The only picture he couldn’t make head or tail of had been taken in the days after Christmas and showed a group of about ten men seated around a set table in a basement room. Every one of them was laughing uproariously, holding full Snaps glasses and looking merrily straight into the camera.

On the back wall was a sign; when he zoomed in on it, he could see it said PC Celluloid under a logo depicting an old-fashioned box camera. Of course, it was a photography club. A club that, if the name was anything to go by, only concerned itself with analogue film, which explained the hilarity when Einar pulled out his little digital marvel.

He couldn’t be sure. But something told him he was finally breaking new ground. Hugo Elvin had undeniably sniffed out a lot. But chances were he hadn’t been here. That didn’t mean there was anything of interest to find. But if there was, he was finally a step ahead of both Elvin and Molander.

29

‘There is still no statement from the Helsingborg Police regarding the arrest of Sievert Landertz early this morning,’ the newscaster said. ‘But according to unconfirmed sources, the arrest relates to the fire in the Sweden Democrats’ offices in Bjuv. And in today’s interpellation debate, leader of the Sweden Democrats Jimmie Åkesson seized the opportunity to comment on events.’

‘This is what I call a threat against democracy,’ Åkesson said. Lilja could feel her mood souring just from hearing the sound of his voice. ‘Can anyone here seriously believe that our justice system would ever contemplate detaining a Social Democrat like this, without any concrete—’

Lilja turned the radio off. She’d had enough. If it wasn’t a threat to democracy, it was a threat to freedom of speech. As though there was no concrete evidence against Landertz. He had the word guilty practically tattooed on his forehead, for God’s sake.

She had backed her car in between two shrubs that grew at exactly the right angle to hide her from anyone coming down the gravel road. From there, she also had a perfect view of Assar Skanås’s house just twenty yards away and would be able to call for backup the moment anyone set foot near it.

Having made sure he was neither in the house nor lurking somewhere in the garden, she and Klippan had decided to hold off on calling in Molander and his team and instead to keep the house under surveillance overnight, in case he returned.

But she had been staked out in her car for over four hours now and hadn’t done anything other than stare at an abandoned house through a zoomed-in camera lens while the news went on and on about Landertz and that damn party of his, which would probably be able to recruit even more members off the back of this debacle.