Fabian opened one of the wine bottles he’d bought for the main course and filled their glasses. ‘Of course he needs help. But the trial in Helsingør starts next week, and I see no other option than to—’

He’d turned the sound off so he wouldn’t be bothered during dinner. But since the phone was sitting next to the cutting board at the edge of his vision, he couldn’t help but notice when the screen lit up. It was Astrid Tuvesson, and if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that she would never call unless she absolutely had to.

Something had happened.

39

This was just too much. That was Klippan’s only thought as he turned into ICA Maxi’s car park. Too much, too much, too much. Until two months ago, nothing had happened in absolute years. Now it was all happening at once.

They weren’t just in the middle of an urgent manhunt for Assar Skanås. The arrest of Sievert Landertz was a problem that had snowballed out of their control. Over the past few hours, the discontent among the Sweden Democrats sympathizers had grown exponentially; it was only a matter of time before their mail server crashed.

It made no difference that it was glaringly obvious Landertz had helped plan the fire in his own party offices; if they couldn’t produce solid evidence soon, they would have to release him.

It was best not to even think about the fire at the refugee reception facility in Kvidinge. Technically, the Bjuv Police were in charge of that. So far, though, they hadn’t made any real headway and he could already hear the critics on the left accusing the police of racism.

He backed into a free spot and looked over at the entrance, where people were crowding around with their empty trollies, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside. At least that meant the cordon was up and the shop evacuated. That was something, though not nearly enough. The whole car park should have been closed to give the ambulance and police vehicles room to manoeuvre. The way things stood, the press photographers, who were no doubt on their way already, would have no difficulty zooming in straight through the glass doors to snap pictures of the ongoing police work.

Responsibility rested with him now. It was his job to climb out of his car, push through the crowd, duck under the police tape and take over the investigation. Make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to and that nothing was missed. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even bring himself to unbuckle his seat belt.