He sits back down and takes a sip of his coffee and lets out a pleasure sigh.

‘Well, not strictly beheadings. Rather, three boar brought down in the hunt last year. The men left the hooves and guts and skins and heads. A day later they reported all the heads missing.’

‘Wolves?’

‘Ahh, I take it from that you’re a city person.’

‘What?’

‘Wolves would start with the organs, my dear. Not the heads. I can recommend some nature books if that might be helpful. And I think I have an old manual on journalism.’

You just stood on a landmine, mate.

‘First of all, my name’s Tuva, if you don’t mind. Second of all, as you well know, Ragnar, I’ve been a journalist for years. In London, in Malmö, in Gavrik. I covered the Medusa killings, Ferryman, and the two missing women over Midsommar. I appreciate you introducing me to the town but we’re on the level here. You and me. Both journalists.’

He studies me.

Then he looks over at his wall. Forty years of stories. Almost half a century of Visberg town life documented, investigated, reported.

He looks back at me.

‘I’m out and you’re in.’

‘I didn’t mean to be a bitch, it’s just that––’

‘No, you’re right. I sold my business. Too old, too frail. Bad leg. And you’re a good journalist, I’ll give you that. I’ve read some of your work. Now, Tuva. How about a fresh start. Can I show you around?’

‘I would love that.’

He smiles and nods and shows me out the door.

‘What can you sense?’

‘Autumn?’

‘Yes, yes. But what exactly?

‘Rot?’

‘What is it that’s rotting?

I look around. Take a breath.

‘Apples?’

‘Bingo.’

We walk out and cross the street, past my Hilux and into the square itself. Grass. A hundred or more mature apple trees. The bronze statue and the freshly painted bandstand.

‘The locals ask for the apples not to be cleared away until past Halloween. For the atmospheric aroma.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘The whole town smells like a cider press.’

He smiles and walks on.

‘This is Adolf-Fredrik Edlund, founder of Visberg town.’

It’s an old dude in bronze with a bad moustache, resting his boot on a massive anvil with a sharp front end.

‘Steel magnate?’ I say.

‘Iron, and then steel. Used the river networks to transport to the coast. His family still own shares in the company – one of the oldest in Sweden. That’s why so many locals here are independently wealthy, you see. All from this one man.’

‘Nice.’