Underneath he’d left space for the names of the four young people in front of him, one on each line. Their faces had taken on a greyish tinge and they were trying in vain to avoid looking at the body. He knew who they were, how old they were, where they lived; he even knew who their parents were and where they worked. Under normal circumstances, this was something he liked about his job out here in such a rural area – familiarity with the locals, the sense of community. But on this particular morning, he wished for the first time that he worked in a city.

Alexander Morell

Carina Pedersen

Bruno Sordi

Marie Andersson

They were all nineteen years old, as was the young man on the stretcher. As recently as June he’d seen all five of them careering through the village as they celebrated their graduation from high school – drinking cans of beer, blowing whistles, waving their white, peaked student caps and screaming with joy at the future that awaited them.

Simon Vidje, he wrote at the bottom of the list and underlined both words in black. He had known the identity of the victim for quite some time now, and yet there was something about seeing the name on paper that made the situation even more unpleasant. Everyone in Nedanås knew who Simon Vidje was. A child prodigy. One in a million. Someone who was destined to conquer the world, visit amazing places and take his home village and everyone in it along for the ride. Instead, his story had ended here, in cold black water in the middle of nowhere, not too far from the place where he’d grown up.

The police officer’s radio crackled into life, then he heard a rough, familiar voice conveying instructions which he immediately carried out.

‘Your father is on his way, Alex,’ he said to the muscular boy with protruding wrestler’s ears and broad shoulders. He received a brief nod in response.

The officer gazed at the four of them for a moment, then frowned and made a note below their names.

Marie Andersson’s clothes are wet. Alexander Morell’s, Carina Pedersen’s and Bruno Sordi’s clothes are dry.

Maybe it was a pointless observation, a fact with no value whatsoever. At least that was what he would claim later on, when it had somehow found its way into the official police report and people started asking him what those fifteen words actually meant.

However, he was currently unaware of the difficulties ahead. All he knew was that he had a job to do. Questions to ask, answers to write down in his notebook.