Karen reads on with a mounting sense of unease, skimming sentences like:

Have to keep my window open not to suffocate in the heat.

Standing on her balcony at all hours. Not even at night can I get away from the smoke constantly drifting in.

Shouting all night, every night . . .

Have to leave my home just to get away . . .

People constantly coming and going. Especially at night.

See them when I’ve been out for a walk. Almost too scared to enter the building . . .

Better for a while, but now he’s back on that balcony, smoking again. My whole flat reeks of . . .

Karen pauses and puts the orange down.

Is she misremembering? She flips through the documents. Flat number 0931, tenant: Ethel Freske.

Now he’s back on that balcony, smoking again.

He.

She quickly turns back to her laptop and scrolls through the door-knocking report.

Gundar Freske, 37. Lives next door to Marklund. Claims to have made no relevant observations of the neighbourhood or Marklund.

The report was written by Police Constable Urban Isaksson and countersigned by Police Constable Björn Lange. She’s used to the terse style; Police Constable Isaksson is far from the worst. The lack of content is another matter.

Nothing about an alibi and the swab cell is empty.

Chapter 26

26

She finds him at the start of the morning shift. At 7 a.m., Urban Isaksson is the last man to saunter out of the meeting room on the ground floor of the police station.

Björn Lange points him out to her. She spots Lange in the group of uniformed officers heading down to the garage and their waiting patrol vehicles. Björn Lange looks just as timid as on the previous occasions when Karen has had reason to interact with him. Now, he looks around in confusion, unsure whether he’s really the person Detective Inspector Karen Eiken Hornby is waving at.

‘Isaksson?’ he says with surprise and looks around. ‘That’s him over there.’

‘Great, thanks. And I’d actually like to talk to you, too,’ she says and watches timidity turn into concern. ‘Come with me.’

‘Maybe I should check with my CO first,’ Lange says, looking around uncertainly. ‘We’re supposed to . . .’

He trails off. Björn Lange’s respect for his superiors is trumped only by his respect for someone even more superior.

Urban Isaksson’s respect for his superiors, on the other hand, seems considerably more modest. Particularly after Karen has delivered her message and in an authoritative voice demanded an explanation as to why Gundar Freske was not asked to provide and alibi or offered a swab.

‘Well . . .’ he drawls, a line of feigned concern between his eyebrows, ‘let me think, how did it go down . . .’

And Björn Lange is feeling more relaxed now, too, Karen notes, as a sharp look from her wipes a small smile off his face.

‘Right, I remember now,’ Isaksson continues lazily. ‘We just figured there was no point.’