“Krantz was pretty surprised when I unloaded that gigantic weapon out of a hockey stick bag and onto the table in his lab. He’d never seen one before—and he’s analyzed basically everything. But his technical investigation yielded nothing—no traces on either the weapon or ammunition.”

Beneath the third paper, he wrote typewriter.

“Krantz analyzed the text on both the envelopes and the letters, which yielded a one hundred percent match with the same typewriter. A very old Facit T2. Some keys show a pattern of wear that’s basically as unique as a set of fingerprints, so if we run across a typewriter we’ll be able to say if the threats were written on it.”

When Piet Hoffmann leaned forward to see the enlarged illustrations, he realized that the letters H and R were the ones who formed the unique pattern.

Hugo and Rasmus. What an unfathomable coincidence.

The detective put the next three pieces of paper in a row farther down on the whiteboard. the delivery firm—who rang the bell on Hoffmann’s door and left a package with a phone inside—had, according to all of their records and files and even handwritten notes, never made a single delivery to that address. the telephone calls from a distorted voice phone—that despite Grens’s hiring a hacker younger than half his age who usually succeeded where others failed in cracking the networks of encrypted phones—couldn’t be traced to a who or where. The cadets’ search for unidentified bodies didn’t yield any matches in Sweden or the rest of the Nordic countries, but it had, in collaboration with Interpol, shown that a total of eighteen unidentified young women’s bodies had been logged by the Albanian police over the last five years, which still could be followed up on.

“Did you say the . . . the Albanian police?”

“Yes.”

“Why would . . .”

“Another investigation I’m working on. Which I plan to keep to myself a little longer. But it may be that there are links to the organization who is threatening you.”

“What the hell, Grens—why won’t you tell me! You know as well as I do . . .”

“You’re not a police officer. Yet. But you could become one. Then I’ll tell you more. And maybe you’ll even travel down there. To Albania.”

Piet Hoffmann looked at the detective superintendent whom he had gotten to know over the last few years, whom he’d even temporarily moved in with. He could read the older man pretty well. And this, he was sure as he studied Grens’s face, was no attempt at a joke.

“Albania.”

“Yes.”

“And, ‘You’re not a police officer—yet.’”