Winter stood in the hall without switching on the light. Angela would be home in an hour, if not sooner.

How long had he been living here? Ten years? Was it really ten years? Something like that. How many women had he brought back to his apartment during all that time? He preferred not to think about it. He could hold up both hands and count his fingers: that would probably be enough.

He walked through the rooms illuminated by the light from the city streets. He smiled. Soon he’d have to wade through piles of underwear in the hall. A stocking draped over the back of the sofa. He knew Angela. You need a bit of untidiness in your life, she’d said. You’ll bring chaos, he’d said. About time, was her reply.

What if she says no in the end? he’d thought not very long ago. Grown tired of him?

The trams came and went in Vasaplatsen down below. The wall opposite the big window in the living room was white in the evening glow. Just to the side was the shiny red dot on the CD player. Winter went over to it and took out the Springsteen box he’d been sent at great expense last autumn by his London friend, DCI Steve MacDonald. He’d done it so that Winter would be impressed by how much the postage had cost and listen as seriously as he could. Winter liked jazz and MacDonald accepted that, but he’d damn well see to it that Winter got a decent education in all the good things he’d missed during his sheltered youth, growing up with John Coltrane.

The strange thing was that he listened to even more jazz now that he’d started listening to rock as well, and he could hear different nuances in Coltrane, a new dark side. To his surprise he’d also discovered things he liked in simple rock. Perhaps that was just it. The simplicity.