Ewert Grens used to hit things when he couldn’t keep this rage inside. Better than hitting people. The shiny rolling instrument carts at Forensic Medicine in Solna made a quivering ring that corresponded to the anxiety he sometimes felt in the presence of the dissected dead, and his own coffee table in his office made a dull thud when it hit his corduroy sofa. Here there were no tables. So he used the white walls, an almost silent sound that barely registered even though his knuckles turned the white paint red.

“Please, Ewert, please calm down.”

“Calm down, Hermansson? I’ve worked here for more than forty years! I’ll be retiring soon! But I have never—never—been used like this!”

He and Hoffmann shared that. They didn’t trust anyone. They talked about it, how now and then you have to choose to trust. But one thing that Grens realized was when a person chooses to trust, they also expose themselves to the risk of being betrayed.

“Answer me!”

And that was exactly what had happened.

“Which one!”

Mariana Hermansson had backed against one cell wall as he screamed at the top of his lungs. She stepped forward, stood close to him again; she simply didn’t like when people tried to scare her.

“I warned you, Ewert, do not doubt me again. I even told you it would be the same as losing me, either you trust me or you don’t. But you won’t listen! You run around accusing me and Sven and Wilson, and then you do it again! I understand that this is stressful, that the whole investigation is personal for you—I’m even happy that you can feel anything at all. But now, Ewert, you’ve lost not only me, you’ve lost yourself.”

“You’ve changed your pattern, Mariana.”

“What?”

He was no longer screaming.

And yet, his statements were sharper, more aggressive—they cut deeper.

“I’ve had you followed. You lie about canceled meetings, spend time in places you have no connection to.”

“What did you say? You had me followed? Who . . .”

She stopped short. She’d seen a movement on Sven. Some discomfort on his face.

Shame.

That was the expression. She was sure of it.

“You . . . ?”

And now he looked down at the cell floor.

“You, Sven? Have you . . .”

“Yes. Ewert asked me.”

A cell is a tight space. Too tight for two people’s rage.

And now Mariana Hermansson’s fury crashed into that of Ewert Grens.

“Ewert?”

“Yes?”

“When we’re done with this, when this investigation is over—you and I are over, too.”

“Excuse me?”

“After ten years? Everything we’ve gone through? And you still don’t know if you can trust me!”

“People will do anything if they’re forced to, Hermansson. Is someone threatening you? Like Hoffmann? I would understand if that were the case, and if so, we can turn it back on them, if you just let me . . .”

“Ewert, it’s me.”

“What?”