He pulled out his list of twelve possible outcomes and did a pre-roll as usual to determine the number of dice, in this case one or two.

A three.

Thus directed to use one dice, he picked up the same one again, shook it and let it fall.

1. Dehydration
2. Beheading
3. Starvation
4. Asphyxiation
5. Drowning
6. Electrocution
7. Decompression
8. Poisoning
9. Fire
10. Exsanguination
11. Disease
12. Traffic accident

A five.

So the person in question was going to be drowned on Tuesday. He was already looking forward to it and almost felt two days was too long.

Now he just needed the final confirmation. The final roll of the icosahedron to verify that this was what he was supposed to do. The green light he needed to get started on the preparations.

The ten, represented by an X, was the only thing he didn’t need right now. The time frame was too tight for a complicated side mission. But he wasn’t worried. He’d already rolled X twice in a row, so the risk of it turning up again had to be considered minimal.

He sent the dice tumbling across the felt and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he saw the X for the third time.

It was as if the dice was stuck in a glitch, he mused as he went to fetch the notebook with the 120 numbered side missions and rolled the twenty-sided dice once more.

A twelve.

He took out twelve six-sided dice; it was so many he could barely shake them in his cupped hands without dropping some.

Three threes, two fives, four sixes, two fours, one two.

He flipped to side mission fifty-three and felt an abyss open up at his feet as soon as he started reading.

He was intensely disappointed.

He read it again, slower this time. But he’d read it right the first time, and no matter how badly he wanted to pick the dice back up to give them another chance, he had no choice but to follow the rules and start his preparations, regardless of how impossible the task might be.

42

Matilda hadn’t even been home twenty-four hours. And yet there he was, on the top floor of the police station on a Sunday, so early the morning mist hadn’t dissipated, waiting for everyone to pour themselves coffee so the meeting could start.

The phone call from Tuvesson was entirely to blame. It had put him at a crossroads where the curious part of him immediately wanted to push the green accept button to find out what was going on. The other part had already realized it was almost certainly serious enough that, coupled with his own private Molander investigation, it would occupy his every waking hour.

‘These croissants are several days old,’ announced Lilja, who didn’t look like she’d had nearly enough sleep. ‘Look.’ She picked one up and snapped it in half.