‘Good. Then at least we’ve established that you have the ability to speak.’ He studied her. But not in a sexual way. There was no lust in his eyes. No flirting. Not a trace of the lewdness she so often had to deal with. No, this was something else entirely and much more meticulous, which for some reason made her feel even more exposed. ‘Let’s start with why you shot at me.’

‘If I’d been shooting at you, you wouldn’t be sitting here now.’ His smile had vanished, and for a split second he looked away towards her right side before fixing her again.

‘So you claim you were aiming at the stag, even though the start of hunting season is over four months away?’ Her eyes couldn’t take it any more; she pretended to cough so she could close them for a few seconds without making her defeat too obvious.

‘That’s correct.’ He smiled as though he could see straight through her pathetic charade.

‘So, to put it differently, you admit to an offence against wildlife?’ Had he been looking at her ear? Both of her ears protruded slightly, as she was well aware. But not enough to cause a reaction. ‘Wonderful. Then let’s put that aside for now and talk about the reason we’re here, which is your brother, Assar Skanås.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s a suspect in the murder of eleven-year-old Moonif Ganem. You may have read about it in the papers.’

Igor Skanås showed no reaction, apart from possibly lowering his eyes a fraction.

‘Or perhaps you haven’t been keeping up with the news since you’ve been out in the woods, hunting?’ What was he looking at now? Her nose? What the fuck was he up to?

‘You should try it sometime. A few hours in, you can even hear your own thoughts.’

‘And what are your thoughts? Regarding the allegations against your brother.’

Igor Skanås crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair with a smile. ‘I assume this is about the little brown boy who went for a spin in the washing machine?’

‘Excuse me?’ She had assumed he was joking, testing her boundaries. But his smile wasn’t the smile of someone joking around. It was simply an outward expression of his delight. ‘A spin in a washing machine. Is that how you see it? That it was what he needed to wash his dirty brown skin clean. Maybe you would have preferred it if he’d poured in a bottle of bleach to make the boy even paler?’

‘Sure, why not?’ Igor Skanås opened a tin of snus, unfazed by her outburst.

Things were starting to make sense now. The swastika, the tidy room and the Renault Klippan had seen at the Nazi gathering. Those were all Assar’s brother’s doing.