‘Was she giving her statement to the Chief?’ I say.

‘Lena says Margareta’s agreed to give up all the names of the private leaseholders of the top-floor units in the Hive. The premium units. Lena reckons locals are fuming because they should have been confidential in perpetuity. They have paperwork to prove it. Locals say she might lose half her business.’

I look over at the Hive and there are people filing into the rear doors with suitcases and flat-pack cardboard boxes. There’s a hatchback being loaded up half out of view.

‘Thanks for telling me. Get back to me as soon as you hear more.’

Maybe he and I can be a team after all. If I’m working remotely more from now on, Visberg, and even further afield, bigger stories, covering anything in Sweden that Lena will sign-off on, maybe this set up will be good for the both of us. Maybe my boss is a goddam genius.

The last member of the municipal clean-up squad hoses down her shovel and packs all her gear into her truck. Wheelbarrow, jetwash, rake. The woman’s wearing a baseball cap but she looks a lot like Luka Kodro once she’s removed her muddy overalls. Jeans, tan, white T-shirt. Like a younger, skinnier version.

I update my spider diagram of people connected to Arne Persson and people connected to Emil Eriksson. There are too many overlapping connections for it to be helpful. It’s a Venn-shaped mess. The reality of any small town in the middle of nowhere. Everyone’s linked to everyone else. The secrets are everywhere and the lies get looked after and nurtured by each successive generation.

The Sheriff parks and gets out of his taxi cab.

I run over.

‘Sheriff.’

He’s not wearing his beige shirt with star badges. He’s not wearing his brown trousers or utility belt or polished, black boots. He’s not got a radio hooked through his shoulder loops. He’s in hunting gear. Green-brown mottled camouflage trousers and a jacket that smells like rotting bear flesh.

‘What can I do for you?’

He pulls his rifle bag out the back of his car and unzips it and checks what’s inside and zips it up again. There’s a pair of pliers half in and half out of the bag. He puts on an orange hat that says Svensson’s Saws & Axes.

‘You going out hunting?’

‘Searching for Margareta’s boy,’ he says. ‘But my nephew a few towns north reckons he heard wolves out last night. Between you and me I don’t think he’d know a wolf howl from a badger grunt but I’d rather be prepared.’

I hold my jaw, the molar pain throbbing like a second heartbeat.

‘Get that seen at if I was you.’

Not here, mate. Not a bloody chance. I’ll be making my next appointment in Karlstad even if I have to pay double for the privilege.