Leif Ekdahl

Leif Ekdahl is 44 and has been the doorman at the Aurora Cinema for six years. Born on the east coast, the son of a herring fisherman, as a teenager he boxed in club rings, where he got the broken nose he still carries. At twenty-four he had a bar fight he doesn't like to talk about, and the record that came from it follows him to every new job like a long shadow.

He lives in a one-room-and-kitchen flat near the cinema, with little furniture and a window onto the courtyard. He arrives at the Aurora's door half an hour before the first showing, hooks up the velvet ropes, switches on the marquee lights and checks each film's poster as if checking a passport. He knows the names of the oldest patrons, keeps mint candies in his pocket for the children and always yields his place in line.

He is burly, with an ex-boxer's broken nose, a thick blond mustache and hair long at the nape. He wears the cinema's burgundy jacket with gold buttons over a turtleneck, and a wool cap on cold nights. He has big, calloused hands and a shyness people mistake for menace. He speaks little, looks at the floor and answers grudgingly before becoming willing.

He saw the minister and his wife stand fifteen minutes before the furniture store window, arm in arm, before walking on. He says the minister came to the cinema two or three times a year, got in line, bought his ticket like anyone and greeted the girl at the box office, on the night of the crime too, with no bodyguard. When asked about a weapon, he asks for calm, or that they not ask at all. Those who passed through the door recall he vanished from it from 11:15 to 11:35.

Leif knows whoever has a record and vanishes from the door at the wrong time has to explain on both counts. It could be the embarrassment of a man who was convicted once. It could be someone who prefers silence to an answer he would have to repeat. The detective will have to decide which.