Even though Martin Talliksen has a hard time with consonants, they have no trouble understanding what he’s trying to say. Over and over again.

‘She was scared. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to help.’

He had been scared, too. Or terrified, more like, they had realised as the narrative progressed. When Filippa Lekkman screamed and the bottle broke and the puppy disappeared into the shrubbery, Martin Talliksen had panicked. Scared the lady and the man who came out of the building would yell at him. Scared of what his sister might say when she got back.

So he had turned and fled back to his moped with the plastic carrier bag still dangling from the handlebars. Had ridden around aimlessly until he ended up at the playground. And instead of going home when night came, he had stayed in the only place where he knew how the world worked.

‘Hellen wasn’t home. Hellen was on a boat.’

He probably hadn’t even needed to break the lock, Karen had thought to herself. Junkies love hanging out in those sheds, so the padlock was probably broken already. There was hardly anything of value inside; the cost of installing a new lock wasn’t justified.

And so, Martin Talliksen had spent all day and all evening inside, on one of the benches.

‘I was hungry the whole time.’

*

If only.

If only the damn rain hadn’t emptied the playground of kids so someone would have discovered him sooner. If only two idiots from the Doggerland Police hadn’t spotted his moped leaning against the swing set.

*

Afterwards, she regrets even trying. She should have known it was futile. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to at least point at something akin to a lead that made Karen tell Prosecutor Dineke Vegen, Head of Police Viggo Haugen, and Head of the CID Jounas Smeed about her theory about a connection with New Builds Ltd, where two of the victims lived and one works.

And the tiny glimmer of hope in the eyes on the other side of the table is enough to make her share her suspicion of Gundar Freske. And the reason why the officers who knocked on his door felt he could be written off immediately.

‘I think the connection with New Builds is at least worth looking into,’ she says. ‘Two of the victims rented from them and one works for them. And just to be sure, I think we should take a closer look at Freske, too,’ she adds. ‘He should at least be swabbed.’

This time, the prosecutor isn’t the only one who loses her cool. The faces that turn towards Karen Eiken Hornby show no hint of the appreciation she’d seen on them just a few seconds earlier. Jounas Smeed gets there first.

‘So you want us to harass some poor disabled bloke in a wheelchair?’