Part 2

Part 2

In the years Annika Persson lived in Stockholm, the absence of nature had felt like a physical deprivation comparable to hunger and thirst. She had longed for the stillness, the darkness, for hikes through never-ending forests and for the salty spray of enormous waves from the Bay of Bothnia that crashed against jagged cliffsides. But Härnösand was also a provincial town with a population of eighteen thousand, and when she was offered the position of police commissioner in her hometown, her teenage sons had been dead set on moving to a house on the island that had given the town its name and where apartment buildings and villas competed for space on the relatively level stretch between Kapellsberget and the bridge to the mainland—but she had resisted the pressure, and most mornings she happily paid the price by serving as their personal chauffeur.

A plump drop of water dislodged itself and slid slowly down the windshield. Annika followed it with her eyes, and when it reached the windshield wipers she praised herself for not having thought about the case for four or five seconds. Another drop broke free. If Wille hadn’t come out by the time it reached the bottom, she would drive without him.

Then, finally, her youngest son appeared in the doorway with his coat in one hand and rucksack in the other. Annika rolled down the window and shouted:

‘Remember to lock up.’

Somewhere she had read that teenagers couldn’t help suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the simplest tasks—things they had been capable of doing for years without help—and so she managed to give the instruction yet again without sounding irritated.

‘Sorry,’ he said as he tumbled into the car with the smell of toothpaste lingering about him. ‘I just had to finish reading the latest news on Allehanda. People are freaking out. You’d think it was a serial killer who had murdered fifty people.’

Annika was touched by the implicit loyalty; the practically adult concern in her son’s voice, but as a matter of principle she never discussed ongoing cases with anyone besides her colleagues, so she put the car in reverse and said:

‘Today’s the day you find out.’

For weeks Wille had hardly spoken about anything besides the role he was hoping to get in the school’s annual musical, but now there was silence from the backseat.

‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ she asked.

‘That Krister gets it.’

After a brief pause he added:

‘But if I don’t get it, I suppose it doesn’t matter who does. So I guess the worst that could happen is not to get any role at all.’

Annika fought the desire to say something encouraging or to comfort him in advance, but she was able to keep her mouth shut, and finally Wille took care of it himself:

‘But if that happens, I’ll probably get one next year. And it might be good for my final marks not to spend all that time rehearsing.’

Annika smiled. It was possible that she had made one of her life’s few catastrophic decisions the day she had said yes to the children’s father, but the outcome—two incredible kids—meant she had never truly regretted it.

What’s the worst that could happen, Annika asked twenty minutes later, after dropping off Wille in front of the school.

It was her father who had taught her that if you articulate your greatest fear, you usually realise that it’s completely out of proportion, and she often used the little trick with her sons. It was a long time since she had asked herself the question, however.

The answer came to her instantly:

That he strikes again.

Although a whole evening and night had passed without the dreaded call from the dispatcher, she knew that this worst-case scenario could not simply be written off as a pessimistic exaggeration, but now that she allowed herself to dwell on it, she realised that she could, in fact, live with it.

In the police force, you did not make it to the top without learning that life was a fickle affair. No matter how hard she and her team fought, there would still be children who got run over by drunk drivers, men who beat their wives and teens who disappeared into a fog of drugs. What was important—what she had to focus on—was to ensure that they had done everything in their power to prevent it, and in this case she could confidently say yes.

After breakfast Nadia went outside and lit a cigarette. It had been pitch black when they arrived at Sjögården last night, but when she looked out of the window in her evocatively named Sky Room at dawn, she had seen that the bed and breakfast’s name was no coincidence. The property, which lay next to a small marina with colourful boathouses, sloped steeply towards a short, wide pier, and across a narrow channel was a ski slope that carved its way down a small mountain.

Nadia imagined that the big, grey wooden house was the kind of place couples flocked to on romantic getaways in summer, but it was not summer and she did not have a boyfriend, and so she would have much preferred if Løwe had booked them into a regular hotel where she might at least have had a chance of obtaining a clean shirt before nine o’clock.

Her suitcase had not made it onto the Sundsvall flight.

Fortunately she had packed her laptop and toiletries in her hand luggage, but she could already tell that her leather jacket, which she had to keep on indoors as well due to the coffee stain, did not offer much protection against the cold up here, five hundred kilometres north of Stockholm.

From the front, Sjögården’s location was considerably less idyllic than from Nadia’s room, and when a road train roared by out on the E4, she decided to walk around the building and enjoy the view across the water. She heard the sound—a hollow scrape of a thin leather sole skating across a cap of ice—right before her legs flew out from under her. She landed flat on her back and was sent skidding along the wall until her left heel rammed into something solid.

She looked up, and the first thing she saw was a big beard streaked with a few wisps of grey and caramel, particularly on the upper lip. It wasn’t one of those metrosexual accessories crafted in consultation with an über-cool barber, but rather an ‘I haven’t been bothered to shave for the past couple of years’ beard. Between the beard and a dark blue wool hat was a pair of grey-brown eyes that peered down at her.

When the face came closer, Nadia stretched out a hand, assuming that the owner of the eyes intended to help her up, but instead he lifted his right leg and wrapped his hand around his shin. So that was what had put a stop to her slippery joyride. No wonder he looked annoyed.

She attempted to stand up but slipped once again.

‘Here.’

He now extended a big hand. It was covered by a worn, black Gore-Tex glove and gripped hers so tightly that her fingers immediately went numb, but she did get to her feet.

‘Thanks. Sorry about your leg. I’m Nadia Elmkvist.’

‘Hampus Cedergren.’

So the man who had just helped her up (and crushed her fingers) was the officer who had surprised the robber but let him escape in order to attend to a wounded victim. That said something about him that did not match up with the immediate impression he gave off, and now that Nadia thought about it, the same could be said about his name. Was Hampus even a real name? It sounded more like something you would call a pet.

The group was gathered around the table in the big, bright dining room, and Conrad permitted himself a few seconds of silence to fully take in the moment. Sjögården had turned out to be quite the find. In addition to the charming rooms, the upper floor boasted a cosy lounge, while downstairs they had at their disposal both the dining room and adjoining sitting room, which led to a smaller lounge and a big, covered veranda.

