‘I have guys on their way in to help the on-call crew,’ Sören Larsen says. ‘They should be here any minute now and the pictures and videos are already in their computers. One of them has experience working with image analysis in Denmark, so let’s keep our fingers crossed they see something we don’t.’

‘Good. OK, let’s keep going,’ Karen says. ‘And if, at any point, you think you might have an idea of where Luna is, speak up. Would you mind starting the next one, Sören?’

*

The third video is only twenty seconds long.

Billy Formby’s voice again. Deceptively calm now, almost neutral.

‘OK, let’s try again, shall we?’ he says. ‘Interview with Lena Johanson, 2 May, 10.18 p.m.’

No humming now, just heavy breathing in a thick, suffocating silence.

And then Billy’s voice again.

‘Hi, Mummy. Recognise me?’

Chapter 51

51

The moment Billy speaks the words, Jounas Smeed jumps up and quickly leaves the room with his phone pressed to his ear.

‘You keep going,’ he says before shutting the door behind him.

Everyone knows he’s gone to assign someone to scour all available records for birth information on Billy Formby and Lena Johanson.

It has to be done, Karen thinks in the pause that follows the end of the short video. Has to be checked immediately, even though it doesn’t really make much of a difference right now whether Billy really is Luna’s biological son or it’s all in his mind. The fact that she didn’t recognise him, even though they probably met every day for three weeks, would suggest she gave him up at birth.

Yet another puzzle piece, another layer to Luna’s personality. A family girl who fell in with the wrong crowd and ran away from home. Who worked her way up from local garage bands in Ravenby and Dunker all the way to the world stage. Only to turn her back on it, Karen summarises inwardly.

And for the first time, a flash of grudging admiration. Which is quickly snuffed out by her next thought, uninvited, insistent, and brutally crystal-clear. If Billy is Luna’s son, she can’t have been more than fifteen when she had him. A wave of nausea and vertigo washes over her so suddenly she has to hold onto the table with both hands.

Leo’s voice echoes in her head:

We were together when we were fourteen, fifteen . . .

Her thoughts are interrupted by a different voice. In the here and now.

‘Are you OK, Eiken? The “gallstones” aren’t acting up again, are they?’

Karl Björken leans forward and gives her a look that both clearly stresses the air quotes and reveals a hint of concern. A quick glance around the table reveals that no one else seems to have noticed. The others all seem busy talking to each other.