I step inside and the light levels drop. Could be any time of day or night inside this place. The only way you can tell the time of year is by looking at the coat rack on the way in. Overladen in winter. Lightweight coats in spring. Almost empty in summer. Full of camouflage gear and orange, waterproof hunting-caps in autumn. I count five such caps as I go past. One of them has ‘KILLER’ scrawled on in black Sharpie.

Ronnie looks up and acknowledges me with an upward nudge of his head. I’m local now, I guess. By choice, not by circumstance. I chose to come back and make this part of Värmland my home for a while longer. Maybe I’m the first outsider ever to do that. Maybe I’ll be the last.

The pool table’s lit up but nobody’s playing. The lamp hanging above the blue baize advertises the STP Pulp Mill on one side and an extra-strong beer brand on the other. There are about fifteen people drinking quietly at tables. A woman in a leopard-print top reads a novel as she nurses a large glass of red wine. A group of elk hunters, with hands both muddy and bloody, laugh and clink their beer bottles in the corner. Looks like they got lucky. Looks like they made their death quota.

I step up to the bar and sit next to Tobias.

He looks over at me like, don’t I know you from somewhere?

I smile at him. ‘Tuva Moodyson.’

‘Deep clean,’ he says.

Ronnie shrugs behind him.

‘What are you drinking?’ I say.

‘Me?’ he says. ‘Just a lemonade. But I’ll pay for it.’

‘I got them,’ I say. ‘Ronnie, two lemonades, please.’

‘Really,’ says Tobias. ‘I’d rather pay for mine, if you don’t mind.’

‘Doesn’t mean you have to sleep with me,’ I say. ‘Not if you don’t want to. Don’t get your boxers in a knot.’

Swedish guys.

He smiles and we clink glasses.

‘What are you doing all the way out here, Tobias?’

He scratches the top of his back. ‘Surgery’s closed for the weekend on account of the crime scene in the town square. Police here in Gavrik wanted us three to give statements.’

‘Three?’

‘The Edlunds and myself. Everyone with formal dental training. You hear that the teeth in the severed head had undergone dental procedures?’

I nod. He’s good looking, this hygienist. And he looks hygienic, I mean he really lives up to his job description. Very clean. Too clean for me, to be honest. Looks gleaming and smells minty fresh.

‘You think your boss did it?’

He almost spits out his lemonade. ‘Sven? Hell, no. He’s one of the most passive people I’ve ever met. Sven’s more Mahler than murder.’

‘His wife?’