‘It was a Monday afternoon almost five years ago. Five years. It still feels like yesterday. I was unpacking and doing laundry after a long weekend in Berlin, which Ingvar had arranged as a surprise, when he suddenly appeared in the door to the laundry room and asked me to come into the kitchen and have a seat. He had even poured a glass of—’

‘Hold on a second,’ Fabian broke in, putting down the glass of water he still hadn’t drunk from. ‘When were you in Berlin?’

‘Thursday night to Sunday afternoon. Ingvar had arranged everything, for our anniversary. Hotel, plane tickets and even several dinner reservations. So unlike him, now I think about it.’

‘So you’re telling me you and Ingvar were in Berlin when the murder took place?’

‘Yes, what about it?’

‘Nothing. I just didn’t know that.’ He tried to squeeze out a smile, even though he could see his whole investigation falling apart before his eyes. ‘I was still in Stockholm at the time.’ If Molander had an alibi for the murder of Inga Dahlberg, everything else fell like dominoes. No matter how hard he and Elvin had fought to line them all up, one after the other. If Molander wasn’t the killer, there was no motive. It just couldn’t be true that he’d been in Berlin. ‘I’m sorry if I’m being slow, but are you one hundred per cent sure that was the weekend you went to Berlin?’

‘Like I just said, I remember it like it was yesterday.’

‘And you were together the whole time, you and Ingvar. You never split up and—’

‘Fabian, what are you getting at?’

‘Nothing. I’m just—’

‘Just what? What is this? I don’t know where you would have got such an idea, but it actually sounds like you’re suspecting my Ingvar.’

‘No, no, no, absolutely not. God, no,’ he tried to reassure her. ‘I’m just puzzled because it doesn’t match the information I have.’

‘What information?’ She stood up and pointed straight at him. ‘Ingvar and I were in Berlin, whether you want to believe it or not.’

‘Great, understood. I just wanted to make sure.’

‘I can even show you a picture.’ She walked past him to the bookshelf and picked up one of the framed photographs on it.

‘Gertrud, there’s really no need. I believe you.’

She put the photograph in his lap. ‘You can see for yourself.’

‘Gertrud, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t believe you.’ He looked at the picture, which showed Gertrud and Molander drinking coffee with a half-eaten apfelstrudel sitting between them. ‘I was just surprised you were in Berlin that particular weekend. That’s all.’

‘I don’t know if you’ve been there, but that picture was taken at Café Einstein Stammhaus, one of the few classic cafés in Berlin that survived the war.’