‘I think I’ve always had the feeling it would end that way. Poor bastard.’ The old man clears his throat, spits in the direction of a patch of nettles. Turns his head away so that she won’t see the tears in his eyes.

The cabin consists of a single room. There is a kitchenette at one end with a sink and hob, and at the other end a toilet behind a broken sliding door. A sticky carpet can be seen here and there between heaps of newspapers, cardboard boxes and clothes. Every surface is piled high with car stereos, mobile phones and other electrical items; Anna presumes they are all stolen goods.

There is a sofa in the middle of the room; judging by the blankets and pillow, it also functions as a bed. The coffee table is littered with overflowing ashtrays, pizza boxes and empty beer cans. On the wall opposite is a flatscreen TV that is much too large and expensive to belong in here. The smell is entirely predictable – dampness, cigarette smoke, dirt, rotting rubbish, poor hygiene, and – most of all – loneliness.

She nods to the CSIs to make a start, then turns to the old man once more.

‘Did Jocke have a mobile phone?’

‘Loads.’ He points at the sink, which contains parts of at least three phones.

‘Have you got his number?’

The old man shakes his head. ‘Not his new one. He changed it all the time. The last number I have stopped working about a month ago.’

‘But you’re sure he had a phone?’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

Anna thanks him for his help and sends him away. He looks as if he’s about to protest, but then he turns and ambles back to the house, head down.

‘Anna!’ Jens beckons her. Underneath one of the pizza boxes there is a laptop with a sticker on the lid: PROPERTY OF VÄSTERVÅNG SCHOOL. Two cables run over to the wall, one to a plug socket and the other to a classic old double cassette deck, the kind that was popular in the ’80s before CD players came along. Anna pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves and presses the eject button, revealing a cassette tape. She carefully removes it. Something is written neatly on the label in ink, as if someone tried hard to make it look nice.

Property of Simon Vidje.

‘Rylander used Audacity to copy the music from the tape to the USB stick,’ says Jens, who has got the laptop working. ‘I use the same program at home for my vinyl collection.’

He pauses, seems almost embarrassed, as if he’s accidentally opened a window into his private life. He quickly resumes his professional role.

‘The file is dated just over a week ago.’