And it carried on like that for the rest of the day. Blame and finger pointing all the way up the chain, from the uniformed officers who had proudly brought in their prey, via the station sergeant who had missed the obvious, to Karl Björken who had let the watch commander fill him in without double-checking any of the details of the arrest. In the end, the whole affair had landed in Jounas Smeed’s lap because he had appointed Björken lead investigator, and in Viggo Hansen’s, because he had appointed Jounas Smeed head of the division.

And now Prosecutor Dineke Vegen is glaring at all of them with barely restrained fury.

‘Which one of you is going to talk to his sister?’ she asks, her voice icy.

‘We are,’ Karen replies quickly. ‘Karl and me. We managed to get hold of her as soon as we realised.’

‘And what does she have to say about this? Or is she already being interviewed by one of the evening papers?’

‘I actually don’t think so,’ Karen says. ‘She was upset, obviously, but she doesn’t seem like the type who contacts the media. Besides, she sounded more relieved than anything.’

‘Relieved?’

‘Yes, relieved. That it wasn’t something worse. And guilty, too. Martin lives with her, in some sort of separate flat in the basement, and while he does have his own entrance, she told us it was her responsibility to keep an eye on him. I honestly think she wants to keep this as quiet as possible.’

At this point, Jounas Smeed decides to step in.

‘Either way, the bloke’s of age and his sister has no official role in his life. In other words, we weren’t obligated to inform her at all. Technically speaking, I mean,’ he adds.

Dineke Vegen gives him a withering look.

‘And you don’t think she’s going to want to talk about it once the first shock wears off? That her mentally disabled brother was locked in a cell for twelve hours, suspected of four rapes, a murder, and an attempted rape? When what he was in fact doing was trying to help a woman with her damn puppy?’

*

That was likely exactly what had happened. Martin Talliksen, who according to his sister Hellen is obsessed with the idea of getting a dog, had spotted Filippa Lekkman walking her puppy. The fact that he had been riding around town on his moped at all was due to his sister’s lack of care. At least according to Hellen herself, who had arrived at the station, pale and stiff, half an hour after Karl Björken gave Martin Talliksen a can of Coke, a chocolate bar from the vending machine, and one of the uniformed officer’s caps.

‘It doesn’t go faster than ten miles an hour and he’s only allowed to ride it around the yard,’ she’d told them. ‘But sometimes he takes off . . .’