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open again by Superintendent Andersson.
    “So things went straight to hell in a handbasket for you, too,” he stated dryly.
    He sat down heavily in the chair the psychologist had just vacated. He was not yet fifty, but Irene thought it was high time for him to start a diet. She could see his stomach hanging over his belt. She looked back up at his face and replied, “Yes, unfortunately, it did. But I believe that—”
    “We will stop all interrogation on this matter. It’s a waste of time. We have tons of other cases on our plates. Keep in touch with that scarecrow of a woman from Social Services. If the girl ever opens her mouth, maybe we can try again.”
    Irene knew he was right, but she still did not want to give up. She took a deep breath and said, “I think we should talk with all the adults close to her. Maybe they can give us some hints we can use if we need to question Sophie again.”
    Andersson’s forehead wrinkled. “Where are you going with this?”
    “If we do a thorough investigation,” she began eagerly, “perhaps we can reconstruct a course of events and …” She stopped when she saw the darkening expression on her boss’s face.
    “So you believe that a thorough investigation has not been done?”
    Since Hans Borg and the superintendent himself were the ones responsible for the initial investigation, there was only one way to answer that question.
    “Of course it was thorough. But I mean that—”
    “Well, then. We’re not going to use up any more time on this. We’ll wait for Social Services to contact us. For now, go help out Tommy with those rape cases from Guldheden.”
    Without waiting for Irene to reply, the superintendent got up and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.
    I RENE HAD A scheduled training session every Saturday afternoon. Two years before she’d had the twins, she had won the European competition for women’s jiujitsu. Back then, she’d trained practically every day, but once the girlswere born, she’d been forced to cut back to only a few hours every week. She still belonged to the highest level in Sweden: black belt, third dan. Since there still were so few women at the elite level of the sport, her classmates were usually men. The Göteborg police force had its own jiujitsu group, so Irene could train during work hours. Still, her Saturday hours were the most important because she worked out with the highest-level people from her former club. The dojo was in the district of Majorna, but since the building was scheduled to be torn down, it was soon going to move. Irene felt melancholy about the move. She’d worked out in the old building for almost thirteen years; it was like her second home.
    Krister was supposed to work all of Saturday, and Irene’s parents were going to take care of the twins. Jenny and Katarina had been ecstatic when Grandpa Rune promised to take them sledding for the day. Irene worried that he might be overdoing things. He’d recovered from the operation he’d had that summer, but Irene worried that he had seemed more tired lately. Of course, he was seventy-two years old, but he’d always been healthy and energetic prior to his illness the year before. The diagnosis of prostate cancer had been a shock to them all, not the least for Irene’s mother, Gerd. Gerd still had a few years to go before her retirement from the post office. She’d said many times that she dreamed of traveling the world with Rune once she was done working. She hadn’t considered the possibility of a serious illness.
    Hope they’ve had fun in this great weather
, Irene thought as she climbed into her freezing car. Twilight had come, but a light pink shimmer still dallied on the roofs of the houses. Here in the center of town, yesterday’s snow had turned into slush. Irene hoped that the slope in their townhouse neighborhood still had enough snow for sledding. The temperature had hovered around freezing the entire day, so perhaps snowstill covered the