For the first and only time, the perpetrator turned his face to the CCTV camera for a fraction of a second, and it was suddenly obvious what Klippan meant.

The man’s appearance really was odd in a way that was hard to describe. He was dark, but that wasn’t it. It was all the other things. Like his nose, which was a bit crooked and looked like he’d just lost a boxing match. Or his right cheek, which drooped lower than his left. Not to mention his eyes. His face was definitely odd. As though it didn’t belong to the perpetrator.

‘See this?’ Klippan aimed his laser pointer at the perpetrator’s arms, which were raised above his head, holding the cleaver, and stopped at a lighter section in the gap between the sleeve of his hoodie and his glove.

‘Yes, it’s his wrist,’ Tuvesson said.

‘Right. But can’t you see the difference in skin tone? Can’t you see how much lighter this is than his face?’

Tuvesson nodded. ‘Are you saying that his face isn’t his?’

‘Exactly. It’s just a mask. Or, I don’t know about just. I don’t think that’s something he picked up in a gag shop. If you ask me, it was made by a professional mask maker.’

‘Which means the whole thing was planned and not a sudden impulse.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Which suggests there might be some kind of connection between the victim and the perpetrator,’ Molander put in.

‘Such as?’

Molander shrugged. ‘It could be anything. An unpaid gambling debt. Or why not an affair with the neighbour’s wife that was discovered?’

An affair with the neighbour’s wife. Fabian almost couldn’t believe that’s what Molander had said. Was it a Freudian slip or was he toying with him? Was this his way of showing he knew and was so many steps ahead he wasn’t even concerned?

‘But listen,’ Lilja suddenly interjected, looking up from her phone. ‘Don’t you think this whole thing feels a bit… How do I put it, schizophrenic, somehow?’

‘Schizophrenic?’ Tuvesson reached for the coffee thermos and loosened the lid. ‘What do you mean?’ Only to discover it was empty.

‘I’m not sure, but there’s something here that’s not right. Or at least it doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, if you’re planning to kill someone, surely you wouldn’t choose to do it in front of CCTV cameras and a bunch of witnesses at ICA Maxi.

‘Maybe it was just to confuse us and make it look spontaneous?’ Molander suggested.

‘But aren’t there a hundred easier ways of doing that? Like a hit and run with a car. Or, if you prefer knives, it wouldn’t take much of an effort to make it look like a botched robbery. If you want to make it really easy, you could always pretend to be some drugged-up junkie attacking whoever’s in your way.’

‘That’s true,’ Tuvesson said. ‘But strange as it may seem, he did choose to commit the murder at ICA. It’s our job to figure out why, whatever the underlying reason may be.’