‘An hour ago, I was looking through Billy’s phone to try to find relatives to contact when I found the pictures and videos you’re about to see. Before we go ahead, though, I want to emphasise that there can be no real doubt that the woman in the pictures is Luna and that she is being held captive by Billy Formby. The question is, as you will all understand, where she is now and if she’s still alive.’

Astrid looks around at her colleagues in confusion, as if to check whether she’s the only one who’s not following.

‘Hold on, I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘How long has Luna been missing? Did she go to England and then back again or not?’

‘We believed she did. And that was obviously what Billy Formby wanted us to think, so we’d drop our investigation.’

‘But how di—’

Astrid breaks off when she realises how it was done. Karen nods to confirm.

‘Yes, I think we can be pretty sure only her phone took that trip. Billy used to work on the ferries, so he probably had no difficulty getting on board and stashing it somewhere no one would stumble across it, timing the message to send from Harwich.’

She motions to Sören Larsen and everyone turns towards the other end of the room. And with the unsettling feeling that they’re going to witness something that will extinguish all hope, Karen, too, turns her eyes to the screen.

Chapter 50

50

The room is surprisingly silent as picture after picture fills the big screen. Only the rasping of pens taking notes and the occasional mumbled comment. Karen waits with barely contained impatience while they go through the pictures she has already seen. Knows the others need a chance to catch up. And for each picture, she makes a mental note of things she didn’t notice the first time around.

Intentionally or not, Billy Formby seems to have used the same angle in every picture. But on this big screen, and without the initial shock of the first time she skimmed the pictures back home in her kitchen, new details emerge. The wallpaper pattern behind Luna feels familiar, a stylised floral print in shades of orange, brown, and green. The same kind of pattern Karen had seen at friends’ houses and flats as a child in the late seventies. The same kind of wallpaper she nagged her parents to buy.

The left side of the picture shows a window, half covered by a flimsy, white curtain and a closed pale yellow blind. The blind is thin enough that the amount of light changes between pictures, but thick enough to make seeing anything outside the window impossible.

Or for anyone to see in, Karen reflects.