He began as gently as he could. ‘So, what actually happened?’ No one answered. The four of them had given up the struggle and were staring at the stretcher, where pale red water still dripped from Simon Vidje’s crushed head and continued on its way to the lowest point, deep down in the darkness.

Chapter 1

1

Autumn 2017

The long, winding route up the ridge is steep, edged with streams flowing through ravines, and with tall deciduous trees, their glowing colours reflected in the car’s paintwork as they reach up into the sky.

‘The Swedish summer chooses exactly the right way to die,’ Håkan always used to say. ‘A massive explosion of colour before eternal darkness, that’s the way to go. Don’t you agree, Anna?’

Then he’d start humming the riff from ‘Out of the Blue’, playing air guitar until she and Agnes were helpless with laughter. Håkan loved the autumn, loved being outdoors. Camping, climbing, walking in the mountains. They were young then, the two of them, without a care in the world. Agnes was still little, bobbing along as light as a feather in the carrier on his back. Fifteen years had passed, yet Anna can still conjure up the memory with ease. And the song.

According to Neil Young, it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

But that’s exactly what Håkan did. He slowly faded away, out of the blue and into the black, until all that remained of him were the whispers inside her head.

Please help me, Anna!

She turns up the volume on the radio station that Agnes chose before switching her full attention to her phone, as usual. They’ve been travelling together for almost seven hours, yet their mother-daughter conversation has filled no more than ten minutes. Anna tightens her grip on the wheel, keeps her eyes fixed on the road. Avoids looking at the trees, the sky, the colours that slice right through her. Razor blades in red, gold and blue.

She hates the autumn. Hates it.

Three keys dangle alongside the one in the ignition. The first is for the house in Äppelviken which is no longer their home. The second is the spare key to Håkan’s rented apartment, and should have been returned last winter when the auctioneers emptied the depressing little rooms. Number three is the key to her office at police HQ in Stockholm. She knows she should have handed it in the day before yesterday along with her official pass, but she didn’t.

Because if you open the ring and start removing keys, then you have to go all the way, Håkan whispers. You have to remove everything. Not just the keys, but the locks, the doors, the rooms – the memories.

She mumbles to him to shut up.

*