.”

Winter remembered Bolger’s account of something Svensson had recalled-an unfamiliar face, someone who’d shown up a few times, not a regular customer, maybe a new one. Careful to avoid mentioning Bolger’s name, Winter worked his way around to the subject, steering the conversation a little closer as naturally and purposefully as he could. “No new regulars?” he asked.

“What?”

“You don’t remember anybody who liked to hang out at the bar and talk to Jamie?”

“Everybody and his brother confides in a bartender,” Svensson said as if coining a new expression. “People pour their hearts out, he stands there and listens and they feel a little better.”

“Well put.”

Svensson nodded, an Aristotle with his disciple: the purpose of tragedy is catharsis, my son.

That’s what faith is, Winter thought. The Big Bartender in the Sky. The tones of Coltrane’s “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” echoed in his mind. “So you’re telling me Jamie was a good listener?”

Svensson raised his arm as if to say the question answered itself. “Was there anybody in particular he listened to?”

“That’s a tough one. I have my hands full when I’m working behind the bar.”

“You can’t remember anybody at all?”

Svensson didn’t answer.

“Try to think.”

“There was somebody I hadn’t seen before but who suddenly came in several times, maybe a few weeks before Jamie was murdered.”

Bingo. The ball rolls into the cup on the thirtieth putt, Winter thought, and suddenly you remember why you became a detective. “So there was a face you recognized?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. At least I’m not sure I would recognize it now. But there was someone who sat at the bar a few times, and I hadn’t seen him before.”

“Did you ever talk to him?”

“I don’t remember.”

“But Jamie talked to him?”

“He sat or stood there occasionally during Jamie’s shift, or during happy hour when each of us worked half the bar.”

“So he could have talked to Jamie?”

“He must have ordered something, at least.”

“Would you recognize him now?”

“I told you I don’t know.”

“But he didn’t look like this?” Winter pointed to the image on the table between them.

“Not in the least.”

“Then we’ll have to do a better sketch.”

Ringmar helped Winter keep the investigation moving, making sure nobody let up. He had a mild case of the flu but didn’t show it; he coughed up all the phlegm early in the morning and tried to get plenty of fresh air during the day. A word with Birgersson would have suited him, but he held back.

They ran into each other on the stairs between the fourth and fifth floors-a welcome change from their wordless encounters in the elevator. They shook hands.

“I hear the investigation is going well,” Birgersson said.

“Very well.”

“Thanks to you, Bertil. Just don’t let Winter get too far ahead of himself. Wise old heads like us have to pick up the pieces when upstarts like him charge off in every direction.”

Fighting words, Ringmar thought. “Yes, that’s the way it goes,” he said.

“What’s the way it goes?”

“Our job. Clearing away the smoldering ruins of the Swedish welfare state.”

Birgersson stared at him.

“It takes wise old heads like us to understand that,” Ringmar continued.

“We need to talk. I want to pick your brain about this case.”

“How about this afternoon?”

“I have a meeting but it might work anyway. I’ll give you a call.”

Ringmar nodded and smiled affably.

“See you,” Birgersson shouted. He disappeared around the corner.

The moment Ringmar stepped into his office, the phone rang as if it had been connected to a tripwire in the doorway. “Hello?” he grunted.

“There’s a call I think you should take,” Möllerström said.

“Why me?”

“It’s Geoff ’s pen pal, the second one.”

“Who?” Ringmar asked, but then just as quickly understood. “Put him through, dammit.”

After a click a new voice came on the line. “Hello?”

“This is Bertil Ringmar.”

“I…”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Do I have to tell you my name? I have…”

“What are you calling about?”

“I read in the paper the other day that you were looking for someone who had corresponded with that British kid who was murdered.”

“Yes?”

“That’s me.”

The man sounded young, Ringmar thought, but you could never tell for sure. Sometimes he guessed someone was no older than twenty when they first talked on the phone and then had to add fifty years when he connected the voice with a face.

“Hello?”

“Sorry, so you corresponded with Geoff Hillier?”

Silence.

Ringmar repeated the question.

“Yes, I did.”

“This is very important for us. I need to talk to you about it in person.”

“Talk about it?”

“Just an ordinary conversation. Not an interrogation or anything like that.”

“Can’t we do it on the phone?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“I don’t know if…”

“We need help, and you could be the one who determines whether we succeed or fail.” Pretty soon I’m going to say that this call is being traced and we’re going to be at his place in ten minutes flat, Ringmar thought. “We can pick you up if you like,” he said.

“No, I’ll come on my own.”