‘Pardon me?’ Flätan, who was about to leave, stopped in the middle of a stepping pad and turned to face Molander with a look on his face that made it abundantly clear what he thought of him.

The main puddle was far from the only blood. Large areas of the floor were stained. The same was true of the white-tiled back wall and several of the work surfaces. Even the buttons on the scale and the roll of wrapping paper were stippled with blood.

‘Well. Don’t you have a scenario in mind? Even a hypothetical one?’ Molander said, seemingly unfazed by Flätan’s look.

The victim, who according to his name tag was called Lennart Andersson, was of middle age with hair growing in a semi-circle around his bald pate. He was lying on his back in the middle of the pool of blood. His right arm was outstretched, his left bent with its hand over a bloody gash in his throat.

‘Like I said, you’ve been able to work undisturbed for quite a while now, and as far as I can make out, quite a few things happened here before the hypovolemia set in.’

‘Of course. A blind chicken could see that. But I’m not in the habit of discussing my personal theories with all and sundry. I prefer to wait until I’ve conducted a full autopsy and can present facts.’

The victim’s work coat, which had once been white, was now so covered in blood the white patches that were left looked like stains. The handle was the only visible part of the knife lodged in his chest.

‘If you’re interested in baseless suppositions and theories, you should contact my colleague Arne Gruvesson instead,’ Flätan continued. ‘He’s something of a specialist when it comes to rash conclusions and sloppy work.’

There was a meat fork in the victim’s face as well, rammed in so deep next to his nose that the two tines poked out below his jaw.

‘I daresay there’s more here than “baseless suppositions”. You only have to look at the blood spatter to see a pretty clear scenario, if you ask me.’ Molander met Flätan’s eyes.

‘I had no idea you were a blood spatter expert.’

‘Expert might be pushing it. But at least I know what I’m talking about. That crack, for instance, suggests the perpetrator jumped over the counter somewhere around here.’ Molander pointed to a crack in the curved glass of the counter. ‘Then he probably snatched up one of the knives from this cutting board.’