Winter was wearying of the conversation and all the unanswered questions. What was weighing on him? Probably that he didn’t want to watch people disappear from his life anymore, regardless of how it happened. He quickly dismissed the thought, deciding it was the atmosphere of the bar that was conjuring up all those phantoms. He hadn’t touched his whisky, and now was no time to start. He let go of his glass and stood up to leave. “See you, Johan.”

“Where are you going?”

“To work.”

“On a Saturday night?”

“Who knows?” Winter said. “Somebody else might have just disappeared.”

A memo from INTERPOL lay on Winter’s desk. My God, he thought, will this never end? What a naïve question.

The memo left out the gory details. Nor had he expected any. The facts spoke for themselves.

What the hell was Per Malmström doing in London anyway?

He heard his own heavy breathing as he picked up the receiver. Someone had to notify Per’s parents, and he knew that someone was him. The dreaded task generally went to an experienced officer-not necessarily the chief investigator-but Winter shouldered the burden like somebody who puts on a heavy raincoat before braving a storm. You bow to the inevitable without looking for an escape hatch.

A policeman’s job doesn’t get any worse than this, he thought. “I have some information for you,” he told Karin Malmström.

He wrote down her address. He hadn’t needed to ask, but he did it reflexively as if it might save a little time.

He would give Hanne Östergaard a call later. She was a good listener, and the pressure was starting to get the better of him.

The big adrenaline kick didn’t come from the actual burglary. His pulse raced every time the lock sprang open, but that wasn’t it either.

It was the waiting, making yourself invisible and still remaining fully alert, your eyes and ears everywhere.