‘“Crikey”? That’s all you have to say? The guy just turned twenty-five and from what I can gather, he might not make it. And neither Mummy nor Daddy can be bothered to pull their sanctimonious heads out of their arses for long enough to go and hold his hand while he dies. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me.’

Evald Johannisen holds his hands up defensively.

‘Calm down, will you, Eiken? Yes, it sucks, OK? Doesn’t he have anyone else who can sit with him?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’

‘And why are you so invested? Do you know the bloke?’

‘No, but I’ve met him. He works for KGB.’

‘The KGB?’

Johannisen looks confused.

‘Music, not Russian agents,’ she clarifies. ‘KGB: Kore, Gordon, and Brynn, the pride of our nation as far as music production goes. Never mind,’ she adds when Johannisen still looks bewildered. ‘Where’s Karl?’

‘Here.’

She turns around.

‘Time to head over to see the prosecutor,’ Karl Björken announces, checking his watch. ‘Smeed’s on his way and Viggo Haugen is probably already there.’

There are just enough comfortable armchairs in Prosecutor Dineke Vegen’s office to seat the visitors who have gathered in it: Head of Police Viggo Haugen, Head of the CID Jounas Smeed, Detective Inspector and lead investigator Karl Björken, and Detective Inspector Karen Eiken Hornby.

The prosecutor herself is bent over her desk, speaking into the intercom, a green folder in her hand. Then she joins them, taking a seat in the last free chair.

‘Jounas has already filled me in on the broad strokes,’ she says. ‘And it does sound as if there’s reason for optimism, but we’ve all been burnt before. So, give me the details and we’ll take it from there,’ she adds with a nod to Karl.

‘I think you should hear it from Karen,’ he says. ‘It is entirely thanks to her we might finally have a breakthrough.’

And Karen tells them. About discovering that Anita Kollbar works for the company that owns the properties where two of the other victims lived. About an idea that had started out vague but which for lack of better leads had made her look into a possible connection with New Builds Ltd. About finding out that Loa Marklund had filed complaints about several of her neighbours, and that one of those neighbours had piqued her interest. Granted, Gundar Freske had already given a statement to two of their door-knocking colleagues after the second attack, but he had neither been swabbed nor asked to give a full account of his whereabouts at the time of the crimes.

‘The reason for which was, as you know, that Freske’s in a wheelchair,’ Karen says. ‘However, the way Loa Marklund formulated her complaints made me question his disability. In two places, she wrote that he was smoking on the balcony; in one of them, standing.’