“Lucas and Amelia. They’re in their final semester at the police academy. They’ve been doing their training here in the homicide unit, under my supervision. Amelia did her first training period at county criminal and Lucas just joined us from the gang task force in Tumba. They were the ones who helped me—or helped you, Ewert—analyze the folder of blank paper. And considering how things look here . . . well, I thought it was good if they saw it, too.”

The scene would have seemed bizarre to any outside observer: three people being introduced to each other near the feet of a corpse whose eyes seemed to be on them.

“Lucas? Amelia? This is Ewert Grens, detective superintendent and my boss. Technically speaking, he’s your boss too while you’re here. And he’s not half so dangerous as he’s trying to look.”

Mariana Hermansson smiled at Grens, who shook the two outstretched hands, both a bit too soft, but they’d harden over time.

“You’re basically the same age.”

“Excuse me?”

They spoke in unison, Lucas and Amelia.

So anxious to do the right thing. Or at least to avoid making any mistakes.

“The same age I was when I saw my first dead body. DB. That’s what we called them. Don’t think many people use that expression anymore.”

“Nobody at the academy. But that’s why we’re here, Superintendent. For the reality.”

He looked at two young people who had no idea that one day their time as a police officer would come to an end.

Reality?

Was that where he spent his time?

And if so—what were those three hundred and ten dead bodies?

“Ewert?”

Sven Sundkvist had left the stairwell when his phone rang and gone outside for a better connection, and through the small round windows Grens had caught glimpses of him pacing, seen the slender back of his most loyal colleague. A back the detective superintendent knew so well, whose hunching over and tightening of the shoulders could only mean bad news.

“Yes?”

“It was the officer in charge.”

“We’ve already got our hands full, Sven.”

“That’s why he called. He knew we were here and why. So when he got a new alarm about ten minutes ago, he presumed we should take that, too.”

Ewert Grens moved aside to make way for the forensic technicians photographing the dead man from various angles. But when that didn’t satisfy them, since he was still casting shadows on their object, he took a couple more long steps into the darkness of the stairwell and waved for Sven to follow.

“What are you talking about? There’s surely someone else who can investigate whatever needs investigating. Like I said, we’re full up here.”