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his head and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
    “That’s why we bury people six feet under, you know. Just imagine what a hell of a mess it would be if you managed to outlive your mother-in-law, only to have her rise up from the damned ground a year later.”
    Bergmann was hardly listening any longer. He felt dizzy as he got up off his knees and stood staring down at the two forearm bones, which lay across what was left of the rib cage. The odor of the forest floor made him feel sick. He tore off his plastic gloves and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. How long had they been out here working on this? An hour? He cocked his head to one side as he always did when lighting a smoke, but stopped just before the lighter flame reached the cigarette.
    The angle of the battery-powered light cast a sharp glow on the end of the forearm, or maybe it was the hand. Bergmann saw something flash down in the dirt.
    He took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and held it almost listlessly between his fingers.
    “Georg,” he said in a low voice, dropping the cigarette to the ground. Putting his gloves back on, he knelt down and began to dig carefully around what must have been the left hand. He removed the last bits of dirt from around the brown, porous finger bones.
    Hanging on the half-rotten ring finger was a dull ring.
    A gold ring.
    A wedding ring.
    Tommy Bergmann felt another chill run through his body as he picked up the remnants of the hand.
    “Don’t do that,” said Abrahamsen behind him.
    Bergmann ignored him. It was too late anyway. Besides, the bones didn’t break. He slipped the ring on his own finger and held it up to the sky. After three tries he managed to make out the letters on the engraving.
    Y OURS FOREVER . G USTAV .

CHAPTER 5
    Early Wednesday Morning, May 30, 1945
    Berns Restaurant, Large Salon
    Stockholm, Sweden
     
    Kaj Holt had no idea where he was when he was rudely awakened by a hand shaking him lightly by the shoulder. All the lights were on in the large, long room, and there was no music coming from the stage. He was reclining rather than sitting, and a thundering headache was the only sign that he was still alive. For a moment it seemed like the huge, gleaming chandeliers on the ceiling were falling toward him. But there was no sound, absolutely none. And nothing could penetrate his headache, not even the thought of lying beneath the floorboards on Valkyriegata, or the fear of not having identification papers on him.
    “The gentleman will have to leave,” said a voice above him.
    Holt automatically straightened up, tipping the chair over backward. The hand gripped his shoulder again. He had a sudden desire to lash out around him, but reason prevailed. Maybe it was the clinking of glasses somewhere in the room, or the sound of laughter—friendly, not jeering—coming from somewhere else.
    Images from the night before flashed across his mind’s eye. The faces, the laughter, a woman on his lap, her fragrance, the taste of her. Nordenstam’s suntanned face and white teeth, the pats on his back. The words “It’s over now, it’s all over.”
    But where am I? Holt thought, glancing around the room. Where is everybody?
    “Sorry,” he heard himself say. Then he was suddenly standing out on the street with his suit coat over his arm, holding his hat between his thumb and index finger. Carefully, as if to ensure that his head wouldn’t fall off, he looked up at the sky, relieved to see that an almost invisible rain was falling from the darkness above him. He checked his watch several times, but was unable to make sense of its hands.
    After he’d stood there long enough to get soaked, someone behind him said that a cab was coming. All he could manage was a grunt in reply. A pair of headlights appeared down the street.
    “To Gärdet,” he said softly to himself. His mind was starting to clear, but he still couldn’t remember anything about the night before. It was as if his short-term memory