The homely surroundings and the view to the fjord made him feel as though he had travelled back in time; back to the years in the Mobile Investigation Unit, where the detectives would pool their money and rent a summerhouse instead of blowing their per diems on the local provincial hotel. He had nearly forgotten the unique sense of community that arose when a group of people put their differences aside and came together around a single goal—to catch a criminal—and just to be safe he cleared his throat before he began to speak:

‘First of all, I’d like to welcome Hampus Cedergren. As representatives of the Academy, you have no jurisdiction here in Härnösand, which is why police commissioner Annika Persson has asked Hampus to be on hand should you wish to go view the crime scenes or speak with any of the case’s involved parties. You are never to act on your own. Is that clear? Any breach of this will result in your immediate discharge.’

He looked at Hampus Cedergren. With his broad-shouldered frame, untamed beard and slightly dogged expression, he gave off a special mix of intimidating and reassuring that characterised all the most talented patrol officers Conrad had met in the course of his career, and it made him wonder whether Annika Persson could be wrong. Maybe Hampus was already precisely where he ought to be.

‘What about data? Will we be able to log onto the Swedish databases?’ asked Bjørn.

‘The codes I gave you last night give access to an encrypted drive containing all reports and documentation related to the case. If you need anything else, it goes through the local police, and that goes for you, too, Stefan. It may seem like a hassle, but, legally, those are the terms, and I for one can only see advantages to working closely with the detectives who will ultimately be the ones using the profile. Lead detective Per Hagelöv has unfortunately come down with a bad case of the flu, but Persson has promised that his closest colleague, Jennifer Lundström, will be available. But speaking of the profile…’

Conrad’s voice was both deeper and firmer when he continued:

‘I cannot stress enough the difficulty of the task you are facing, particularly in light of the responsibility it entails. In a place like this, one’s closest neighbour can be miles away, and it is therefore absolutely crucial that citizens feel safe. Despite the police’s best efforts, this has not been the case in recent weeks.’

He paused to consider his next words. In the Mobile Investigation Unit and the Crimes Against Persons Division, where he had had the privilege to spend ten good years before his age became more important than his performance, he had never needed to say very much. Everyone on the team had known what the assignment consisted of and how to go about it. But this was something completely different, and it was therefore necessary to boost confidence in the recruits while simultaneously ensuring that they took the task seriously.

‘In the days following the latest robbery, Härnösand Police received more than thirty calls an hour on average. The calls came from citizens who were convinced that they were about to be the offender’s next victim or who had noticed suspicious behaviour among neighbours, colleagues, friends and acquaintances. It goes without saying that an atmosphere of that kind is devastating for a small community.’

Conrad noted, not without a certain satisfaction, that the expression on the recruits’ faces was now nearly as dogged as Hampus Cedergren.

‘Since the robbery at the Sigvardssons, eleven days have gone by without incident. Naturally, the hope is that Hampus’s sudden appearance gave him such a shock that he has ceased his spree entirely, but this does not make the case any less urgent. As long as he is on the loose, uncertainty will continue to reign.’

He walked over to the wall with the wide sideboard where a couple of Persson’s people had removed a big, gloomy landscape painting this morning to make space for a whiteboard, on which he now wrote the simple equation that constituted the basis for any profiler’s work:

What + how = who

The recruits knew it by heart, of course, so the only reason he was spending time on it now was to keep his promise to Annika Persson. Not that Hampus Cedergren looked particularly interested. Only when he drew upon Ulf Eriksson’s trivial supermarket analogy did Conrad detect a flicker of interest in the grey-brown eyes.

‘In principle, there is no real difference between the mental processes at play when an offender carries out a criminal act and those that govern the average person’s trip to the supermarket. The decisions we make along the way—often without being conscious of them—reveal fundamental traits of our personality. Do we improvise or do we make a shopping list beforehand? Do we cycle to the store or take the car? Do we buy everything in the same store? Do we look for offers or do we always go for the same brand? Do we pay cash or card? Do we buy plastic bags or do we bring along our own? And how do we react when the store is out of chicken or our credit card is rejected?’

Surely that ought to suffice, Conrad thought and rounded off his speech:

‘In other words, by mapping and analysing how our offender carries out his robberies, we can gain insight into how he acts in all sorts of other situations, and with this knowledge, we can narrow down the search.’

Hampus looked out the window while attempting to decipher Conrad’s words. It was as though the Danes squeezed their language into a thin line by pronouncing in the exact same flat intonation, and it didn’t exactly help that they swallowed the end of half the words.

Outside, the morning’s thick clouds were gradually lifting, and something about the way the sun’s rays fell reminded Hampus of his sister’s wedding; Elin and the other bridesmaids down by the shore, laughing.

He pushed the image out of his mind and instead thought about what Conrad Løwe had just said. It seemed callous to compare violent attacks on innocent victims to a trip to the supermarket, but he had to admit that Løwe had a point. When he met another hunter, he could tell just by the man’s boots and the way he hung his knife on his belt whether this was a person who dressed his game on the spot or who dragged it home and took his time with the task. Why wouldn’t there be an equivalent correspondence between how an offender carried out his criminal activities and how he went about the rest of his life?

On the whole, Hampus was feeling more optimistic than when he had left home that morning. Although he had a hard time understanding what Conrad Løwe said, he had caught enough to know that the Academy’s instructor did not view the case as a neat little exercise. He seemed genuinely concerned. And what’s more, he appeared convinced that he and his recruits had something valuable to contribute, and Hampus felt a hint of the excitement that Micke had expressed the other day at the thought of being part of it.

Løwe sat down, and in the sudden silence Hampus caught himself once again looking over at Nadia, who had kept her jacket on even though the room was far too warm. He was wondering whether her eyes really were the same colour as the forest’s lightest moss, but before he could figure it out, they bored into his as if trying to turn him inside out, and he immediately looked away.

‘Stefan, do you need to view the crime scenes?’ Løwe asked.

