‘I’ve worked at this station for the whole of my career. The people of Nedanås have become my extended family. To suddenly be excluded . . .’ Anna is about to speak again, but once again he holds up his hand. ‘No, no. You did absolutely the right thing. This is your jurisdiction now, your station, your colleagues, and, not least, your decisions. I have no doubt that you will do an excellent job, and I hope you can forgive an old dinosaur who’s finding it a little difficult to let go. With the benefit of hindsight, and to quote my clever wife, maybe staying on here wasn’t such a good idea.’

Anna doesn’t really know what to say. Part of her is pleased about Morell’s sudden self-awareness, while another part feels sorry for him.

‘It’s fine,’ she says in a conciliatory tone. ‘I really appreciate everything you’ve done to help me feel at home here, and it’s good to have you around if I need—’ She stops as the stammer alarm bell begins to ring before the word ‘help’ – that wouldn’t sound right. She considers changing to ‘support’, but rejects that too. ‘Advice,’ she says instead, which makes his face light up.

‘You can always turn to me, Anna, whatever it’s about.’

‘Thank you, Henry.’

There is a brief silence; neither of them seems to know how to bring the conversation to an end.

‘Anyway, I’m going home for a couple of hours. It was a long night,’ she says eventually.

He nods. ‘Yes, I realised that – the team looked pretty tired. But they’re all good officers – I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of what’s happened.’ He pauses, considers what to say next. ‘Would you allow me one question out of curiosity, Anna?’

‘Of course!’

‘Have you found anything to suggest that it wasn’t suicide?’

She thinks about the position of the driver’s seat, but chooses to keep that little detail to herself.

‘Not yet,’ she replies with exaggerated slowness.

Morell nods; the kindly, ageing bear is back. And yet she thinks she detects a hint of relief.

*

On the way home she turns on the GPS on her phone to help her locate the viewpoint, but as before it works only sporadically as soon as she reaches the ridge. It tells her to turn right by two signs; one is old and says KOTORP, the other is newer, with the words NORRBLICKA BED & BREAKFAST. After that the GPS becomes confused about which road she should take. Eventually she comes across another sign pointing to a place called Vargadalen, but she knows she would have remembered such an unusual name from Jens’s map, and decides to carry straight on. Fortunately, she meets the CSI vehicle and waves it over to the side. She recognises the two men from last night.

‘Have you found anything?’ she asks.