Per Åström opened the door of Jana Berzelius’s office. The room was immaculate. Papers in neat piles, the spines of binders in straight lines, everything clean, spotless, not a speck of dust.

She wasn’t there.

He turned his gaze to the photograph on the wall. He had seen it before, but hadn’t thought much about it.

He took a step forward, examining it more closely now.

There was something about the photo, something that made him frown, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. Maybe it had to do with the people in the picture. He stared at their eyes, their stiff facial expressions. A man, a woman and a child. Karl, Margaretha and Jana Berzelius.

He thought about the pictures of his own family taken when he was little, of himself, his parents and his two siblings. They captured laughter, delight, happiness. A hundred pictures of the same birthday, taken from every possible perspective, with balloons, cakes and presents. First days of school, last days of school. Playing in the park, at vacation destinations, in a sea, in a pool, on a beach. With a bicycle, on roller skates, on ice skates. On skis and kick sleds. His life was documented, immortalized, archived in billions of pixels. And then he thought about the photograph in front of him. A photograph that simply lacked any life at all. Why had she chosen to put it on the wall?

Per guessed that Jana was nine or ten years old in the photograph. Her hair was black as a raven’s feathers, straight and well-groomed. Her hands were at her sides, and she was wearing a white dress and black, shiny shoes. Her lips were closed, but Per could still detect a light smile. Her eyes were deep and dark.

She stood in the middle, in front of her mom and dad. In the background was a white double door, wooden with carved details.

He took a step forward and examined the door to what he assumed was the Berzelius family’s summerhouse.

Then he turned and walked out of Jana’s office and stopped the Chief Public Prosecutor midstep.

“There’s big trouble,” Torsten said immediately.

“Legal?” Per asked.

“No, marital. The missus wants a new dog. I think we could stand to wait awhile, since we so recently had to say goodbye to Scamp. But maybe it’s just as well to go along with it, for the sake of keeping the peace. Anyway, what’s weighing on you, young man?”

Per took a deep breath and said that he hadn’t heard anything from Jana since she adjourned her hearing in the district court.

“I’ve been to her apartment, too, and she isn’t answering her phone.”

“Maybe she’s sick.”

“Then she should have called in...”

“I can see that you’re concerned.”

“I just thought it was strange of her to suspend a hearing. It’s not really like her.”