“It’s Stefan, right? Stefan Nielsen? We haven’t met before, but I can see that you’re a regular visitor here in the building, so you know your way around and you know how this works. Naturally, I need to inform you that you have the right to remain silent and to have an attorney present. But if you tell me something I wanna know, then there’s a chance that we’ll be willing to cooperate a bit at your arraignment hearing in a couple of hours.”

“You’re not selling anything I need.” The man leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly.

“So, you’re not interested in reducing your sentence?”

“It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’ll be out again in no time.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Schäfer said. “The sentencing guideline for a crime of this caliber says five years to life. You can’t run from that. There are witnesses to what you did. You’re going down for this, and when we nail you for Ulrich Andersson’s murder as well, it’ll be doubled. Unless we agree on some compromise beforehand, you and me.”

Schäfer opened the folder in front of him and pulled out a picture of Ulrich Andersson’s dead body lying on the autopsy table. In the picture, his rib cage was open like a cardboard box being emptied of its contents, with an unobstructed view of the dark-red organs, the yellowish fat, the intestines and tendons.

Schäfer pushed the picture across the table, where it stopped a couple of inches from the man’s right hand.

“This guy,” he said. “Remember him? He’s the one you threatened with a gun a few years ago—the guy you strangled and slung up in his apartment on Amager Strandvej the other day.”

“Who, me? Nah.”

The look in the man’s good eye was playful, defiant. Aside from his injured face, he didn’t look like someone who had met his match the day before. He rather looked like he was enjoying himself.

“Where were you last Wednesday?”

“Around,” he said with a shrug.

“Where were you last Wednesday between noon and ten PM specifically?”

The man leaned back in his chair. He clasped his hands behind his head and crossed his outstretched legs.

“Go fish,” the man said.

Schäfer’s eyes looked the man over, coming to a stop at his feet.

“Nice kicks,” he said, and nodded at the man’s red sneakers, which were sticking out under the table.

The man looked up at the ceiling and exhaled heavily but otherwise remained silent.