‘All right.’ Molander started walking him towards the scene. ‘Some of the information is contradictory, but then isn’t that always the way when something out of the ordinary happens? But the aggregate picture of the course of events is that the perpetrator, a dark-skinned man with an odd appearance and his hood pulled up over—’

‘Odd appearance?’

‘Yes, several of the witnesses put it exactly that way without being able to specify what was so odd about it. Either way, the man was supposedly queueing, waiting for his turn by the meat counter, when all of a sudden he jumped over to the other side, snatched up one of the knives and stuck it into the victim’s throat.’ Molander pulled the string that opened the door marked No Unauthorized Access and continued into a short hallway with shabby walls and glaring fluorescent lights.

‘So it wasn’t premeditated at all?’

‘Let’s put a pin in that for now, because the altercation didn’t end there,’ Molander continued as he showed Klippan into a room where a row of carefully placed stepping pads led to one of the assistants who was squatting down, taking pictures of something on the floor. ‘Apparently, the victim was in remarkably good physical shape and—’

‘Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns,’ Einar ‘Flätan’ Greide exclaimed on his way through the swing door leading to the area behind the meat counter. ‘Exquisite timing, I have to say. I just finished.’ He pulled off his bloodstained silicone gloves, turning them inside out in the process. He pushed them into his tattered suede briefcase, decorated with hippy fringe and embroidered peace signs, and pulled out a glass bottle filled with something green and viscous, which he knocked back without ceremony. ‘Where was I?’

‘You had just finished,’ said Klippan, who, though he was very familiar with Flätan’s unique sartorial sensibilities, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the red-and-white striped trousers poking out from beneath his blood-spattered lab coat, which made his legs look like candy canes. ‘And I’m given to understand that the crime scene technicians have been kept waiting a bit too long.’

‘Oh, that’s okay, I’m sure they’ll live.’ Flätan turned back to the swing door, pushing it open with his elbow and inviting Klippan and Molander into the space behind the meat counter.

‘I will, of course, conduct a more thorough examination once I get the body back to home base. But as you can see, it doesn’t take a genius to determine that the victim experienced hypovolemia and bled out soon after.’

The pool of blood was about three feet across; when Klippan squatted down, he could see the coagulated surface layer ripple in the barely noticeable draught from the swing door.

‘Is that it?’ Molander said.