“Ewert Grens, detective superintendent at the City Police. And this is Lucas and Amelia, cadets at the homicide unit.”

“You were the one who woke me up this morning.”

“I was the one who woke you up this morning.”

The former head of Söderköping’s child welfare department had no intention of letting them inside. Despite both Grens and his cadets offering up their badges for her inspection.

“Well, in that case you made the trip for no reason.”

Back straight. Eyes that didn’t look away.

“Because I already told you: I don’t discuss confidential matters when I’m in the midst of them, and I certainly don’t talk about them later.”

“And yet you’re going to have to.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“The girl I’m here about is in grave danger. Every second we stand here staring at each other her chances of survival go down. Let us in and I’ll explain. Then you can decide if you’re going to stay silent or talk.”

He looked at her, still straight backed, gaze still steady.

And he knew she felt his seriousness and honesty.

Because suddenly she stepped aside.

“Thirty minutes. Then I want you to leave.”

A person who lived alone, and who had done so for a long time. She didn’t mention it, but Ewert Grens could tell. The way the furniture was placed, the smells, even the way she moved through the rooms. The sort of things only a person who had lived the same way and for just as long would pick up.

“You weren’t invited. So there won’t be coffee.”

They sat opposite each other in the living room with a small round table between them. She in a green armchair with large flowers on it, he on a sofa with a blanket over it, while the cadets lingered near the doorway.

“Zana Lilaj. She had just turned five. I was the one who found her beside her dead parents and siblings. I was the one who carried her away. I was the rock in her life until she left the safe house and came here, to Söderköping, where she was given a new name and a new life. By you.”

The former department head looked at him. Brittle, taut. At the same time.

“Dead parents? And siblings?”

“Yes, that’s why . . .”

“I never knew. That’s how it worked when I ended up with a person’s life in my hands. A few pen strokes away with no insight into their past.”

“In that case—can you help me now?”

Charlotte M. Andersen was touched, maybe even moved. That was easy to see. But she hadn’t lost her focus. Grens thought she had probably been a much better boss than he was.

“No.”

“No?”