He gives Jens Friberg a nod of appreciation before moving on to the white Saab. He goes through the information that Anna already knows: model, year, registration number, the name of the firm that owns the car, the fact that it hasn’t been reported stolen.

‘We still can’t formally link our victim to the vehicle, but given its location, we’re working on the hypothesis that it belonged to him. We’ve had it brought in for forensic examination; we’ll get on to that as soon as we’ve finished outdoors. OK, so that’s about it for now. To summarise: at the moment we don’t have anything to confirm either suicide or murder. We’re waiting for fingerprint analysis, and for the results of the autopsy.’

They discuss the investigation for a few more minutes; apart from the digger driver, there are no witnesses to question, and no houses along the last few miles leading to the viewpoint. Anna thanks everyone for their hard work overnight, and sends them home to get some sleep. Personally, she has other plans.

She makes her way down to the underground car park and finds the Saab tucked away in a corner, surrounded by police tape. Just as she’d hoped, the CSIs haven’t got around to emptying the vehicle or dusting for prints.

She puts on her nitrile gloves and carefully opens the driver’s door. She is met by the smell of cigarettes, dirty, old upholstery, petrol, a dried-up air freshener, and the other more or less pleasant smells an old car accumulates. She stands there for a moment, trying to picture the bearded man inside the vehicle. Without touching the seat, she reaches in and picks up the McDonald’s bag. Jens Friberg was right. A fragment of what looks like a broken piece of a hacksaw blade has been pushed into the lock to serve as an ignition key. Just as Grönwall said, there is a charger cable dangling from the cigarette lighter, and on the floor on the passenger side there is a pair of trainers so muddy that it’s almost impossible to tell what colour they are. Why did the man take them off?

She turns her attention to the back seat. One IKEA bag contains a cheap toiletries bag on top of a pile of crumpled clothes; in the other is a sleeping bag and a pillow. The odour of an unwashed human body is pretty strong here. The torch jammed between the roof and the handle above the door convinces her; the bearded man had been living in this car.

In the boot she finds a selection of rusty tools, several metres of garden hose and a plastic can. Judging by the smell, the last two items have been used to siphon petrol from parked cars.