“I’m in the elevator on my way up to the department.”

He could hear her rising out of bed, her voice getting a little stronger.

“Ewert, what are you up to?”

“The usual. The same thing I’ve been up to every day since . . . well, before you were born. And I don’t know if that means I’m old or you’re young. But what I’m doing is investigating murder. In this case a double homicide.”

“What I mean is—what exactly are you up to right now? I’ve been worried ever since you came back from that apartment where the Lilaj family was executed. You were . . . Well, you seemed different. Like you actually cared. About something. At all. You’ve been shakier than usual, more difficult and evasive. I even talked to Wilson about it. Because I’m worried, Ewert! Because you . . . And tonight? You call from your home and wake me up. Tell me you’ve got your service weapon out and ask me to send a car or you’ll shoot some intruder. A half hour later I get another call. From the patrol car! Telling me it was all a mistake. Apparently, you weren’t burgled at all, but instead were sitting there drinking coffee with an old friend. And now. You wake me up for a third time tonight. For something that could have waited a few hours, until tomorrow morning when we do our morning meeting. So, Ewert, I repeat—what exactly are you up to?”

The elevator door jammed a little when he got to the department, it had been doing that for the last week. When it finally opened, he stepped out into a dark corridor lit only by the light of the vending machine.

“Hermansson?”

“Yes?”

“The research. Everything we’ve gathered today on Pejović and Stojanović. Where did you say I could find it?”

She hesitated a moment.

“Hermansson, where . . .”

“Who visited you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Who, Ewert?”

“An old friend. I told you that.”

“Who you mistook for a burglar? Try again.”

“That’s the version you’re getting.”

She hesitated again. As if trying to decide whether or not to keep demanding an explanation, or if she was too tired, wanted her bed too much for this, and didn’t have it in her to keep confronting a boss who had no intention of telling her what she wanted to know.

“Some of it’s in my office. On a chair in the corner by the window, in a plastic folder that’s marked ‘P and S.’”