‘We have to talk to Billy’s adoptive parents,’ she says. ‘Unless the image analysis yields some useful results, they’re our best shot. And since the whole sad mess seems connected to how they treated him, he may have chosen a location they’re familiar with.’

‘An old summer house, maybe?’ Karl suggests. ‘It looks a bit like one.’

‘Possible. The décor looks dated, my guess would be it hasn’t been changed since the seventies.’

‘Or maybe that stuff’s fashionable again,’ Evald Johannisen puts in. ‘Last autumn, the missus sold a couple of bloody hideous orange table lamps we bought when we were newly-weds at a flea market. Six hundred marks she got for them. All I’m saying is that it could just as easily belong to someone who likes second-hand crap.’

No way is that wallpaper new, Karen thinks to herself. Everything seems to radiate stuffiness, age. It almost looks abandoned. How can he not see that?

‘Well, anything’s possible, I suppose,’ she says to keep Johannisen happy. ‘But the first order of business is the parents. I’m going up there right now and I’d like you to come, Karl. OK?’

He nods.

‘And we have to send someone to go through Billy’s flat again. To look for anything that might give us a clue to where he’s taken her. Old letters, postcards, diaries would be the dream, though I don’t think we have much reason to hope for any of that from a man his age. But he might have an old photo album. Or a computer. Would you mind coordinating with forensics, Astrid? Get Cornelis Loots to help you when he comes back.’

‘Shouldn’t we talk to Luna’s parents, too?’ Smeed asks. ‘What are their names?’

‘Stein and Randi Johanson, unless I’m misremembering,’ Karen says. ‘They have a son, too, by the name of Andreas. But Billy was given up at birth and nothing in the videos suggest he has had any contact with them. The chances of them being able to tell us where he took her—’

‘Are non-existent,’ Evald Johannisen breaks in sharply.

Something about his tone makes every head turn to him. Clearly pleased, he reverts to his usual drawl.

‘They’ll have a tough time saying anything at all, because they’re dead,’ he says.

‘Is that right? And how the fuck do you know that?’ Karl Björken says wearily.

‘Well, I might be wrong. Miracles have been known to happen. But my best guess would be that they’re the same Stein and Randi Johanson who were found beaten to death in their home in Ravenby this morning.’

This morning?

Has it only been a day since Smeed mentioned something about a possible double murder? About sending Johannisen to check it out?