‘He had, a tattoo hidden under her pubic hair,’ he said and concluded that Molander was either a world-class actor giving the performance of a lifetime, or Gertrud hadn’t said anything yet. ‘It consisted of a horizontal line intersected by a down arrow and a two-digit number underneath.’

‘So we’re talking a symbol with an associated number.’ He could virtually hear Molander lean back in his chair to think. ‘The closest I have is a line intersected by two arrows pointing in opposite directions, which is the generally accepted symbol for crossing a border. The Physical Barrier Border Crossing icon, I think it’s called. But that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with anything. What was the number?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘Twenty-eight… No, apart from that it follows twenty-seven and precedes twenty-nine, it means nothing to me.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to see if it made you think of anything.’

‘But that’s not why you called, is it?’

‘Pardon?’ He’d been about to end the call, pleased to have been able to convince himself Gertrud hadn’t said anything yet. Now, instead, he was back to square one.

‘If that were the case, you would’ve called the moment you left Flätan’s. Now, as far as I can make out, you’re almost done with Wessman’s flat, which implies you’ve been there a while, so logically, you should be calling about something related to that. Correct me if I’m wrong.’

‘I wouldn’t necessarily say wrong,’ he said, trying to buy time. Of course Molander was right. Of course he was calling to talk about something in Wessman’s flat. The question was what. A white plastic card was sticking out of one of the shoes. It had probably fallen off the noticeboard when the shelf came off the wall. ‘I did want to talk to you about the tattoo. But it didn’t seem so urgent it couldn’t wait until I saw you.’ He picked up and studied the bone-white card, which simply read Spades in gold lettering. ‘But you’re right, that wasn’t the only thing,’ he continued and spotted a key deposit cylinder fastened to the top corner of the front door. ‘When do you think you’ll get here for the crime scene investigation?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘All right, I just wanted to plant a seed in your mind for when you come.’ It was more or less nothing. But right now, more or less nothing was better than nothing.

‘Okay,’ Molander said, waiting.

‘Her front door has a key deposit cylinder. You know, a lockable tube where you can leave keys for your handyman or cleaning lady if you’re not going to be in.’

‘Fabian, I know what a key deposit is.’

‘Okay, sorry. I just meant that someone could have been here to fix something and made a copy of her keys.’