He nods and I lead him by the hand. He’s exceptionally thin and his nails are long and dirty. His clothes are stained. His trousers are too short for his legs.

‘I’m sure she’ll be back home soon,’ I say. ‘You want a sandwich?’

I make him a ketchup sandwich because that’s what he wants. Excellent choice, kiddo.

Noora passes a note under little Dan’s door.

Three hours later his mum still hasn’t returned.

Dan’s watching Aladdin. Noora takes me aside, ‘I should contact child welfare.’

I let out a big sigh. ‘Can that wait for a bit? Just in case this is a one-off? Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt this one time. Give her another hour.’

Forty minutes later Dan’s mother returns with no shopping bags.

We intercept her outside her door and tell her we found Dan, gave him a sandwich and a glass of milk, then a banana. He’s watched Aladdin. He’s tired.

She looks at us both and I have rarely seen so many emotions flash in one pair of eyes: gratitude, relief, fury, angst, confusion, fear. She nods and mutters something, ‘thank you’, I think, and takes him into her flat.

When I wake at seven Noora’s already showered and dressed in her uniform. She’s checking her phone.

‘You okay?’

‘Results back from the autopsy,’ she says. ‘Sorry, sorry, you don’t need to hear this on an empty stomach. I’ll make coffee.’

I sit up and rub my eyes. ‘Tell me.’

‘It’s not for the newspaper though, Tuva. Not yet. This is strictly off the record.’

‘Understood.’

‘The decapitation of Arne Persson. The evidence suggests,’ she pauses, looking at me, ‘that the victim’s head was severed by a chainsaw.’

10

The drive to Visberg takes over an hour on account of a lumber wagon picking up felled pine trunks close to the sewage works.

I’m lost in thought. The awful facts as presented to me a few hours ago by Noora. The chainsaw theory. And now the realness of me talking to the victim’s ex-wife. It never gets easier. I try to prepare, to be mindful of what she must be processing right now. Shock morphing into disbelief morphing into acceptance and loss. I tap into my memories of when Dad died. Me, a fourteen year-old. An only child. Being told by a policewoman that my father had been killed in a head-on collision with an elk. The impact that had on Mum. The impact it still has on me to this day.

My truck begins the ascent. Gradual at first, almost imperceptible. I pass Svensson’s Saws & Axes and its sign says ‘Out felling! Back in 10’.

The road winds higher and higher.