Anna doesn’t think about what she’s said until the words have slipped out and exploded. Agnes stiffens, her eyes shine with unshed tears, and Anna swears silent to herself.

‘I’ve got something you might want to hear,’ she says quickly. ‘A recording of Simon Vidje.’

She fetches her phone, opens the sound file that Jens Friberg sent her. Simon’s voice emerges from the little speaker.

Some of the tension leaves Agnes’s body. She tilts her head on one side as she listens, just like Håkan used to do. Once again, Anna’s heart turns over.

‘Can you send it to me?’ Agnes says. ‘I want to listen to it in my room.’

Chapter 42

42

Autumn 2017

Agnes is using her Vespa to get to the train station, so Anna decides to have an extra half an hour in bed. At the last moment she remembers that today is Morell’s retirement presentation, and quickly irons her uniform shirt before leaving for work.

When she gets to the office she takes the Simon Vidje case file out of her briefcase and reads through it again. She decides to sketch out a timeline.

Bruno and Alex arrive at the quarry at about three o’clock in Alex’s car.

Simon shows up half an hour later on his bike, and after another hour or so Marie and Carina turn up, also by car.

Both vehicles are parked down by the barrier. Anna knows from her own experience that this is just over half a mile from the quarry. Simon can cycle all the way there.

They light the fire at around seven, and at some point after eight Joe and Tanya arrive on a motorbike; clearly it was possible for them to negotiate the barrier.

Shortly before midnight – at 23.40 according to Bruno, 23.50 according to Marie – Joe and Tanya leave the quarry. At the same time it begins to rain heavily.

At 01.36 Joe Rylander is arrested at the petrol station near Reftinge. At that stage he and Tanya have been there for less than fifteen minutes.

According to the autopsy report, Simon Vidje dies between 01.00 and 02.00.

By five o’clock in the morning, it has stopped raining. Marie Sordi leaves the tent she is sharing with Carina Pedersen and sees Simon in the water.

After they have established that Simon is dead, Bruno drives off in Marie’s car to call the police and an ambulance. Änglaberga isn’t far away, but instead of going there, he heads for the grocery store in Mörkaby.

The first police car is on the scene at 05.54, with the ambulance and fire service arriving shortly after.

Anna reads through the timeline twice, but can’t find any gaps. It might seem a little strange that Bruno chose to go to Mörkaby instead of Änglaberga, but in fact it’s completely understandable. Presumably he didn’t want to be the one to tell Karl-Johan and Elisabet that their son was dead.