She has more than enough to do. She ought to focus on Joe Rylander’s death, just as she said to Jens Friberg, and yet there is something else that strikes her as she stands in the middle of the turning area. The loose end she sensed before, but couldn’t quite grasp. She knows what it is now. The words she jotted down on her notepad during the interview with Alex: Simon’s bike?

Because if Simon really did stumble around up there in the dark and the rain, if he did fall over the edge and hit his head, then why wasn’t his bike down here in the morning? Why wasn’t it taken in, or even mentioned in the case file?

They head back to the car. The sun has slipped behind the clouds, and the atmosphere between them has changed. Anna is lost in her own thoughts, and neither Agnes nor Lisa says anything. It’s as if the time spent in the gloomy little quarry has made them all somewhat pensive. Agnes has that expression she sometimes wears when she is thinking about her father, and Anna catches herself trying to start a conversation with him for at least the fiftieth time, only to realise once more that he is still torturing her with his sullen silence.

I know I did the wrong thing, OK? So, yell at me for fuck’s sake, tell me I’m an idiot who can’t keep my promises. Say whatever you like, as long as you say something!

Not a word from Håkan.

They stow Agnes’s equipment in the boot of the car. In the middle of all the autumn smells, Anna thinks she can detect something else, an acrid odour that isn’t familiar. Milo seems to have picked up on it too; his head is raised, his nose pointing into the wind. Could it be petrol? Has the incident with the pothole cracked the fuel tank? She bends down, runs her hand over the grass beneath the car then sniffs it. Nothing.

They get into the car, with Lisa in the front this time, Agnes and Milo in the back.

‘So, what shall we do now?’ Anna asks a little too brightly when the silence begins to feel oppressive.

‘If it’s OK with you, I’d like to go back to my hotel,’ Lisa says, sounding tired. ‘My train leaves first thing in the morning, and I need to pack.’

‘No problem.’