Hampus crossed his fingers that the Swedish recruit would say yes so that his day would be spent with someone he could understand, but unfortunately Stefan Berg shook his head and said:

‘I doubt that it would be useful after all this time. I’d rather start by delving into some of the new material we’ve been given access to, and I’d like to speak to the technicians who were at the scenes while they were still hot.’

‘Good. I have a meeting with the police commissioner at ten where she’ll be giving me a thorough briefing of the case, and I suggest that you and Bjørn come with me to the station. Nadia, I understand that you’re going to take care of the witness reports. Do you want to come along or would you rather stay here and read?’

‘Read? I was planning on going out to talk to them,’ said Nadia.

‘Shouldn’t you start by reading the transcripts of the existing interviews? They’re on the drive,’ Løwe replied.

To his own surprise, Hampus felt a twinge of disappointment at the prospect of none of the three recruits needing him today, and he was therefore almost relieved when Nadia said:

‘But I’ve already read them.’

As far as Hampus could tell, the transcripts of the detectives’ interviews were several hundred pages long. How had she managed to read all that?

As though reading his mind, she added:

‘I couldn’t sleep last night anyway, and Netflix was acting up, so I also put together a set of questions to use when re-interviewing.’

Ten minutes later, Hampus watched Nadia come teetering across the driveway. He pressed the car key fob and asked:

‘Don’t you need more clothes?’

‘No thanks, I’m fine.’

‘And you’re sure we shouldn’t call in advance? The houses are pretty far apart and it would be a shame to waste our time.’

‘I’m completely sure. If we give them warning, they’ll have time to prepare and then it might be a waste of time anyway.’

They got in, and Hampus hadn’t even turned on the engine before she asked the question he had come to fear at this point:

‘So, tell me—what made you drive out to the Sigvardssons’ farm that night?’

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had turned to look at him in her seat, and he wished he could say something; anything that wouldn’t make her react like everyone else did. What did they think? That he didn’t want to explain? The truth was, he didn’t have the slightest clue, and once again his answer was therefore:

‘I don’t know.’

‘Of course you know. You just don’t know that you know.’

At least that one was new.

‘As far as I’ve understood, you made the decision to drive out there while looking at some old map. Was that at your house?’

Hampus nodded.

‘Do you live nearby?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I was just thinking about whether I ought to do an enhanced cognitive interview with you before we head out to Kerstin Ohlsson’s.’

‘A what?’

‘An enhanced cognitive interview. What people call intuition or gut feeling is actually just cognitive processes that take place outside consciousness. When someone claims that their sixth sense warns them not to do something, it’s not because they have some magical ability to see the future or predict the outcome. The discomfort they feel stems from memories of similar situations in the past that they didn’t tackle well, and when they allow this discomfort to dictate their behaviour, they aren’t protecting themselves against any real danger. To the contrary. They’re actually robbing themselves of an opportunity to learn how to tackle that type of situation better.’

Nadia crossed her legs and continued:

‘Anyway, that was beside the point. In your case, the intuitive decision doesn’t stem from your own memories, of course, but rather a pattern that your subconscious mind has noticed. It’s possible that you’re unable to recall the pattern because it’s based on too many or too complex variables for your consciousness to contain them all at once, and if that’s the case, I could interview you to the end of time and still be none the wiser. But if your mind was merely preoccupied with something else, the analysis would have been running in the background, so to speak, and I would be able to help you retrieve it.’

Hampus slowed down. He was relieved that Nadia had just offered a logical explanation for what had happened that night, but it didn’t change the fact that his intuition was violently opposed to the idea of letting her and her green eyes into his subconscious, or even just his home, for that matter.

The sun flashed in one of the rearview mirrors of the derelict blue bus that had stood in front of Kerstin and Lennart Ohlsson’s barn for as long as Hampus could remember. Lennart had died the previous year and Kerstin had been forced to sell the animals, but the bus was still here, and Hampus could still remember gripping the big wheel and feeling like he could go wherever he wanted.

He walked up to the front door and waited for Nadia, who had stepped into a snowbank to avoid falling on the slippery driveway. Who came to Ångermanland in December without bringing a proper pair of boots at the very least?

‘Has she been living alone for long?’ asked Nadia, who was now making her way up the stairs with a tight grip on the railing.

‘Her husband died last summer. Kerstin leased the land and sold the animals but still lives here.’

Kerstin Ohlsson opened the door before he had even rung the doorbell.

‘I saw you from the window,’ she said. ‘Did you catch him?’

‘I’m afraid not. I’m here to ask whether you have time to talk to my Danish colleague, Nadia Elmkvist, who’s helping with the investigation.’

After Kerstin Ohlsson had shook Nadia’s hand, she said:

‘I’ve already explained everything, first to Hampus and then to another officer down at the police station.’

‘We’re working on a so-called offender profile, which requires a slightly different kind of information. That’s why we’re asking for your help once more,’ Nadia replied.

Kerstin Ohlsson examined her with narrowed eyes, and Hampus got the sense that she would prefer to slam the door on them, but finally she cocked her head slightly and said:

‘It’s strange. I usually have trouble understanding Danish, but you I understand just fine.’

Only now did it occur to Hampus that although Nadia spoke exceptionally fast, he had been able to follow her explanations of intuition and cognitive processes just fine.

‘Maybe that’s because I’m speaking Swedish,’ Nadia said. ‘My dad is from Småland.’

Kerstin smiled and stepped back to let them in.

‘What a lovely stove,’ Nadia said when they entered the kitchen.

‘Yes, it really is nice. My husband, Lennart, salvaged it from a house that burned down outside Kramfors and fixed it himself. That was right when we moved here.’

‘Where did you move from?’

‘I’m from Gothenburg and met Lennart when I was studying in Uppsala. We were both politically engaged and dreamt of changing the world, but then I got pregnant, and when Lennart inherited the farm here from an uncle, we agreed to spend a few years fixing up the place so that it could be sold. We never ended up leaving.’

‘I can see why,’ said Nadia.

Hampus suspected that was rather far from the truth. Nadia Elmkvist did not look like someone who would thrive in a place like this.

