The first book in the Erik Winter series, 1999

Translation copyright © Laurie Thompson, 2005

It had started raining. Simon Morelius adjusted the radio. No instructions from HQ for five minutes. It was nearly ten, and everything was quiet. Two women crossed the road and one turned to look at the police car and smiled. Greger Bartram raised his hand in greeting.

“Twenty-seven and good-looking,” he said. “And she thinks the same about me.”

“She was smiling at me, not you,” Morelius said.

“She looked me straight in the eye,” Bartram said.

The lights changed and Bartram drove on to the roundabout at Korsvägen.

“Yeah, and found there was nobody home,” Morelius said.

“Ha, ha.”

“She looked you in the eye and found nobody home. Just a middle-aged cop at the wheel of a squad car and then-”

A woman’s voice on the radio. “Nine-one-twenty. Nine-one-twenty come.” A mumbled response from somewhere or other. Then the woman’s voice again. “There’s somebody lying outside Focus at the Liseberg amusement park, drunk or ill, with a crowd of kids standing around.”

They heard the patrol who’d responded to the call.

“Roger. We’re in Prinsgatan and will head for Focus.”