Grens stopped in the middle of the carefully raked path. Graves all around him. They didn’t scare him anymore.

“Are you kidding me? Is that all? What goddamn direction are you planning to point me in? Straight into a stone wall?”

“However . . .”

It was clear that his contact was annoyed. Or tired. Or maybe annoyingly tired.

“. . . there is some information about placing her in a foster family.”

“And I repeat myself: tell me something I don’t know.”

“Unfortunately nothing about which family.”

“Goddamn . . .”

“But—and now here comes your direction—I do have a location for you.”

Grens started walking again. He left the graves behind him. It was even more peaceful here at the memorial slope where families spread their loved one’s ashes.

“Yes?”

“Söderköping. Not a big town, located near . . .”

“I know where it is. Anything else?”

“I was just about to tell you that. In one of those handwritten notes, I found the name of the department head who made all the arrangements. Probably retired by now. She definitely knows. I’ll text you everything I have on her.”

The detective superintendent was about to hang up.

“By the way . . .”

But changed his mind.

“. . . the girl. What was her name? Originally?”

“Lilaj. Just like the others.”

“I figured that much. But I can’t remember her first name. No matter how hard I try.”

“Zana.”

And then it came back.

Zana Lilaj.

She’d looked just like her name. A little flower with tangled hair.

It was still too early for rush hour, and it only took him a few minutes to drive back to the police station and the little café on Bergs Street, which opened earlier than any of the others and baked the most delicious cinnamon buns. At this time of day they were piping hot and straight from the oven. He liked to sit at a table by the window and watch his colleagues streaming by on their way to start their workdays.

He knew her name now. And the name of the department head who gave her a new identity—his contact had even sent him the address in the town of Söderköping. In her role as the head of that city’s child welfare office she had, according to the notes, been responsible for authorizing the girl’s new placement. She would know the name of the foster family who took on a child with no parents or siblings, would know who had raised her, who had turned her into an ordinary citizen.

He dipped the cinnamon bun into black coffee, a habit that calmed him.