Kerstin offered them coffee, and the more Nadia got her talking about the house and her life, the more she resembled the woman he remembered from his childhood.

He was no more than four or five when his father started letting him tag along on his daily round in the big Arla tanker, which could suck the milk from the farmers’ tanks into the shiny metal cylinder at record speed, and one of the first things he learned on those trips was that there were two types of farmer wives: those who smiled and invited him in for juice and cake, and the strict ones whose eyes in the back of their heads never left strawberry patches and apple trees unguarded. Kerstin Ohlsson had belonged to the latter category, and as the fearful, almost timid look disappeared from her face, he remembered how the smell of cheroot smoke, the sound of jingling bracelets and, not least, the red, orange and purple colours of her flowy dresses had served as little warning signals for him back then.

The moment Nadia thanked Kerstin for the coffee, the tense expression from the front hall returned to the old woman’s face.

‘I really don’t think I can help you,’ she said and fiddled with the big amber stone that hung from a thick silver chain around her neck.

Nadia placed a hand on her elbow.

‘When we experience something, regardless of whether it’s pleasant or frightening, our conscious mind has to choose among all the sensory impressions we receive,’ she said. ‘Hence, we only remember the things we consider most important, but that doesn’t mean that the rest simply disappears. It’s in there, and I can help you access it.’

Kerstin looked over at Hampus, who nodded, and she did the same.

Nadia continued:

‘In your statement to the police, you explain that your first encounter with the offender took place in the front hall, so that’s where I want to start.’

Kerstin cast another glance at Hampus, and when he stood up, she followed Nadia into the hallway.

‘Hampus, would you mind stepping outside? When I knock, I’d like you to wait a few seconds before ringing the doorbell and then do exactly as Kerstin says the offender did that night. Okay?’

Hampus pulled on his boots and went outside. As he stood on the front steps waiting, he had a disconcerting sense of actually being the offender, about to barge into another person’s life and ruin it, when he finally heard a few soft knocks, he had to take a deep breath before he rang the bell.

The door opened, and through the small crack he saw Kerstin’s face, but even though her eyes were directed at him, it was obvious that he wasn’t the person she was seeing.

He heard Nadia’s voice in the background.

‘Okay. Stop right there. Now I want you to focus on the sensation of your hand on the doorknob and the cold air flowing in through the open door. Take a few deep breaths and then tell me what you see.’

Kerstin’s voice was strangely toneless when she began to speak.

‘I see a man.’

‘Good. Let’s start from the top. With your hand, show me how tall he is.’

Kerstin lifted one hand until it hovered in front of Hampus’s eyes.

‘Are you sure he isn’t taller?’ asked Nadia, clearly having read the reports thoroughly.

When Hampus spoke to Kerstin the first time, she had estimated the offender to be around one metre ninety—that is, about the same height as him—but now she nodded, thereby shaving about ten centimetres off that height.

‘Positive. We were both standing exactly like this, and I remember that the roof of the stable was just visible above his head.’

‘Okay,’ said Nadia. ‘Then let’s continue. What do you see right under your hand?’

‘I see the outline of a head. It’s covered by a mask. It’s black, but now I see that it isn’t smooth. It’s ribbed, and two tiny holes have been cut for his eyes, which are brown.’

‘Brown as in almost black or more like hazelnut shells?’

‘In between, I think, but it’s hard to tell. I haven’t turned on the lights in here, and the lamp outside is behind him so he’s blocking the light.’

Hampus noticed that she was speaking in the present tense, as though it were all happening right now, and he understood that this was what made it possible for her to recall new details, but it again made him feel uncomfortable playing the offender.

‘That’s fine,’ said Nadia. ‘What happens next?’

‘My whole body goes cold, as if I freeze up, and then all my strength and energy seems to flow into my left arm. I push the door, but it won’t shut, and when I look down, I realise that his boot is blocking it.’

‘Hampus, will you put a foot in the door?’ said Nadia.

‘Does it matter which one?’

‘The right one,’ Kerstin answered without hesitation, and Hampus placed his right foot right inside the doorway.

‘Try opening your eyes and look down like you did that night,’ Nadia said. ‘You told the police that the offender’s boots were black. Were they like Hampus’s?’

Kerstin shook her head.

‘No. His went further up the leg, and they were rounder in front. They also had lots of seams going across them, and there were flecks of yellow in the shoelaces.’

They went through the part of the robbery where Kerstin Ohlsson handed over the 450 kronor, and then they continued into the kitchen, where Nadia had Kerstin sit down on the chair that the offender had tied her to that night.

‘Where did he find the roll of twine?’

‘Is that really necessary?’ Hampus asked.

Nadia didn’t look at him; she just nodded and began opening and closing drawers one by one until Kerstin Ohlsson interrupted her:

‘The police took it, and I haven’t bought a new one yet. I can’t stand to think that that was what he used.’

Nadia narrowed her eyes as though she were about to say something, but then she shrugged and looked over at Hampus.

‘Okay. You’ll have to hold her arms, then.’

Hampus looked down at the two wrinkled hands that Kerstin Ohlsson had obediently gathered behind the back of the chair, but before he could take hold of them, she blurted out:

‘He doesn’t leave… I remembered it as though he left the room after tying me up, but he didn’t.’

Her voice was only a whisper now:

‘He stays put, as though he doesn’t know what to do. He walks over to the kitchen counter. Right where you’re standing. He touches the teapot, and then the fruit bowl. Very carefully. Almost like a caress.’

Later on, after a tearful Kerstin Ohlsson had thrown out the fruit and scrubbed the big glass bowl and teapot in scalding water with stiff, manic movements, Hampus stood in the hallway once more, tying his boots.

Wasn’t what they had just subjected Kerstin Ohlsson to just as bad as the offender’s attack? And for what? For the information that his mask was ribbed and his shoelaces had yellow flecks?

Even so, he felt a strange sense of unease when he thought of Kerstin’s last words:

A caress.

It was as though those two words added a whole new dimension to his image of the offender.

