More serious men in suits were spread around the room. The director himself was pacing back and forth behind his desk, his face highly colored, and there was an insinuation that he was too angry to stand still.

“You want to sit down, Ove?” said one of the men in suits at last.

Ove met his gaze, and knew who he was. His dad had mended his car once. A blue Opel Manta. With the big engine. He smiled amicably at Ove and gestured cursorily at a chair in the middle of the floor. As if to let him know that he was among friends now and could relax.

Ove shook his head. The Opel Manta man nodded with understanding.

“Well then. This is just a formality, Ove. No one in here believes you took the money. All you need to do is tell us who did it.”

Ove looked down at the floor. Half a minute passed.

“Ove?”

Ove didn’t answer. The harsh voice of the director broke the silence at long last. “Answer the question, Ove!”

Ove stood in silence. Looking down at the floor. The facial expressions of the men in suits shifted from conviction to slight confusion.

“Ove . . . you do understand that you have to answer the question. Did you take the money?”

“No,” said Ove with a steady voice.

“So who was it?”

Ove stood in silence.

“Answer the question!” ordered the director.

Ove looked up. Stood there with a straight back.

“I’m not the sort that tells tales about what other people do,” he said.

The room was steeped in silence for what must have been several minutes.

“You do understand, Ove . . . that if you don’t tell us who it was, and if we have one or more witnesses who say it was you . . . then we’ll have to draw the conclusion that it was you?” said the director, not as amicable now.

Ove nodded, but didn’t say another word. The director scrutinized him, as if he were a bluffer in a game of cards. Ove’s face was unmoved. The director nodded grimly.

“So you can go, then.”

And Ove left.

Tom had put the blame on Ove when he was in the director’s office some fifteen minutes earlier. During the afternoon, two of the younger men from Tom’s shift, eager as young men are to earn the approval of older men, came forward and claimed that they had seen Ove take the money with their own eyes. If Ove had pointed out Tom, it would have been one word against another. But now it was Tom’s words against Ove’s silence. The next morning he was told by the foreman to empty his locker and present himself outside the director’s office.

Tom stood inside the door of the changing rooms and jeered at him as he was leaving.

“Thief,” hissed Tom.

Ove passed him without raising his eyes.

“Thief! Thief! Thief!” one of their younger colleagues, who had testified against Ove, chanted happily across the changing room, until one of the older men on their shift gave him a slap across the ear that silenced him.