Right now he was waiting for his contact to call him back. Why wasn’t he? Shouldn’t matter how late it was. Grens slammed the useless folder shut again and sank into Mariana Hermansson’s desk chair. He’d never sat in it before. He had spent the last ten years in her vicinity just a few doors down, and had barely stepped over her threshold. That was how it worked, just a part of their unspoken agreement. She could barge into his office at any time and say anything—while he respected her privacy and integrity, which began at her door. Like a child who needed to maintain boundaries with a demanding and overprotective father. He liked it that way. That was why he had adapted himself to her, a rare occurrence for him. She must know she was the daughter he’d never had, even though they never spoke of it and never would.

A palpable feeling of unease.

Not because he was sitting in Hermansson’s chair, that felt fine. An unease that had been with him since the moment he first looked at those blank pages.

The missing documents could only have been removed by a police officer and handed over to someone who paid for them—only an active police officer could gain access to that restricted archive. This unease was because he found it inconceivable. Corrupt colleagues? In his forty years on the force, Ewert Grens never investigated the crimes of those who do the investigating. And right now he didn’t have time, he was searching for a person who hid while four murders were committed in her vicinity, a little girl who had chosen not to remember, but might remember now. A young woman who could be a dangerous threat to a certain violent criminal who might have gotten ahold of her records.