Hampus had not been to Norremarksgården for years, but it looked as though Lars and Helen Nyholm, who had inherited the farm from Lars’s parents in the mean time, had the same high standards. Not a single one of the fence posts lining the big pastures was crooked, and the buildings all looked as though they had recently received new coat of falu red.

They rung the doorbell, but there was no answer.

‘Maybe we can swing by again after we’ve been to the Sigvardssons,’ said Nadia.

‘Can we just check one thing before we go?’

He could tell that she was hesitant.

‘Wait here,’ he said.

He got out the old fleece jumper that had been lying in the car since the autumn elk hunt.

‘I’m not cold.’

‘Just take it. It’s minus six degrees out.’

The jumper went down to her knees, and she immediately pushed up the sleeves and stuffed her hands into the deep pockets. Of course she was cold.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Over there,’ Hampus said, pointing towards the forest.

Nadia looked out across the snowy fields and said:

‘I’ll wait in the car.’

Hampus handed her the keys, and once she had disappeared, he walked around the main house and headed towards the big yard in front of the stable, where he ran his gaze across the long row of pines. It was quite a ways off. It was probably better to come back some other time when he didn’t have Nadia with him, but he probably had time for a quick peek behind the stable.

It was while standing here that he heard a car coming up the long, straight gravel road that led to Norremarksgården from the back.

He assumed it was Lars and Helen, but it turned out to be one of the small vans that the people from Arla’s temp service drove around in. A man his own age stepped out and busied himself by the car, pulling on a thick blue coat and fetching some things from the backseat. The heavyset body gave a start when he turned around and spotted Hampus.

‘Phew, you scared me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.’

Hampus walked over, and when he saw the uneasiness in the man’s eyes, it occurred to him that perhaps the man thought Hampus was a burglar—or even the Silent Robber.

Had it really come to this? His whole life, he had never been met with anything besides trust from people in these parts, and now just the sight of him had nearly scared some poor man to death.

He pulled out his police badge and said:

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Hampus Cedergren from Härnösand Police.’

Now the man looked even more afraid.

‘Did… something happen?’

‘No. We just need to ask Lars and Helen a few questions. Do you know when they’ll be back?’

‘They should be back by tomorrow morning at the latest. I’ve only been told to take care of the feeding and milking up until this evening, at least.’

Hampus nodded at the temp’s van and said:

‘My dad drove for Arla.’

‘When?’

The temp looked to be around his own age, so Hampus shook his head and said:

‘It must be twenty-five years since he stopped.’

Twenty-five years since he packed up his car and abandoned them all, Hampus thought as he watched the temp walk over and unlock the Nyholms’ big, streamlined stable.

It was just as cold inside the car as it was outside, and Nadia considered letting the engine run, but instead she pulled the sleeves of Hampus’s jumper further over her hands. It smelled of bonfire, but also a bit of dog and something else she couldn’t identify. In every single window of the Nyholm family’s extended single-storey house stood one of those five-armed candlesticks she had always associated with winter in Sweden, and on the whole, the place was about as far from Kerstin Ohlsson’s hotchpotch of a house as you could get. She would obviously have to see the Sigvardssons’ house as well before drawing any conclusions, but her impression was that the offender’s selection criteria could be summed up with the good old real estate slogan: location, location, location.

It seemed to be houses in isolated surroundings he was after—not specific victims—and based on what she had seen so far, there were plenty of those to choose from. Good lord, it was slim pickings if you were looking for a bit of company around here.

Hampus appeared around the corner of the house. Should she confront him right away or wait and see how he reacted at the next house?

If she had started arguing with him when he tried to stop her from tying up Kerstin Ohlsson, it would have disrupted the whole process, and if he interfered every time they were closing in on something interesting, they would never get anywhere. He needed to understand that his job was solely to drive the car and serve as a standin for the offender, but unfortunately he looked like the type who was easily offended, and it would be a shame to step on his toes before she had the chance to do the enhanced interview. It was probably best to wait.

‘They won’t be back until late this evening or tomorrow morning,’ Hampus said and told her about the meeting with the temp.

A replacement milker—why not? Farmers probably needed to get away once in a while too, Nadia supposed.

Hampus started the car, and they drove in silence. After some time, the road led them through a tunnel and under a motorway, and in the bay in the distance, behind something that looked like a power plant, Nadia caught a glimpse of giant cruise ship. The contrast between the blackened chimneys and the white ship made the sight appear utterly surreal.

‘What’s that ship?’ she asked.

‘Ocean Gala,’ Hampus replied.

‘Isn’t this an odd place for a cruise in the middle of winter?’ Nadia asked.

Hampus grumbled something that sounded like ‘maybe’ and turned up the music.

This is starting to look like a long day, Nadia thought.

When she was sitting or standing directly across from another person, the words weren’t so important. The things she said were really just little probes intended to elicit a reaction that she could subsequently interpret. In order to have a conversation in a car, however, it was necessary to get something in return. What’s more, she hated country music. The lyrics were so over-the-top it was practically vulgar and the music cringingly sentimental, but she had to admit that Willie Nelson’s ballads were less corny in these surroundings than when her father played them in the family villa.

If she were to describe the surrounding nature in one word, she would choose over-the-top. To the left of the road, across a wide channel, the coastline abruptly rose up to form a dizzying cliff, and in front of them, the sea extended as far as the eye could see.

Maybe living in this kind of landscape just made a person quiet.

The big lunch rush at Tullportens Café had long since subsided, and the only other guest was an elderly woman who sat reading the newspaper over the remnants of a piece of pound cake. Conrad was outside talking on the phone, and Annika chose one of the tables by the window. But just as she set down the tray, a voice called out behind her:

‘Annika?’

She turned and saw a tall, slender man with curly red hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Gunnar Berglund.

‘I’m sorry to bother you in the middle of lunch, but the people at the station told me I could find you here. I was just wondering whether you’ve had a chance to look at city council’s request regarding Ocean Gala?’

‘I have, and I expect to have an answer ready by tomorrow at the latest,’ she said.

Berglund’s lips formed a tentative smile, and after they had exchanged pleasantries, he nodded and left.

