Ewert Grens had never figured out which of the many churches on Kungsholmen rang its bells so beautifully on the hour. A bright, hopeful song. At varying volumes, sometimes almost intrusive, other times more like a cautious whisper, depending on the whims of the wind. This morning five metallic chimes rang out loud and clear as he walked down a corridor that was just as deserted as it was a few hours ago, but now considerably lighter.

It took him a while to make his way to his office—he put the plastic folder back on Hermansson’s fancy chair and then grabbed a coffee at the machine, put another folder next to Sven’s phone, and then took one to the desks in the cadets’ cubbyhole, then one more stop at the coffee machine. This had always been his favorite time of day. Before sound and movement filled up the department, and it still felt possible to think clearly.

Piet Hoffmann had been lying on one of the elegant sofas in his living room when Grens snuck out about a half hour ago. A sofa Grens never sat in, in a room he rarely visited. His guest was snoring quietly with his cheek against a lumpy decorative pillow that Anni bought a long time ago. Hoffmann’s sudden appearance had made the detective superintendent’s work that much more difficult. His primary mission—finding the little girl who had hopped around her dead family long ago—had expanded to include two more objectives: track down the two Balkan men who needed to be locked up for seventy-two hours so that Hoffmann would have room to maneuver, while simultaneously sussing out which one of his colleagues had switched sides.

He emptied his coffee cup, grabbed one of his Siw Malmkvist cassette tapes from the pile on the bookshelf, and started to dance to the music as he had so many times before, both here alone in his office and long ago with Anni.

The girl.

That’s where he had to start. Slowly circle in on her. Before someone with very different intentions did the same.

He looked at a faxed copy of an assessment that had been signed seventeen years ago. Charlotte M. Andersen. She had been head of Söderköping’s child welfare department, and she was his next step. She’d once decided the fate of a five-year-old girl, new identity, new family, and now she would know where the trail led. A trail he had once erased, according to his own protocols, after telling a child in a safe house with no parents—no family—that she would soon have to leave a place that represented the last bit of security she possessed. She was separated from the only adult she trusted—a police officer name Ewert Grens, who had carried her in his arms all the way there.