She took a few steps to the side, standing with her back against the door.

Inside, she was tense and ready.

On the surface, she was calm and relaxed.

She released the knife from the small of her back and squeezed it a few times to get the blood flowing in her hands.

She counted to three.

One. Two. Three.

She stepped into the boathouse.

With the knife in front of her, she listened in the darkness. She listened for Isra but didn’t hear her.

Jana stood in the middle of the cold floor, smelling filth and moisture, hearing water dropping against something metallic that made the sound echo.

She slowly climbed the stairs, one step at a time, feeling her body fill with adrenaline. She moved in a crouched position over the damp floorboards toward the corner.

“Isra?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

The boathouse creaked and cracked around her and she heard how the wind outside had grown stronger. She couldn’t get any closer. She tried to breathe quietly, looking into the corner and discovering the ropes on the floor. That was all she saw.

Isra was gone.

* * *

They were small, subtle details that Gunnar Öhrn simply could have missed if he hadn’t been so attentive. A bead of sweat on her temple, hands under the table. He assumed corrections officer Anne Lindbom was nervous.

For a moment, he had sat still in front of her and doubted himself. But when he suddenly saw her eyelid jerk, he was more certain that she had something to hide.

He cast a glance toward the door of his room to confirm that it was fully closed before he began the conversation.

“It was you who found Axel Lundin in his cell?” he asked, flipping through a report that Internal Affairs had drawn up after Lundin’s suicide.

“Yes, that was my shift.”

“Can you describe in your own words what happened when you found Axel?”

“I’ve already done that. It’s in the report.”

“Yes, it says here that you checked on Axel every hour through the hatch in the cell door, which you’d also documented in the supervision log. It also says in the report that you were working alone, that you left the detention area for a break to get something to eat and that when you came back, you found Axel dead.”

“Yes.”

“So you left your post and went through the hallway to the cafeteria?”

“Yes.”

“But why didn’t any of the security cameras in the hallway capture you, then?”

Anne’s eyes darted around the room. Gunnar continued, “And how do you explain that your security card was only swiped from the inside and then out, and not from the outside and in?”

“I left the detention area.”

“But you couldn’t have. How did you get in there again without using your card? You have to use a security card to enter, right?”

“Yes.”