Most of the remaining fifteen inspectors were crowded in here, and their clothes still smelled of raw cold and overheated engines.

Ringmar, who was acting as the assistant chief investigator, hadn’t slept the night before and had done his best to make sure that nobody else had either. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair, which was his way of saying how serious things were.

If we were at war and I was the platoon leader, Winter thought, I would demand Ringmar for my assistant or threaten to hang out at the mess hall all day long. He took the folder that Janne Möllerström, their database expert, was holding out to him. If we were at another kind of war, he corrected himself.

Möllerström was new and quite young. He had already done an excellent job in a couple of difficult homicide cases, and Winter had insisted on having him again.

Sometimes there were two database guys, but Möllerström was all you needed. He kept track of everything, and the preliminary investigation database was his most prized possession.

Winter swallowed and felt the scratchiness he had noticed when getting out of bed that morning, a raw feeling way down in the left side of his throat. “Who wants to start?” he asked.

They looked around at each other. Winter was as disciplined as they came, and when he let go of the reins like this, it meant he was looking for some creative thinking about the murder. Or murders.

Nobody said anything.

“Lars?”

Lars Bergenhem shifted in his chair. His face has taken on real character since they made him an inspector, Winter thought.

“I’ve read the reports from London,” Bergenhem offered.

“And?”

“I was thinking about the glove.”

“Go on.”

“The London team found the imprint of a glove in the bed-and-breakfast, and Fröberg found a similar one in the dorm here.”