‘Apparently they’re keeping it quiet until the perpetrator has been caught. So it’s not something we should be spreading around. Right? That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

Fabian could only nod and watch as the scorching meltdown ate through one containment wall after another.

45

MURDER AT ICA MAXI, HYLLINGE IN SHOCK!

LAUNDRY ROOM PAEDOPHILE STILL AT LARGE

POLICE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! HEADS WILL ROLL!

For once, there was so much going on, the tabloids were all running different headlines. All of them were, however, unanimous in their message about imminent societal breakdown, and two of them carried pictures of a neat and proper but incensed Sievert Landertz, just released from detention.

Lilja felt sure hers was one of the heads that was going to roll. He had already mentioned her by name on the radio; she would be shocked if he hadn’t hung her out to dry in the papers as well. Landertz had a habit of attacking, and right now, she was in his sights.

She didn’t care in the slightest. She didn’t even have it in her to be upset. They were empty threats, attempts to clear himself and his son. For that reason, she resisted the urge to sneak into the Furutorp corner shop to buy up all their papers. Besides, she didn’t have time.

The task of locating Assar Skanås’s phone had gone as expected. Molander had been able to tell them straight away that it was unsearchable, which could mean anything from it simply being turned off or out of battery to it sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of Öresund.

What they had found was a logged position from when it was last connected, which turned out to have been that same morning, just after their meeting. At that time, it had been in the middle of the town centre, near Consul Olsson Square, where at 10.54 a.m. it had received a call from a hidden number before being turned off again twenty-one minutes later on Söder, where the police station was located.

It was now quarter past one, which meant he had a two-and-a-half-hour head start. That wasn’t a lot of time, but certainly enough for him to cross the border and, at least in theory, be on his way to the other side of the world. But theory was one thing, practice another. A more likely scenario was that he was holed up somewhere, waiting for things to blow over.

She and Molander and Tuvesson had done a risk assessment and decided that she could go over there unaccompanied. Granted, with three simultaneous cases their workload had been a big factor in their decision-making, but she shouldn’t be in any real danger.

She passed the funeral home on Furutorpsgatan.

Even so, her body was pumping out adrenaline, as though preparing for the worst, as she approached the given location at the lower end of Carl Krooks Gata.