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didn’t see anyone else.
    “Yes?” said the man. “Can I help you with something?”
    He wasn’t unfriendly. He looked tired, but it was as though his tiredness didn’t come from lugging things down the stairs. His hair was completely white and she had seen the sweat on the back of his shirt, like a faint V-sign.
    “I’m looking for Anette Lindsten,” she said.
    A younger man came out from a room holding a black plastic bag with bedding sticking out of it.
    “What is it?” he said, before the older man had time to answer. The younger man might have been her own age. He didn’t look friendly. He had given a start when he saw her.
    “She’s looking for Anette,” the older man said. “Anette Lindsten.”
    Aneta would later remember that she had wondered why he said her last name.
    “Who are you?” asked the younger man.
    She explained who she was, showed her ID. She asked who they were.
    “This is Anette’s father, and I’m her brother. What does this concern?”
    “I want to talk to Anette about it.”
    “I think we know why you’re here, but that’s over with now so you don’t need to talk to her anymore,” the brother said.
    “I’ve never talked to her,” said Aneta.
    “And now it isn’t necessary,” he said. “Okay?”
    The father cleared his throat.
    “What is it?” said the brother, looking at him.
    “I think you should lower your voice, Peter.”
    The father turned toward her.
    “I’m Anette’s dad,” he said, nodding from a distance in the hall. “And this is my son, Peter.” He gestured with his arm. “And we’re in the process of moving Anette’s things, as you can see.” He seemed to look at her with transparent eyes. “So, in other words, Anette is moving away from here.”
    “Where to?” asked Aneta.
    “What does that matter?” said Peter Lindsten. “Isn’t it best that as few people know as possible? It wouldn’t really be so good if all the damn authorities came running to the new place too, would it?”
    “Have they, then?” said Aneta. “Before?”
    “No,” he answered in the illogical manner that she had become used to hearing in this job. “But it’ll fu—” the brother began, but he was interrupted by his father.
    “I think we should have a cup of coffee and talk about this properly,” he said, looking at her. He looked like a real father, someone who never wants to relinquish control. At that very moment, at that second, she thought of her own father’s shrinking figure in the half light in the white hut on the African desert steppe. The darkness inside, the white light outside, a world in black and white.
    He wasn’t letting her go. She was the one who had relinquished his control.
    “We don’t have time,” said Peter Lindsten.
    “Put those things down and put on the coffee,” said the father calmly, and the son put down the sack he had been holding during the entire conversation and followed orders.
    Winter got two cups of coffee and placed one in front of Johanna Osvald. She seemed determined and relieved at the same time, as though she had triumphed over something by coming there.
    “I didn’t know where I should go,” she said.
    “Do you know where he’s staying over there?” Winter asked.
    “Where he was staying, at least. I called there and they said he had checked out. Four days ago.” She looked up without having taken a drink from her cup. “It’s a bed and breakfast. I don’t remember what it’s called right now. But I have it written down.” She started to look in her backpack. “I have the notebook here somewhere.” She looked up again.
    “Where is it?” Winter asked. “The bed and breakfast?”
    “In Inverness. Didn’t I say that?”
    Inverness, he thought. The bridge over the river Ness.
    “And he hasn’t contacted you since then?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Did he tell you he was going to check out?”
    “No.”
    “What did he say, then? When he called the last time.”
    “Like I said before. He