Nothing at all, most likely.

The victims don’t know each other and have, as far as they’ve been able to establish, never met. None of them has ever so much as heard the others’ names. They’ve never worked in the same place, they don’t move in the same circles, have nothing in common.

Other than being women.

Randomly selected victims and an opportunistic perpetrator. A man, bristling with misogyny, who moves about at night and in the early hours of the morning, striking when he sees his chance, anywhere in town. Catching him in the act seems an unlikely prospect. Honeytraps had been discussed after the first two attacks in Moerbeck. But now that the perpetrator seems willing to strike anywhere, they’d have to place bait all over town.

Unless a useful tip comes in, it’s probably just a matter of time before he strikes again.

Somewhere.

Karen stands up and stretches her neck. Checks her watch. Almost twenty to nine. Then she turns off her computer, picks up her handbag, and leaves.

*

She drives straight north towards Odinswalla. Goes down streets lined by low apartment blocks and terraced houses. Up Gränsegate, down Borgegate. Driving slowly, leaning forward and from side to side to peer down side streets. Knows she should just go home. Have an early night so she’s in good shape for the JRFT.

And that damn mammography.

She continues into Lemdal. Slowly rolls past rows of detached houses, even though she knows it’s pointless. Looking for anyone who seems to be looking for his next victim. Keeping an eye out for someone keeping an eye out. A vain attempt to spot a man on a moped, in the face of impossible odds. A needle in a haystack, a long shot, a snipe hunt.

Moronic, she berates herself. Granted, there’s not exactly a lot of people moving about the sleepy middle-class neighbourhood at this hour, but certainly enough to keep a rapist at bay. Probably doesn’t even dare show his face.

She turns out onto the main road and continues up towards Moerbeck.

*

The official name of the long, narrow strip of land between the high-rises, which the city planners seem to have grudgingly made room for, is Moerbeck Park. The name is provokingly misleading; a three-hundred-yard strip of gravel lined by bolted-down benches and dense shrubberies. Concessions in the form of sandboxes and prefab play equipment are always in the shade of the surrounding eight-storey buildings, even in the middle of the day.

During the day, the sounds that echo between the buildings in Moerbeck, against the constant backdrop of the rumble of the motorway, are made up of the shrieks and laughter of playing children, still blissfully unaware of the luxuries that exist in the wider world: lawns, raspberry bushes, real trees to climb.