As Conrad approached the table, Annika said:

‘Gunnar Berglund. A local politician who’s extremely busy telling police officers, doctors, teachers and social workers how to do their jobs.’

‘And Ocean Gala?’

‘Ocean Gala is a cruise ship that the Swedish Migration Agency chartered when the refugee crisis was at its height last summer. It’s docked a little ways up the coast, by a little town called Utansjö, and currently accommodates 1,800 asylum seekers.’

‘That must give you a lot of extra work.’

‘As soon as the location of the ship was announced, complaints were filed against the port for not having the necessary permits. And when people found out that our offender was masked and didn’t speak during the robberies, some were quick to conclude that one of Ocean Gala’s residents had to be responsible. Gunnar Berglund has made himself the spokesperson for this group. He organises daily demonstrations out there to get the ship removed, and now he’s managed to convince a majority in the city council not to trust the shipping line’s security guards, which is why they’re requesting that we set aside staff to ensure that none of the refugees go ashore.’

She shrugged and said:

‘I think they’ve got it all wrong, but I obviously can’t refuse without a legitimate reason.’

Conrad nodded and looked around.

‘Is this your go-to spot?’

‘No. I usually go for a long walk instead of eating lunch.’

Annika looked at Conrad—the pointed face with defined features and calm, grey eyes—and on an impulse, she added:

‘I don’t like eating alone.’

He returned her gaze and said:

‘Aha. You’re one of the good old-fashioned managers who understands that your people need the opportunity to speak freely during their lunch breaks without having to worry about their boss listening in.’

His words made something inside Annika loosen up. A small, hard knot she didn’t even know she had been carrying around. That was exactly it. A certain level of distance was absolutely necessary to uphold the mutual respect that existed between her and her employees, but the price she paid for it was an acute sense of loneliness on the job.

‘I don’t want you to think I’m complaining. I love being in charge, and I have the world’s most talented employees, but sometimes when things get tough, I miss having someone I can consult without it being seen as a sign of weakness or lacking resolve.’

Conrad threw out his arms.

‘Now you have me. I’m not your employee or your boss, and I know what the pressure can be like in cases like this.’

Annika looked down at her shrimp sandwich, which still lay untouched on the plate. He had seemed so proper, almost a bit uptight, but now she felt like he might actually be someone she could confide in.

‘Our briefing this morning brought something worrying to my attention,’ she said.

While she searched for her next words, Conrad interjected:

‘I can’t imagine what that could be. I mean, checking traffic cameras and cell towers is one thing, but to review surveillance tapes from every single ATM within a hundred-kilometre radius to see whether the offender might have approached one but not had the guts to try and withdraw money with Kerstin Ohlsson’s card? I’m pretty sure that’s what you call going above and beyond. If I were you, I’d be very proud of my team.’

Annika’s shoulders lowered a tad. So Conrad’s many questions had been an expression of meticulousness and interest, not criticism.

‘Thank you, but what struck me during the briefing was the vast difference between our actions before and after the last robbery. Obviously, there was an increase in calls already after the first one, but the escalating brutality that culminated in the violent attack on Ove Sigvardsson has caused public interest in the case to explode, and as a result, all we’re doing at this point is responding to emergency calls. My detectives don’t even have time to follow up on the tips we receive.’

Conrad nodded thoughtfully and said:

‘And if you continue to use all your resources to calm down anxious citizens, you’re afraid he’ll disappear before you catch him.’

It was precisely this new contender for a worst-case scenario that had snuck up on Annika during that morning’s briefing, but now that Conrad said it aloud, she had the same reaction as in the car that morning—a clear sense that also this conclusion to the case would be tolerable. It would be an eternal dent in her professional pride, but the press would gradually run out of new shocking headlines and eventually the rest of the world would forget about the case.

‘On the other hand,’ said Conrad, ‘what’s the alternative? If you failed to respond when someone sounded the alarm and it turned out that their fear was justified, you would never be able to forgive yourselves.’

Annika felt the lump in her throat grow.

Now she knew what the worst-case scenario was: that one of her employees would have to live with having made the same mistake she had.

Hampus stomped his feet a few times before stepping onto the veranda and ringing the bell.

‘Who is it?’

Inge-Britt Sigvardsson’s voice was like a bated breath, and Hampus felt as though he could almost smell her fear through the solid oak door.

‘It’s Hampus Cedergren.’

A sliver of a wrinkled face appeared in a small gap. Then the door closed, and Hampus heard the sound of a chain rattling, after which the door opened up all the way.

For a moment they just stood there in the hallway, contemplating one another. The look in her eyes had changed, as though the fear she had experienced that night was trapped behind her corneas, and he wished that he could make it go away with the brush of his hand across her eyelids. But it wasn’t that easy, of course.

Once Hampus had introduced her to Nadia, Inge-Britt suddenly pulled him in and whispered:

‘Thank you. Thank you for coming—that night and now.’

He patted her gently on the back and said:

‘It’s alright.’

‘No,’ said Inge-Britt and let go of him. ‘It could be worse, but it isn’t alright.’

She lowered her voice:

‘All he does is sit in the kitchen. He doesn’t want to go out, not even to the stable, and he most certainly doesn’t want to talk about it.’

As soon as Hampus stepped into the narrow kitchen, he knew Inge-Britt was mistaken. It wasn’t that Ove Sigvardsson didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t.

He hadn’t even healed on the outside. His nose, which had always been big, practically filled his entire face now, and both his forehead and left cheek were slashed with long, blackish-blue lines surrounded by yellow bruises. For an entire lifetime, he had got by. He had paid the bills, taken care of the hard work on the farm and raised two sons, but now he was no longer a man who got by. How was he supposed to be able to talk about that?

Nadia interrogating him was out of the question.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ Inge-Britt asked.

‘No, thank you. We just need to check a few things outside, but I didn’t want to go sniffing around without saying hello first,’ Hampus said while signalling to Nadia that she was not to make any objections.

‘That was kind of you,’ said Sigvardsson with a strangely flat voice.

