“Because didn’t you and I already come to an agreement that it would be so terribly sad and terribly unnecessary if I started running my mouth about safe combinations that mysteriously vanished? About information regarding criminal infiltrators that we really aren’t supposed to be working with at all? If . . .”

“Seriously, Ewert? How many times do you intend to use that trick?”

“As many times as necessary. And—if we can agree on that—then I want you to A) give me permission to make the arrest tonight with Hermansson’s help, and B) provide me with a properly signed search warrant.”

“Then I say A) an arrest—for what? And B) a search warrant . . . for what?”

“I have no grounds. That’s something for you higher-ups to figure out with a prosecutor.”

“I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that.”

“Maybe not—but then again, we also don’t work with criminal infiltrators and nobody broke into your safe and stole anything, so . . .”

Erik Wilson threw his arms wide. Giving up. For now. The signal for Grens to whisper, “Well, then soon I’ll have my seventy-two hours,” as he followed Mariana Hermansson out. Then, while she was on her way to Bredäng and a gangster wedding, he went back to his boss’s office alone.

“So let’s discuss the next investigation.”

Ewert Grens closed the door to the corridor. This was between the two of them.

“What investigation?”

“The investigation into the investigators. Who broke into your safe. Who is leaking information and endangering our infiltrators.”

His boss had been packing up his briefcase when Grens came through the door. There was no sigh, that wasn’t his style.

“You like doing things under the radar, Ewert. And so do I.”

“Such as?”

“I brought in the professionals. They combed both the office we’re sitting in and the restricted archive in the basement.”

Wilson nodded toward the closed door.

“There’s no evidence on my safe. No fingerprints, no other traces. Nothing to say there even was a burglary.”

“Well, there was one.”

“That’s the odd thing. You need an electronic key to get in—first a small green dongle you wave in front of the code reader, which identifies you as a particular individual, and then you input your personal combination. At that moment, you’ve been registered. Centrally. In a computer that controls everything. A monitoring system that keeps track of who opens what and for how long. Every log for the last six months in this office and the archive has been reviewed. No unauthorized persons. And I’m the only one who has opened my safe, and only the archivist has accessed his archive.”

Then the chief of the homicide unit lowered his head again to his briefcase. A not particularly subtle sign that for him, this conversation was over.

“And now?”

“No idea, Ewert. Yet.”