VIKINGSSON: It’s a lie.

COHEN: So you’ve never seen the car?

VIKINGSSON: Nope.

COHEN: It’s registered in the name of Viking Carlsson.

VIKINGSSON: You don’t say?

COHEN: Is that a coincidence?

VIKINGSSON: Is what a coincidence?

COHEN: The name of the owner.

VIKINGSSON: What was his name again?

COHEN: Viking Carlsson.

VIKINGSSON: I don’t have a clue.

COHEN: You don’t own the car?

VIKINGSSON: For the umpteenth time, no. You just said who the owner was.

COHEN: We found fingerprints in the car that match yours.

VIKINGSSON: That’s a lie.

COHEN: We also found bloodstains in the trunk and other places in the car.

VIKINGSSON: I don’t know anything about that.

COHEN: You have no idea where the bloodstains might have come from?

VIKINGSSON: Not the slightest.

COHEN: Why are your fingerprints in the car?

VIKINGSSON: The only explanation I can think of is that I rode in it. I’ve taken a few illegal taxis in my day.

COHEN: So you’re saying you might have ridden in it?

VIKINGSSON: How else would my fingerprints have gotten there? All I can come up with is that it was an illegal taxi.

COHEN: Why is your acquaintance lying about the parking spot?

VIKINGSSON: What?

COHEN: Why do you think your acquaintance claims that you rent the parking spot from him?

VIKINGSSON: Wait. Now I remember…

COHEN: I didn’t hear what you said.

VIKINGSSON: My God, I had forgotten all about it. I rent it from him and sublet it to someone else.

COHEN: You’re sub-subletting a parking spot?

VIKINGSSON: Certainly.

COHEN: Can you give us the name of this other person?

VIKINGSSON: Sure, but the problem is I haven’t heard from him for months. He hasn’t been paying.

COHEN: But you’ve continued to pay on your sublease?

VIKINGSSON: Yes, I don’t want to lose the spot.

COHEN: And you haven’t heard from the person who rents it from you?

VIKINGSSON: Not in the last few months.

COHEN: Meanwhile, there’s a car standing in a parking spot that you don’t know anything about, a car that’s got your fingerprints on the wheel and door handles.

VIKINGSSON: Wonders never cease.

COHEN: Our tests show that the bloodstains in the car match some of the blood we found in your Gothenburg apartment.

VIKINGSSON: How many blood types are there altogether? Three?

COHEN: We also have witness statements that there were bloody clothes in your apartment.

VIKINGSSON: Who says that?

COHEN: According to witness reports, a garbage bag in your apartment had bloody clothes in it.

VIKINGSSON: That’s a lie.

COHEN: Where did the blood come from?

VIKINGSSON: What blood?

COHEN: The bloodstains.

VIKINGSSON: Okay, I might as well come clean before we go any further.

Winter exchanged glances with Cohen.

COHEN: What were you going to tell us?

VIKINGSSON: I’m no murderer.

COHEN: You’ll be better off once you confess.

VIKINGSSON: What?

COHEN: All this questioning will be over and you’ll feel an enormous sense of relief.

VIKINGSSON: I didn’t do it, dammit.

COHEN: What didn’t you do, Carl?

VIKINGSSON: I didn’t…

COHEN: What did you say?

VIKINGSSON: I’m not…

COHEN: I can’t hear you.

VIKINGSSON: There’s a simple explanation for all of this. I do a little hunting on the side with a friend of mine.

COHEN: A little hunting on the side?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: What kind of hunting?

VIKINGSSON: Moose, deer, rabbits, game birds.

COHEN: Poaching, in other words?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: I asked whether you’re a poacher and you answered in the affirmative. Is that correct?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: When do you hunt?

VIKINGSSON: Whenever I’m in Sweden. That’s why I don’t have any alibis.

COHEN: And where do you go to hunt?

VIKINGSSON: The woods north of here, in the Dalsland and Värmland provinces. It’s not for…

COHEN: I didn’t catch what you said.

VIKINGSSON: It’s not for the money, even though it…

COHEN: Could you please repeat that?

VIKINGSSON: Even though it pays well.

COHEN: Why do you poach?

VIKINGSSON: For the thrill of it.

COHEN: You hunt for the thrill?

VIKINGSSON: Do you have any idea what it’s like to be at the beck and call of a bunch of whining passengers all day long?

COHEN: No, I don’t.

VIKINGSSON: You should give it a try sometime.

COHEN: So you hunt whenever you’re in Sweden?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: And you use the car we were talking about before? VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: A 1988 white Opel Kadett Caravan, license plate number ANG 999?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: Where do the bloodstains come from?

VIKINGSSON: From the game, of course.

COHEN: From the game?

VIKINGSSON: When we cut up the carcasses.

COHEN: There’s human blood in the car and your apartment.

VIKINGSSON: Somebody must have cut himself.

COHEN: Who could have cut himself?

VIKINGSSON: My buddy cut himself once.

COHEN: What’s his name?

VIKINGSSON: Do I have to say?

COHEN: Yes.

VIKINGSSON: Peter Möller.

COHEN: The same Peter Möller you rent the parking spot from?

VIKINGSSON: Yes.

COHEN: Did you cut somebody up, Carl?

VIKINGSSON: What?

COHEN: Did you kill those kids?

VIKINGSSON: No, goddammit. You’ve got to believe me.

Vikingsson was ushered back to his cell.

Cohen turned off the tape recorder and gathered up his papers. The room felt vacant, as if Vikingsson’s voice had been a piece of furniture, now removed.

“What do you think?” Cohen asked.

“I’m speechless,” Winter said. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“A raving lunatic.”

VIKINGSSON WAS ARRESTED THREE DAYS LATER. WHEN THE D.A. walked out of the judge’s chambers, he looked as though he were searching for a bowl to wash his hands in. They had requested that he be held for a month and had been given fourteen days.

Vikingsson shook his head-he, a petty criminal who didn’t qualify for the major leagues.

They lined him up next to seven other six-foot two-inch blond or ash-blond men, who could just as easily have been Winter, Bolger or Bergenhem-or Macdonald with a wig on.

Or the victims, Winter thought. They could have stood there with a thumb in their pants pocket, already hungry even though it was still a couple of hours until lunch. Feeling immortal.

None of the witnesses could point out Vikingsson. Maybe they had chosen the decoys too carefully.

Winter had talked with Macdonald, who had arranged a photo lineup in Clapham. Anderton couldn’t identify Vikingsson as the man he had seen with Per in the park. He had the wrong kind of hair.

There was another difference too, but Anderton couldn’t say exactly what it was. Something about a jacket.