‘I need to know how much of the farm you can see from the part of the forest by the old logging road, and it would be a big help if the lights were on in the stable,’ said Hampus.

‘That’s fine,’ Ove replied.

‘Maybe the two of you could go over together?’ Nadia suggested. ‘I have to admit, I could use a hot cup of coffee.’

At first, Sigvardsson didn’t reply. Then he glanced from Hampus over to Nadia and back again, and just as Hampus was about to give up, he let out a heavy sigh and stood up.

The humid heat from the animals enveloped Hampus. He noticed that Sigvardsson looked back over his shoulder several times, but as soon as he got to the cow in the first stall, he visibly relaxed. It rubbed its head against his chest in greeting, and he scratched it between the ears in reply.

As the old farmer made his way through the stable, his strides gradually became longer and his breath calmer, and later, when Hampus went out see whether he could locate the place where the offender had hid his car that night, he knew that Sigvardsson would recover. He might not ever be the same again, but he would be all right.

Nadia looked down at the old woman lying on the floor in front of her.

‘I’m sorry, but that’s all I can remember,’ Inge-Britt said and laid a hand on her neck. ‘Whenever I think about it, it’s as if black smoke clouds my vision, and I feel like I’m about to suffocate. The doctor says it’s because the blow knocked me unconscious.’

Nadia nodded.

‘It is possible that you really were unconscious, but I’m not quite convinced. There’s one more thing I want to try.’

‘Can I stand up now?’

‘Wait a second.’

Nadia disappeared and returned with one hand hidden behind her back.

‘Close your eyes again.’

Inge-Britt blinked a few times but then did as she was told.

Nadia crouched next to her and pulled out the orange she had grabbed from the fruit bowl in the kitchen. When her thumbnail broke the peel and a citrusy smell reached her nose, she said:

‘Keep your eyes closed and tell me in as much detail as possible exactly what you see and hear.’

A few seconds passed, and then Inge-Britt’s breath grew quick and shallow. She spoke quietly.

‘I see his boots.’

‘What do they look like?

‘They’re black with something yellow on the sides and in the shoelaces, which are so long that they touch the ground. One of them is missing the plastic bit on the end. The soles are the ridged kind that the snow sticks to, and when he walks, I can hear the glass shards from the window being ground against the tiles.’

‘Where does he walk?’

‘Behind my head. He takes hold under my arms. At first, his hands slip, but then he tightens his grip and digs his thumbs in, right here.’

Inge-Britt laid her right hand on her left shoulder and placed her thumb right next to her shoulder blade.

‘Now he starts pulling me out into the kitchen.’

Nadia took hold of the woman’s shoulders, leaned back a bit and heaved, but the body barely moved, and after one more attempt, she gave up.

‘You’ll have to walk into the kitchen yourself, but it’s important that you don’t open your eyes, okay?’

Inge-Britt wobbled as she got up.

‘Here, take my hand and I’ll guide you.’

In the doorway to the kitchen, Nadia stopped.

‘What happens when you get to the kitchen?’

‘He points at the chair that’s pulled out—the one I was sitting on, watching telly, before… before he came.’

Inge-Britt shook her head and continued: ‘I manage to get up, and then I sit down on it.’

Nadia determined which of the four chairs had the best view of the little television, pulled it out and helped Inge-Britt sit down.

‘Do you see his face?’

Inge-Britt shook her head.

‘He’s behind me now, pulling at my hands, and…’

Inge-Britt gathered her hands behind the back of the chair on her own, and Nadia took hold of them with one hand while she retrieved the roll of kitchen twine that had, in fact, been lying in Kerstin Ohlsson’s drawer, but which she had refrained from using due to Hampus’s protests.

‘Not so tight,’ said Inge-Britt.

‘Did you tell him that, too?’

Inge-Britt shook her head.

‘No, that was to you. He didn’t tie my hands so tightly.’

Nadia loosened the twine a bit and said:

‘What does he do next?’

‘He walks over to the door to the utility room and stands there. Not in the doorway, I mean, in the corner, and then he waits there.’

‘Does he stand completely still?’

‘He seems to be listening, and after a while he leans forward and looks out into the utility room. Then he hides in the corner again, and he continues that way… until Ove returns.’

‘And during that time, he doesn’t look at you at all?’

‘No.’

‘But you watch him?’

‘I don’t know. It’s as though time has stopped.’

Inge-Britt hung her head slightly and added:

‘Perhaps I looked at the telly a bit too.’

‘What was on?’

‘A culture programme called Babel. Ulf Ranelid was in the studio with that author with the big blue eyes.’

Now Inge-Britt turned to face Nadia. Her eyes were still shut, but her eyebrows were raised.

‘At one point, he leans back his head and makes a sound. A little snort. Almost as if…’

She shook her head.

‘As if what?’ asked Nadia.

‘As if he’s laughing. I mean, he is laughing. He laughs, and it makes me angry. It feels like he’s ridiculing me by laughing at some silly comment on telly when I’m sat here tied up, fearing for me and Ove’s lives.’

At that moment, the door to the utility room opened. The sound made Inge-Britt flinch as though she had been hit, and the next moment tears were streaming down her face.

‘No!’ she cried.

‘Did you shout that that night, too?’ asked Nadia, but Inge-Britt’s reply was drowned out by the deep voice from the doorway:

‘What’s going on in here?’

Annika leaned against the front desk in the police station’s reception and studied the taxidermied lynx that stood on a shelf above the furniture in the waiting area. She had always loved its beautiful, grey-white winter fur and the little dark tufts that stuck up from its ears, but suddenly she felt as though there was something morbid about making visitors wait with a predator like that hanging over their heads. It helped a bit that someone had hung a Christmas decoration around the animal’s neck.

She could hear that her dispatcher, Hasse, was finishing up a call, and as soon as he pulled off his headset, she asked:

‘How’s it looking?’

He tugged lightly at one end of his moustache.

‘A little better. We’ve received maybe three or four in the last half hour, but then again, it’s not even six. Usually it doesn’t pick up until later.’

‘And there hasn’t been anything…’

Annika stopped talking when the phone started ringing again.

