Ragnar introduces me to the staff in the pharmacy and in the Konsum mini-supermarket. One cashier asks Falk if police have found the severed head yet. Asks him if we’re to have a curfew in the town. He tells her to talk to the police over in Gavrik. By this point the smalltown gossip will be spreading like a virus. I need to tap into it, like I do in Gavrik and like I did in Malmö. The rumours and amateur theories are my way in. We check the Hive again but the door’s still locked. Looking through the reinforced glass I can see a Husqvarna cardboard box on the counter, the photo on the box is of a bearded dude felling a pine tree. We step away. White smoke’s billowing out of their chimney and Ragnar says, ‘Haven’t seen them have a fire here before.’

We walk over to the shady side of Visberg town square. The dental surgery is busy – I can see four or five people in the waiting room. One man walks out holding his jaw and cursing under his breath. He has blood on his collar.

‘That one’s a pop-up shop,’ says Ragnar, pointing to the shopfront between his old office and the clockmaker’s on the end of the row. ‘It just popped up. Two sisters running it from your neck of the woods.’

I peer through the dirty glass, but all I can see is a mask. It couldn’t be them, could it?

‘Halloween?’ I ask.

‘If you say so,’ says Ragnar.

He limps over to Wimmer’s Clocks and stands in the shadow of the heavy clock. Looks like something you might see bolted onto a huge department store. Looks like it could fall and crush Ragnar.

There’s a musical tune when the door opens. Something baroque. Every square metre of this place contains multiple grandfather clocks and carriage clocks and wall clocks. These ones are all set to the correct time: a little before 3pm. But there’s nobody here.

Glass cases full of Seikos and old mechanical watches, and another with digital alarm clocks plugged into a damaged extension cord wrapped in black tape.

There’s a staircase in the middle of the room leading down to a basement. A chain blocks the way and a sign in cursive script reads, ‘Museum: Strictly Invitation Only’.

‘Hans?’ says Ragnar, his hands cupped around his mouth. ‘Hans, are you here?’

A bang from downstairs.

Ragnar looks at his watch.

Not sure that’s really necessary in here, mate.

A head appears down in the basement. The man walks up to our level and steps over the chain. He’s as tall as a grandfather clock. Pale. Fine mousy hair. Balding. He has a magnifying eyepiece on a metal band and it’s resting in the middle of his forehead like a third eye.