‘Mork’ was all it said, as if Jesso and his mother already lived there on their own.

Things were really done and dusted here.

Selma realized she was breathing with her mouth open, slightly too fast, because she was so disconcerted by observing that the foot-steps undoubtedly crossed the courtyard, but did not reach as far as the door. Instead they continued towards the north-west and past the corner of the house. Selma let her eyes scan the building again. Everything was in darkness. Silent. She followed the footsteps.

At the rear of the house it was difficult to see anything at all. For a moment she considered using the flashlight function on her mobile, but dropped the idea. Now she was standing only a metre away from Johannes’s bedroom window. It was slightly open, despite the weather, and Selma held her breath in the forlorn hope of hearing his.

Don’t think of the children. Don’t.

Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. The prints moved out on to the lawn, she could now see, all the way to the spot where Jesso had built a carp pond a few years ago. Four fish had to suffer an apparently painful death before Jesso accepted that he did not have a clue about aquaculture. The pit had become a birdbath instead, and was usually covered in green slime for the summer half of the year.

At the edge, constructed from small pebbles the children had been well paid to collect, the man in ski boots had come to a halt.

It looked as if he had stood there for a while, then trudged around a little, but always with his face turned to the house. Selma tried to get closer to the clump of footprints, but the frozen ground crunched so loudly beneath her shoes that she stopped. If Johannes turned on his light and looked out at that moment, she would be the first thing he saw. Her pulse accelerated at the very thought, and she suddenly grew angry.

Selma Falck was very rarely angry.

She showed it even more rarely.

This was her house. At least until a short time ago. It was her own almost-grown son who was behind those drawn curtains on the first floor, and naturally it did not matter if he discovered her. The truth was on her side. She merely wanted to collect her car, and had taken a walk up to the house to investigate some suspicious footprints.

‘Fuck,’ she said under her breath, switching on her mobile and walking diagonally across the grass, parallel with the footprints.

Quite right, beside the birdbath that was now empty of anything other than decaying leaves and dirty ice crystals, the man had lingered for a spell. Then he had taken a short cut towards the most northerly corner of the house. Selma followed and discovered that he had not moved on to the front of the house. That would have been risky. The living room window was massive, and the lights from the swimming pool area would make him easy to spot.