He shook his bald head and put the headset back on.

‘Härnösand Police.’

She ought to go now. She ought to go up to her office or maybe even accept Conrad’s invitation to join him and the recruits for dinner, but instead she lingered, trying to decipher the expression on Hasse’s face. Was it serious this time?

What she really wanted to do was sit down next to him and listen in on every single call so that they could decide together when it was time to send out a vehicle and when a few words of reassurance would suffice, but she knew that that was no use.

She hadn’t heard Conrad come in, and she jumped when he suddenly appeared next to her.

‘I don’t think you’ve met Nadia yet,’ he said.

Annika extended her hand towards a young woman with thick, chestnut hair, a narrow face covered with thousands of tiny freckles and a pair of eyes so green Annika suspected Nadia Elmkvist of using colour contacts. The other two recruits, to whom she had been introduced when she greeted Conrad in the reception for their briefing that morning, settled for a nod this time.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’ Conrad asked. ‘We’ve reserved a table at the Sankt Petri Lodge, like you recommended.’

‘Thanks, but as you know, I owe the city council an answer, and that requires going through the shift plan to assess whether we even have the capacity to allocate staff for an around-the-clock guard.’

Conrad shook his head.

‘I’ve got to say, the idea of the Silent Robber being aboard Ocean Gala seems rather far-fetched.’

‘Ocean Gala?’ said Nadia. ‘Why on earth would anyone believe that a person who can afford a cruise would be…’

That was as far as she got before Stefan Berg burst out laughing, and when Løwe joined in, Annika couldn’t repress a smile either.

‘Sorry,’ Stefan said, once he had finished laughing. ‘I could just see it; some rich American retiree in a chequered blazer sneaking out at night to rob poor local farmers. But it’s not funny, of course.’

He patted Nadia on the shoulder.

‘Ocean Gala is a makeshift refugee centre, accommodating… how many was it? Some two thousand refugees. Apparently, there’s a rather widespread theory that our offender is among them.’

Annika almost felt sorry for Nadia Elmkvist, who was staring at the floor, and apparently so did the Norwegian, Bjørn Ekholt.

‘As far as I know, there have been no reports of stolen cars near Utansjö, and given the distances between the sites, there’s no question that the offender had access to a vehicle,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid that those kinds of logical arguments have little bearing in this context,’ said Annika. ‘It has to do with emotions, and there’s nothing we can say to convince these people they’re wrong.’

‘Not even if we tell them that the offender speaks Swedish?’

Everyone looked at Nadia, who continued:

‘Not just at a rudimentary level, but well enough to follow a conversation between two people in a culture programme on TV and understand humorous comments?’

Nadia explained how she had helped Inge-Britt remember that the offender had laughed at something he saw on television, and when she was finished, Annika asked.

‘How sure about this are you?’

Nadia shrugged.

‘Inge-Britt described the offender’s body language in detail, and I agree with her interpretation: he laughed.’

If Nadia was right—if they could really presume that the offender was Swedish—it would be hugely significant, and that was exactly why they needed to be one hundred percent sure.

As though echoing Annika’s thoughts, Nadia said:

‘Hampus and I can drive out there tomorrow morning and get her to confirm it.’

At 21:58, Jörgen Sjödin admitted to himself that he was afraid. He had spent more time in front of the window than in his armchair this evening, and each time he had lifted the curtain, his hands had shook a tiny bit more, and eventually he hadn’t even been able to lift the measuring cup the few centimetres from the bag of oats over to the pot without spilling all over the kitchen counter.

Maybe it was time to move into town after all? Somewhere where there were people around and where he wasn’t dependent on others to handle even the most basic things.

No. He was no coward.

Resolutely he swept up the spilled oats and poured water into the pot without spilling a drop, but he still wished he had taken his mobile phone into town as soon as he realised it wasn’t working.

Maybe he ought to bring his rifle with him to bed? Just to be safe.

Annika switched off the desk lamp and took her coat from the hook.

As soon as Nadia and Hampus confirmed Inge-Britt Sigvardsson’s observation about the offender’s Swedish skills, she would shut down the discussion about Ocean Gala once and for all, but the most important thing—the thing that was allowing her to breathe deep into her stomach for the first time in ages—was the certainty that the offender profile would be a huge step in the right direction. From reactive to proactive. First of all, it would make it possible to properly target those of their resources they could actually devote to active investigation, but the meeting with the recruits had also given Annika another idea:

They could use the profile to sort emergency calls. Surely it would be possible to set up some guidelines that were detailed enough to effectively relieve the dispatcher of all responsibility.

It was dark in the big entrance hall. Annika held on to the railing and used the light in the reception to navigate, but she was so occupied with her idea for the new guidelines that she was almost at the exit before it struck her that Hasse’s gesturing behind the glass door had not looked like a ‘see you tomorrow’ wave.

Maybe she could pretend she hadn’t seen it? Just hurry out to the car and home to the boys while she still had time to at least say goodnight. For a moment she stood with her hand on the cold steel of the handle, but of course she turned around, and as soon as she saw the expression on Hasse’s face, she knew this time it was serious.

‘Can I ask you to repeat that?’ he said and put the phone on speaker.

‘I shot him.’

The old, hoarse voice fell silent, but the words kept echoing inside Annika. It was over. They had failed, and now a citizen would forever have to live with having committed an offence that she and her team should have prevented him from committing. Now it was too late.

An anguished sound poured out from the speaker and Hasse asked:

‘Are you in danger right now?’

‘No. No, I’m not.’

‘I see that you’re calling from a phone registered under Andreas Sjödin, residing in Umeå. Is that you?’

There was a sob from the speaker.

‘I thought he was the robber. Do you understand? I saw the hat and thought it was him, and then I pulled the trigger.’

Annika’s legs began to shake so violently that she had to sit down on the edge of Hasse’s desk. She didn’t understand how his voice could be so calm when he asked:

‘Who is it you’ve shot?’

‘My son. I shot Andreas.’

The whole room went blurry, and for a moment Annika was sure she would faint.

This, she thought, is the worst that could happen.