“We’re looking for a someone who might end up a DB if we don’t find her. That’s part of police work too. Prevention.”

Ewert Grens drove through the suburbs of Stockholm quickly, and after a while he realized he was being observed not only by his interrogator next to him, but also via the rearview mirror. Cadet Amelia. She seemed about to join the conversation a couple of times, but stopped because the two in front kept talking. Now she looked at him with eyes that appeared to apologize for her fellow cadet’s forwardness. Grens got the feeling that she understood and agreed with him that police work should save lives first, then hunt down those who took them.

He realized he very much liked that.

She reminded him of Mariana Hermansson. Maybe even a little of Anni. She was going to make a good cop.

“What I said before, Superintendent.”

Lucas’s silence was over. For now.

“About your age. I didn’t mean to . . .”

“You didn’t mean to—what?”

“Well . . . I mean, my dad’s a police officer, too. In a small town where not much happens. And he’s—just like you—old now. Retired.”

The eyes in the rearview mirror. The detective superintendent would rather be looking into them. The young woman in the back seat knew it was too late to save her comrade—the more her fellow cadet babbled on trying to make it better, the worse it seemed to get.

“I mean, what I meant was that . . . that Dad wasn’t at all like you, Superintendent, not at all, he didn’t have any plans for his future. It was like his police badge was a computer chip. Do you know what I mean? Dad just kinda stopped functioning when they took it away from him.”

They passed Södertälje, Järna, Nyköping, and it was only there, about halfway to their destination, that Grens finally stopped thinking about badges and computer chips and what happened to old cops who didn’t plan for the future. Instead, what had been gnawing at him since this morning’s meeting with Wilson and then even more after his phone call with Hermansson came back. And soon he slowed down at a rest stop to find a place to make another call without an audience present.

“Sven? It’s me. Are you alone?”

“Just heading out of the garage with Hermansson. On my way to the elevator. We just got back from Regerings Street. Where are . . .”

“Call me when you’re alone in your office.”

“Why . . .”

“And don’t tell Hermansson. Tell her I was calling about the medical examiner’s report. Or whatever you want. I don’t want her wondering what this is all about.”

“But I don’t even know . . .”

Grens hung up.

He took a slow walk through a still nearly deserted rest stop.