She takes a step towards him. The bottom of the pool is made up of sharp stones. She stumbles and almost loses her balance. The water has reached her waist now; the cold makes her gasp.

‘Mum!’

Someone is shouting behind her, and when she turns around she sees Agnes standing on the shore with Milo beside her. The dog has a dead rabbit in his mouth, and Anna already knows that it has been slit open and disembowelled. The trees are swaying gently in the wind, making a faint sound that reminds her of the hum of an infusion pump. ‘Sometimes you have to do the right thing,’ Agnes says, pointing to the body which is both Håkan’s and Simon Vidje’s at the same time.

‘Promise me you’ll do the right thing.’

Three, three, seven, five, nine, two.

Select.

*

She waits until shortly after five before closing her office door and heading down to the archive in the basement. The entire day has passed, yet the dream still lingers and refuses to give her the peace of mind at work that she had been hoping for.

Morell’s office is dark and silent, as is most of the station. She doesn’t really need to creep around; she will be in charge from Monday, and already has the right to take an interest in any case. However, she knows that Simon Vidje’s death is a sensitive subject, and she doesn’t want anyone asking why she’s looking into it. Particularly as she doesn’t have a good answer, or at least not one that sounds sensible. Is she seriously using something that happened almost thirty years ago to get closer to her own daughter? Is she that desperate?

She has to pass the cloakroom to get to the archive. There is no one around, the radio is off, which means the squeaking of the soles of her shoes sounds even louder. She unconsciously speeds up.

There is no pass card reader on the door of the archive; she has to use the master key that Morell gave her when she arrived. The steel door slams shut behind her with an unnecessarily loud bang. The fluorescent light is motion-activated, and comes on before she has time to start groping for a switch. The windowless room is as dry as dust, and smells of old paper and printing ink. It houses nothing but six double shelving units, very close together. The end of each shelf is labelled with years, and there is a black wheel beneath the labels. The shelf she is searching for is the one almost furthest away, and it is a real effort to turn the wheel and make the shelves move. They reluctantly open up to reveal a narrow passageway lined with blue files.