‘Jesus, shouldn’t you be on to him by now? What with witnesses and DNA and stuff like that. How hard can it be?’

‘Not hard at all,’ Karen replies wearily. ‘If you’re lucky enough to find DNA and the bloke’s in our database, that is. Or if there’s any connection between the victims, or even if he just stuck to a relatively well-defined area, that would be helpful, too.’

She can tell she sounds defensive.

‘Fine, but you don’t even seem to know what he looks like, even though this was victim number four,’ Kore counters. ‘Haven’t any of those women told you anything you can use? Other than the stuff you’ve made public, I mean.’

‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘So it’s some kind of lunatic who just strikes at random?’ Eirik says.

Karen makes no reply. The conversation has put a serious dampener on the festive mood. She knows they don’t mean to be accusative, but she feels like she’s having to answer for everything. Granted, so far, the police investigation is going nowhere fast. And granted, from the outside it must look like they’re twiddling their thumbs. She probably would have thought they were, too, if she’d been in a different profession, she muses. Out loud, she says: ‘Look, I promise not to be a back-seat driver and stick my nose in your recordings, if you—’

Kore grins and raises his glass. Apparently, he’s ready to drop the subject. Almost.

‘Settle down. We love you, even though you’re just another useless copper shuffling around this town.’

She raises her glass and pulls a face.

‘And yet you came running to me the other day. When your golden goose was missing. Congratulations, by the way, I assume you’re happy now?’

Kore gives her a nonplussed look and starts to say something but is interrupted by Aylin.

‘Not at random,’ she says. ‘He knows exactly what he’s doing and to whom.’

No one had noticed that she had stopped eating and is now staring vacantly into space.

‘What do you mean?’ Karen says, though she suspects she already knows.

‘He hates them,’ Aylin continues absently, as though talking to herself.

Looks are exchanged around the table. Watchful, unsure. Everyone knows what Aylin has been through, and everyone suddenly realises how insensitive their conversation is, how painful for her to have to listen to. No one here knows more about hate and violence than her.

Marike is the one who finally breaks the silence.

‘Yeah, I don’t think there can be any doubt that he hates women,’ she says. ‘Hate is certainly what drives that kind of prick; or at least, it’s not sex.’

But Aylin doesn’t seem to hear.

‘He hates them personally,’ she says, nodding slowly to herself. ‘He hates those specific women.’