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the car into one of the spaces and leaned over the steering wheel. You’ve kept it together so far, he thought, but this is starting to get to you.
    You have to talk with Hanne Östergaard, he told himself. Sit here as long as the sun is in your eyes and then go back and see Karin and Lasse. Put on some slow jazz now and try to make out your face in the rearview mirror.

5
    SNOW HAD FALLEN AND CLOAKED THE BRANCHES, BESTOWING a solemn beauty on the city in just a few hours. From her fourth-story window, Östergaard could see people glide along the white surfaces, their breath like disintegrating cones in front of them. She ran her index finger across the windowpane to get a better view. The mist became clear and shiny. Rubbing her cold fingertip with her thumb, she turned to Winter.
    “Too much all at once,” he said.
    “I hear you.”
    “At some point I can’t hold it in any longer.”
    “Not even you?” She sat down behind her desk. It was big and cumbersome and she heartily disliked it. She had asked for another desk and another office, but she was stuck here while the wheels of bureaucracy ground away.
    “Not even me.” Winter crossed his long legs with difficulty.
    I’m fond of him, Östergaard thought. He’s too young for the job, too handsome, and he’s a snob in his Baldessarini and Versace suits. His expression changes far too rarely. But he’s a reflective man, and that’s why he’s here. He’s not going to break down, even though it’s occurred to him that he might.
    “I’m not going to break down,” Winter said.
    “I know.”
    “You understand me.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “They say you’re a good listener.”
    Östergaard shrugged. Listening was what pastors were supposed to do, and since she had started to divide her time between her congregation and police headquarters, she had gotten a lot of extra practice with the officers on the beat and the young inspectors who’d gone straight from the National Police Academy to the beltway around the Gothenburg tinderbox. If something really horrific occurred, they could go home for the day, but that wasn’t nearly good enough. They were in the middle of an inferno, both witnesses and participants as society devoured its own children. Nobody could be weak anymore if they wanted to survive. Misanthropy was always on the brink of taking over.
    Winter had done a good job convincing the members of his team to talk with each other, but Östergaard had something he couldn’t give them. She wondered whether she could handle being here more than three days a week. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up being trapped in their nightmare.
    “I’m so emotionally involved in this London murder that I don’t know whether I’m the right person to be chief investigator,” Winter said.
    “Hmm.”
    “I thought I was getting over Mats’s death, but that’s going to take some time too.”
    “Of course.”
    “Maybe what I need is a family.”
    Östergaard studied Winter’s blue eyes, or whatever might lie behind them. “Do you miss having a family?”
    “No.”
    “You just said that you might need one.”
    “It’s not the same thing. I made the choice to be alone, and I like being able to decide for myself when I want to talk with someone, but sometimes, like now . . .” He looked at her.
    “Like now,” she repeated.
    “Yes.”
    Winter crossed his legs again. The scratchiness in his throat had coalesced into a tiny sore spot way down where he couldn’t get at it.
    “I don’t usually stop to think about how it feels anymore,” he said. “When I was a rookie and they put me out on the streets, I got my first glimpse of real violence and I actually planned to try something else for a while, but then it got better.”
    “What is it that got better?”
    “What?”
    “Did your feelings change? Did it all just start to swim past your eyes?”
    “Swim past my eyes? That’s a pretty good way to put it.”
    “Then they took you off the