‘Advertising your shop?’ I ask.

He looks disappointed with that. ‘I have watchmaking friends all over the world, from Switzerland to Japan to Argentina. I want them to know what I can do. For posterity, I’d like to showcase all that I have learned.’

‘You let me in and I’ll let you out?’ I say.

‘You see,’ he says. ‘Now you understand perfectly. Is it a bargain?’

‘Sure,’ I say, hungry for insights into this town, its hidden truths, something to explain why Arne Persson was killed and mutilated. ‘It’s a bargain.’

He unlocks unit 33.

He opens the door.

We both go through.

He flicks the switch.

Lights buzz on the walls. The room is larger than I thought. As big as two classrooms. There are hooks all over the ceiling. Metal hooks. Meat hooks. The floor is lined with sheets of brown packing-paper and the air is cold. Attached to each ceiling hook is a length of twine. The lights buzz louder. The glare pulses. There’s a clock in here on the wall. Something winding. On the bottom of each length of twine is a balloon. Or, more accurately, some kind of balloon-size sack. Some are skin coloured, others are glossy black. Under each one is a red, circular stain on the brown paper. In the corner is a bench with two gas tanks and a vice.

‘What the hell is this?’ I ask.

The clockmaker is nowhere to be seen.

A loud click.

The lights go out.

15

I fumble with my phone in the darkness.

Think straight, Tuva.

No window in the room.

And I can’t get the torch on my phone to work. I start to dial 112.

Something at my shoulder.

I jerk myself away and drop my phone. When I reach down I hit one of the hanging balloons with my head and it’s softer and bigger than I expected. Reeks of dead animal.

A groan from somewhere in this building. In this room?

I get to my phone and the screen is frozen. I retreat to where I think the wall is, where I think the corner is.

The smell has intensified somehow. The balloons are decomposing.

Another loud click.

And then the lights come back on.

The balloon I head-butted is swinging back and forth, and the liquid oozing from its base has splattered an intricate pattern on the floor.

‘That Margareta Eriksson,’ says Hans, flustered. ‘Penny-pinching so-and-so. Lights don’t stay on more than a few minutes unless you rest something against the switch.’

‘Do it,’ I say, cancelling my emergency call. ‘Rest something.’

He leans a rifle against the light switch then half turns and smiles at me. ‘What do you think?’

The smell is overwhelming – like a butcher’s shop on a hot day, but also aerosol cans.

‘I think you need better ventilation.’

‘Very true. You try telling Margareta this.’