‘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.’

‘Have you considered that it might be the other way around?’ Fabian said, and suddenly he had everyone’s undivided attention. ‘What if he wanted to be seen? What if the whole point was to have as many witnesses as possible?’

‘Then why go to the trouble of wearing a mask?’ Molander countered. ‘Not to mention the cameras. He should have turned to them if that were the case.’

‘CCTV cameras the police can use to zoom in and analyse is one thing. Witnesses at the scene is something else entirely. But I would say we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking why he wore a mask, we should be asking ourselves why he wore a dark-skinned mask.’

As though everyone needed a moment to take in what Fabian had just said, silence fell and lasted until Lilja broke it.

‘If I’m understanding you right, you’re saying the underlying motive might be racism.’

‘I know you’ve been on that track all along, and even though I don’t think we should make too much of this, we should at least give it serious consideration.’

‘The only problem is that Assar Skanås is a paedophile, not a racist,’ Klippan said. ‘Besides, he would never be able to pull off something this sophisticated.’

‘Who said it had to be him? He might not even be the person who killed Moonif Ganem. All we know for sure is that he was in the laundry room that same morning.’

‘Fabian, what are you trying to say?’ Tuvesson said. ‘Are you suggesting there’s a connection between the murder of Moonif Ganem and the murder of Lennart Andersson?’