She finishes work at exactly five o’clock. Agnes has texted to say she’s got a lift home, so Anna doesn’t need to go via the railway station. She wonders if it’s one of the girls from yesterday, or maybe one of their parents? She wrestles with the idea of calling her daughter to check, but the counsellor made it very clear that Agnes needs space, so she reluctantly refrains.

She has searched the police database for Simon Vidje, but as expected she found nothing. The system wasn’t computerised back in 1990, so if she wants to read the case file she will have to venture down into the archive. She considers it, but decides there are other, more important matters in need of her attention.

Like the fact that your solicitor still hasn’t called, Håkan whispers. We both know what that means: the internal investigation is still ongoing. It isn’t over.

Running away hasn’t done any good at all . . .

In order to shut him up, she goes for a walk around the station making small talk with her colleagues. It doesn’t go all that well. She doesn’t bump into Jens Friberg or his annoying female sidekick, but it’s obvious that word has already spread about yesterday’s little incident. The older officers grin openly when she appears, while the younger ones at least have the decency to answer her questions in a politely neutral tone. She needs to come up with some kind of strategy over the next week or so, a way to show them who’s in charge.

She is so caught up in the problem on the way home that she almost has an accident. On one of the many hidden bends she meets another vehicle, realises that it has crossed over onto her side of the road. She swerves at the very last second. Her right-hand wheels slip over the edge of the tarmac, sending a clattering warning against the mudflaps before she manages to straighten up. She glances in the mirror and sees the rear lights of a white pickup truck with the Glarea company logo and some kind of telescopic crane on the back, before it disappears around the next bend. The land drops away steeply and is crowded with thick tree trunks on both sides of the road; Anna knows how serious the situation could have been if she’d gone over the edge. She promises herself that she will be much more alert in future.

When she arrives at Tabor, there is another car in her usual parking spot – a Land Rover that must be at least twenty-five years old, maybe more. The green paintwork has been bleached by the sun, and the metal has been patched and repaired in several places. However, this is no old banger. The inside is tidy, the upholstery clean and in good condition. Whoever owns the car seems to care about it.