“How well do you know him?” he asked.

“Well… he’s my friend.”

“Do you have more mutual friends?”

“Yes, of course.”

Ringmar looked out of the window. Some fifty meters away two kids were standing at the bus stop in the rain, holding their hands up to the sky as if giving thanks. Not an enemy in the world. Even the damned rain was a dear friend.

“No violent types in your circle of friends?” asked Ringmar.

“Certainly not.”

“What were you doing when Jakob was attacked?”

“When exactly was it?” she asked.

“I’m not really allowed to tell you that,” he said, and proceeded to do so.

“I’d been asleep for about two hours,” she said.

But Jakob wasn’t asleep. Ringmar could see him in his mind’s eye, walking across the square named after Doktor Fries. Heading for the streetcar stop? There weren’t any streetcars at that time of night. And then somebody appeared out of nowhere, and one hell of a bash on the back of his head. No help from Dr. Fries. Left there to bleed to death, if the guy who’d called the police hadn’t passed by shortly after it had happened and seen the kid lying there.

Jakob, the third victim. Three different places in town. The same type of wound. Could have been fatal, really. But none of them actually had died. Not yet, he thought. The other two victims had no idea. Just a blow from behind. Saw nothing, just felt.

“Do you live together?” he asked.

“No.”

Ringmar said nothing for a moment. The two kids had just jumped aboard a bus. Maybe it was getting a bit brighter in the west, a slight glint of light blue. The waiting room was high up in the hospital, which itself was on top of a hill. Maybe he was looking at the sea, a big gray expanse under the blue.

“You weren’t worried about him?”

“What do you mean, worried?”

“Where he was that night? What he was doing?”

“Hang on, we’re not married or anything like that. We’re just friends.”