“The message has just come over the radio,” shouted Bartram from the car, and responded to control: “We’re there already.”

“Has anything been stolen?” Vejehag asked.

“A few small items earlier this afternoon from one of the cellars. I don’t know about this time.”

“Which basement was it?”

“Do you mean now? Or this afternoon?”

“I mean now.”

“Down there,” said the caretaker, pointing to the nearest flight of stairs. The property was in need of a coat of paint. A gang of kids were standing fifty yards away, watching the police officers.

“We’d better go and take a look,” said Vejehag. Morelius got out of the car and followed him into the building.

Bartram stayed in the car, waiting for messages. He looked up at the sky: it was a dirty, grayish blue, streetlights mixed with dusk.

Winter looked at the sky over the mountains. It was lit up from the left by the city lights, but had turned darker, made a deeper color by what might have been rain clouds. The wind was getting up, rustling through the palms on the other side of the graveled courtyard.

“How’s work going?” His father’s voice sounded distant. “I’ve read about some of your cases in the Gothenburg papers we have sent out.”

“I try to do my best.”

“That seems to be more than good enough, as far as I can make out.”

“Hmm. I don’t know about that.”

“I could never work out what happened to that young woman who was murdered last year. The one you found in the lake at Delsjön.”

“Helene.”

“Was that her name?”

“Yes. What was unclear?”

“What happened to the child.”

“She was okay.”

“But she’d disappeared.”

“Not really. She was… being looked after. Protected.”

His father didn’t ask any further. Winter listened to the sick man’s labored breathing, like a weak pair of bellows. He thought about his work. He’d never had any doubts about what he did… or even thought that he did much at all, really. Or was it just the challenge that interested him? Might he just as well be doing something else? That thought had suddenly entered his head, in the car as he was driving to the hospital. It was a worrying thought. It could be constricting.

“I think I’ll have a nap,” his father said.

“I’ll be sitting here.”

“Shouldn’t you go back to your room and get some sleep? It was a long journey.”

“I’ll get some rest here, on the chair.”

He could hear the patter of rain on the window, gentle at first but growing louder.

“It’s raining,” his father mumbled. “That’ll please a lot of people.”

Bartram was daydreaming when the door to the basement stairs was flung open and two youths came racing out and ran off to the left.

Bartram leaped out of the car, shot over the flowerbed, and tackled one of them with a kick on the shin.

The other boy disappeared down the next flight of stairs. Bartram looked down at his captive squirming on the ground, glanced around, then slammed his foot down on the youth’s back.

“Ouch! You bast-”

“Shut up.”

“Take your foot off-”

“Shut up, I said.”

Vejehag and Morelius emerged from the basement and ran over to Bartram and the boy.

“What happened down there?” Bartram asked.

“We caught ‘em red-handed,” Vejehag said.

“That’s bullshit! I caught ‘em red-handed,” said Bartram, pressing his foot down harder on the kid’s back.

“That’s enough of that,” Vejehag said. “Where’s the other one?”

“Ran down the basement stairs over there,” Bartram said, pointing.

“Get up,” Vejehag said to the boy, gesturing to Bartram to take his foot away.

A patrol car was approaching.

“This bunch is from the emergency call-out squad,” Morelius said.

“Have you been yakking over the radio?” asked Vejehag, glaring at Bartram.

“Of course I haven‘t, goddam it!”

The car drew up alongside them. The driver’s window was wound down and a very young face appeared-the officer looked about twenty-five.

“What’s going on, Granddad?”

“We’ve lost a nightshirt and a nightcap and thought we might find them in the basement here.”

“Ha, ha.”

“And what are you lot doing here?” Vejehag said.

“Who’s that?” asked the constable in the patrol car, nodding toward the youth slumped between Bartram and Morelius.

“It’s my young brother,” Vejehag said, and at that very moment the door behind them flew open and out charged the other youth. Bartram let go and raced after the second kid and tackled him after only ten yards. The constable’s jaw dropped. Somebody said something inside the car, but it was impossible to see anything through the tinted windows. There was some faint applause.

The young constable looked at Vejehag.

“Another brother of yours?”

“We’re gathering the family together for a party. It’ll soon be Christmas.”

“Ha, ha.”

Bartram strolled up with the boy in handcuffs.

“Nice bit of work,” the constable said.

“Look and learn,” Vejehag said.

“Are there any more?”

“Eh?”

“If there are any more assembling for your party, you might need a bit of backup. I mean, all that violent resistance.”

“We’re not expecting any more violent resistance.”

“Oh no?”

“We normally capture the villains verbally.”

“Eh?”

“We try to talk to people. Even villains. We don’t expect violent resistance when we’re at work.”

“I can see that.”

Vejehag pretended not to hear. “If anybody thinks that violent resistance plays a significant part in our work, maybe they ought to think again about their choice of profession.”

“Be seeing you, Granddad,” said the young constable, and the car moved off. The buildings that comprise Rickertsgatan were reflected in its windows.

“What a bunch,” Vejehag said. “Six officers who can’t bear the thought of being parted from the other. Hiding behind tinted glass.” He looked at Morelius. “There’s something perverse about that, don’t you think?”

“Could be.”

“There’s something perverse about the whole idea of special call-out units,” Vejehag said. “They should be sent on Swedish-language courses instead of all that goddam macho nonsense. We talk every day, but it’s pretty rare that the Gothenburg police force gets to storm a Boeing 757. Even so, that bunch practices it every few days.”

“We sometimes catch villains using methods other than words,” Bartram said.

“Yes. Now, let’s see if we can get these boys somewhere warm and cozy.”

Maria Ostergaard felt cold. She’d been in such a rush to get away from home that she’d forgotten her gloves. Her hands felt like lumps of ice only a couple of minutes after they’d left the café.

“Where should we go?” Patrik said.

“I wanted to stay where we were,” answered Maria.

“I didn’t like the people in there. Can’t we go back to your place?”

“Mom’s impossible, completely around the bend. Why can’t we go back to your place?”

“Dad’s impossible, completely around the bend,” said Patrik, with no trace of a smile.

There wasn’t a soul to be seen in Vasagatan. Trams clattered over Vasaplatsen. A woman got off the tram that had approached along Aschebergsgatan and disappeared into one of the apartment buildings. As she opened the front door her face was lit up by the light from the entrance hall and the streetlamps.

“I recognize her,” Maria said. “That woman going in through the door over there.”

“Oh, yeah? What about it?”

“She’s pretty.”

“What about it?”

“She lives with that guy who’s a detective, a cop. Mom works for the police every other week, that’s how I know of him.”

“You mean the police have vicars?”

“Evidently. I think his name’s Winter. That detective. Cool name, don’t you think?”

“Hmm.”

They walked across Vasaplatsen.

A squad car came down Aschebergsgatan from Johanneberg. Morelius was driving.