“No headway at all with Deadmarsh. SÄPO has asked the FBI for more information. They’ve been on a hunt for friends and family, and found few of the former—neighbors and his most recent employer—but none of the latter. The official records are all a blank. His driver’s license and passport seem to have never existed. He and Dr. Palmer keep a joint bank account that was recently drawn down, but there’s nothing in their credit report that speaks of money problems. He and the missus took out a mortgage for a small home a few months back. We’ve researched him the usual ways, search engines and social networking sites. Everything’s a blank. The man entered Sweden a few days ago like a million other tourists, and since then he’s faded to nothing.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Why is that?”

“Because—”

A young constable with a stack of files under her arm burst through the door. “Oh—sorry,” she said. “Didn’t know the room was in use.”

“No, we were just leaving,” Sanderson said. He walked out with Blix, and once in the hallway whispered, “Sjoberg won’t listen to anything I say, but if an astute investigator were to go to Saint Göran Hospital and ask for Dr. Gould he might find something useful. Apparently the man who’s now in a coma was babbling in tongues when he first arrived.”

“An astute investigator, you say? Not sure where I’d find one of those round here, but I’ll keep an eye out.”

Sanderson smiled, and added, “Yes, do that.”

He broke away and made straight for his desk. Along the way he picked up an empty cardboard box that had been discarded near the printer. When he reached his desk, Sanderson set the box on top and began filling it. The first thing in was a framed picture, at least twenty years old, of him and Ingrid and their daughter—they were all smiling stupidly and standing on snow skis at Sunne. He lifted files from the bottom drawer without even looking at their labels, and from the middle drawer he removed a mildewed address book, a dog-eared calendar from 1997, and an alarm clock he didn’t even recognize. He then went to the top drawer, felt toward the back, and found what he was looking for. Sanderson pulled the item clear palmed beneath an old calculator with long-dead batteries.

Fixing a look of winsome nostalgia on his face, he then closed the box, took it under his arm, and gave a chain of somber nods all the way to the elevator.

*   *   *

The seaplane touched down sharply at eleven o’clock. Minutes later Slaton was shin deep in cold water, his hands pushing on the wing struts to steer the craft’s nose back out to sea. He pulled open the passenger door and was greeted by a smiling Janna Magnussen.

“Good morning!”