“But it would be good if you knew who was going to be your boss next year.”

“What does Carin Radler say?”

“Nothing. What can she say?”

Henrik shrugged his shoulders.

Gunnar rested his hands on his knees.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” he mumbled. “For now, I’m making the decisions, and I’m sure as hell going to see to it that we reel this investigation in nice and easy.”

“Good,” Henrik said. “So how do you want to do that?”

Gunnar let his gaze wander around the room and then out through the window.

“We’ve put out the APB on Danilo internally. Now I want to ask the general public for help.”

At the same moment, his cell phone rang. He let it ring three times before he answered.

“Yes, what is it?”

Then he stood, his face suddenly strained.

“What the fuck did you say? What do you mean, ‘dead’?”

* * *

He was hanging completely still, his arms hanging slack at his sides. His face was pale, his eyes wide-open.

Mia Bolander and Henrik Levin stared at Axel Lundin’s body. They weren’t allowed to go into the cell. The scene was supposed to be left intact.

Mia attempted to register the details of the scene, but she could hardly tear her eyes from the man who had hanged himself.

The small room was tiled and had windows with metal blinds that couldn’t be adjusted. In a corner of the floor lay a blanket and pillow, which every inmate was given.

There was graffiti on the ceiling and on the inside of the door.

Axel Lundin had a shirt and a pair of boxer shorts on. His boxers had a large dark spot on them, and on the floor underneath, a puddle of urine had formed.

“Fucking weak if you ask me,” she said, putting her hand on her hip. “Committing suicide, that is. I’ve never understood why someone would want to do that. It’s like they don’t want to take responsibility, right?”

Henrik didn’t answer, just took a deep breath in through his nose.

“And the reason this guy said sayonara must be that he snitched and then felt guilty,” she continued.

“I don’t think there was space for a guilty conscience in him,” Henrik said, glancing up at the ceiling, at the pants looped like a noose around Axel’s neck. “There was only one thing in his head, and that was fear. He said that he didn’t want to be released, remember?”

“Why wouldn’t someone want to stay in this cozy place. Especially when you get a whiff of the wonderful scent from the drunk tank. Yum, really.”

“Stop it now,” Henrik said. “Call Anneli instead and ask her to come here.”

“Better if you do.”