“If it isn’t me, it’s someone else. I’m...I’m, like, a nobody. Just an insignificant little shit, like this...” Axel held up his thumb and forefinger, a half inch apart. “This is how tiny I am in the big picture. Get it?”

“So whose business is it? Tell me now, Axel. Come on.”

“It’s his! He’s out there,” Axel said, pointing with his hand toward the window. “He’s completely fucking crazy, no conscience whatsoever.”

“Who are you talking about?” Henrik asked, but Axel continued with his hand toward the window.

“You can’t fucking let me go now,” he said.

“There’s not much risk of that happening.”

Peter Ramstedt looked like he wanted to object, but Axel spoke up first.

“It’d be a death trap for me out there,” he said. “He’s never going to let me go. He’ll come after me.”

Henrik Levin took a deep breath, then spoke in a calm voice.

“Who is going to come after you?”

Axel’s shook his legs nervously. He didn’t answer.

“Listen,” Henrik said. “We’re going to go through everything. Your phone, your friends. We will find the person you’re talking about.”

“I hope for your sake that you don’t,” Axel said. “Anyone who does, dies.”

“Did you think that it was him coming for you in the basement on Garvaregatan? Was that why you started threatening me with the crowbar?”

“No, I’ve never met The Old Man.”

“What did you say?”

Axel looked perplexedly at Henrik.

“What?”

“You said The Old Man.”

“No.”

“Yes, I heard you say The Old Man. Do you see that tape recorder on the table over there? That’ll prove you said that exact name.”

Axel covered his face with his hands.

“Who is The Old Man?” Henrik asked.

“No one.” Axel sighed.

“Who calls him The Old Man? Why do people call him that? Is it an older man?”

Axel didn’t answer.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to answer these questions...”

“You don’t understand...” he said, shaking his head dejectedly.

“What don’t I understand? Was it The Old Man who murdered Robin?” Henrik asked.

Axel began laughing nervously.

“No, you don’t understand—he doesn’t exist. No one knows who he is—no one!”

Axel closed his eyes and put his hands over his mouth.

“Don’t talk, don’t talk, don’t talk,” he muttered.

The lawyer rested one hand on Axel’s back, told him to calm down.

“I can’t say anything,” Axel said, “because I know how those people are, what they do, and I’ve heard them talk about how they do it.”

“Now you’re talking about them again. If we’re going to have a chance of stopping these people, you have to help us find them. Not protect them.”

Axel looked at Henrik, stamping his feet under the table even more quickly.