He moved his head back and forth, echoing Bolger’s gestures a few minutes earlier. He gazed at Bolger as a ghost inspects his murderer and finally nodded.

Winter walked up to Christian and listened to his soft voice. All doubt vanished.

Winter returned to the lineup room. The decoys were still there, but he was blind to them. Bolger looked at Winter, then nodded at the mirror. He’s nodding at both of us, Winter thought. He knows who’s behind the mirror. He isn’t rocking back and forth anymore.

What did you expect? Winter thought. That he would start trembling and frothing at the mouth when he realized what was happening?

Winter closed his eyes and imagined Bolger lunging forward and dragging the guards behind him with a horrific display of strength.

When he opened his eyes again, Bolger stood there quietly as if in meditation. Nobody was touching him. He was staring at Winter now. There was a clarity to his gaze that Winter hadn’t seen since they’d first brought him in.

“It’s not over, and it never will be,” Bolger said, and his eyes clouded over again.

They were sitting in Winter’s office. All his sweating had cooled him down. Macdonald’s face was pale and drawn, his cheekbones stark.

“I thought we had lost him for good,” Winter said.

“Hmm.”

“He’s still on this side of madness, but it was a close call.” He lit a cigarillo. His hands trembled slightly, still reverberating from the day’s events. “He said it’s never going to end.” The smoke curled toward the ceiling.

“I know what he means.”

“You do?”

“At least part of it.”

Winter took another puff but tasted nothing.

“Remember how disappointed you were when you had to let Vikingsson go?” Macdonald asked. “Or even before that, when he gave you all that bullshit about poaching?”

“Yes.”

“He’s still on the loose.”

The blood drained from Winter’s face.

“Think about the photo collage you found in his apartment.”

“Please cut to the chase, Steve.”

“Neither of us has dismissed him from our thoughts, or from the investigation, or whatever you want to call it at this point.”

“Of course not.”

“I was disappointed too. So we talked with Vikingsson ourselves when he was in London. It was just like you said once. There was more to him than he was letting on to; I could also sense it. So I did what you said, or what you wanted.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Listen carefully now. You sat in my office once and told me that you believed in a merciful God. And here’s your reward. It happened late last night. I wanted to wait to tell you in person.”

“Tell me what?”

“We kept Vikingsson under surveillance. Something about him kept bothering me, so I put two men on him for a few days just to see what would happen. Frankie had also said-”

“Steve!”

“Hold on, I have to say this first. Frankie ran across someone who had something to sell. Nothing you’d ever see at a porn theater in Soho. Be that as it may, it all ends up in that part of the city eventually.”

“Vikingsson was in Soho?”

“Some blond guy was making the rounds with a special offer. He was extraordinarily discreet, but not discreet enough to escape the attention of Frankie and his sources.”

“Who are his sources?”

“Neither you nor I want to know that.”

“So what happened?”

“Nothing has made it to the market yet, according to Frankie.”

“Then how can we get any further?”

“We have gotten further.”

“What?”

“Vikingsson let down his guard last time he came back to London,” Macdonald said. “He had been released after all, and he apparently figured that the path was clear. We stalked him to Heathrow, but he wasn’t there to report for work, at least not above sea level.”

As Macdonald leaned forward in the chair, his jacket tightened across his shoulders. He was paler than ever and his voice was thin and strained. “He went to his locker and removed a little sack, and we strolled up and helped him empty it out. Lo and behold, it was the tripod.”

“The what?”

“The tripod we’ve been looking for. I’m sure of it, and do you know why? Because one of the legs was missing a sleeve. The technicians at the Yard aren’t finished yet, but there’s no doubt in my mind.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“Do you really believe I’d do that, after what we’ve been through together?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, you’re not putting me on.”

“Thanks.”

“The tripod,” Winter said. His mouth tasted of blood and vinegar.

“The wizards at the Yard assure me it’s got fingerprints all over it, and it doesn’t matter how old they are.”

Winter started to sweat again.

“And that’s not the end of it. An envelope was taped to the top of the locker and they found the key to a safe-deposit box inside.”

“A safe-deposit box?” Winter’s cigarillo had gone out ages ago but he held on to it.

“Vikingsson’s safe-deposit box in London.”

“Have you been there?”

“You’d better believe it. And, sure enough, we found another key.”

“Another key.” Winter’s voice was barely strong enough to get the words out.

“It’s to a locker at one of London ’s railroad or underground stations.”

“How many of those are there?”

“Lockers? Tens of thousands, and hundreds of stations. But we’ll findi t.”

“What does Vikingsson have to say for himself?” Winter asked.

“Not a thing. He seems to think he’ll be in the air again tomorrow.”

“Where is he now?”

“At headquarters in Eltham.”

“And he’s not talking?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think the tripod is all we need?”

“We’re getting there,” Macdonald said.

“So there were two murderers.”

“That explains quite a bit.”

“What?”

“How they got away so fast without leaving any of their equipment behind.”

“It could also be coincidence.”

“No way.”

“We don’t have any other evidence that Vikingsson and Bolger know each other. Apparently we haven’t been looking in the right places.”

“We’re going to find it now. That’s the way it always is.”

“If we want to get Vikingsson convicted, we need more than circumstantial evidence.”

“We’ll put the squeeze on him.”

“That’s not good enough. And I’m not as optimistic as you are.”

“The squeeze,” Macdonald repeated.

Half an hour later, Winter strolled through the park outside police headquarters. The fragment of an idea had rattled around his brain since the conversation with Macdonald.

He remembered the times he had talked to Marianne. There had always been someone else lurking in the back of her mind, and she’d seemed confused whenever he brought up Bolger. Or when he talked about Bolger alone. As if Winter had sown the confusion and caused her to doubt her own eyes and ears. Or to forget that other, most important detail, whatever it might be.

The feeling he had after talking to her was like a pebble in his shoe. He had to question her again, or at least sit down and talk to her.

But that’s not what bothered him most now.

Bolger was trying to show him something.

Scratching his scalp as if it were responsible for a traffic jam in his brain, Winter thought again about all the hints Bolger had dropped over the previous months.

They had been looking out over the archipelago, and Bolger had made a remark about beauty and having a clear view…

Winter stood still. He looked down at the ground without seeing it. The scraps of thoughts in his mind were beginning to converge.

He saw Bolger in front of his cottage. They had just stepped out. Bolger talked about building the new fireplace for himself, then lit it and walked slowly around his proud creation.