The album wasn’t easy to find, but it’s all about perseverance. I’ve taken pictures of all our Berlin photos, so you can see for yourself that my husband and I really were there. In case you were still in doubt. Best wishes, Gertrud.

Attached to the text was a number of images of photo album pages, which looked to be filled with pictures of Ingvar and Gertrud Molander in Berlin. In one picture, they were holding hands in front of Checkpoint Charlie; in another, they were having pints at one of Berlin’s many beer halls. All the pictures bore the same kind of date stamp along their lower edge as the framed picture from the classic Berlin café.

Fabian had similar pictures with date stamps in some of his albums, but they were all from the 70s and 80s, not from 2007. Most people, apart from perhaps the members of Celluloid, had long since stopped sending their photographs away to be developed and putting them in albums. And yet, that was what dyed-in-the-wool technology geek Molander had done.

Doing so had given him an alibi that was virtually waterproof. At least at first sight. It wouldn’t surprise him if the Berlin getaway was nothing but misdirection orchestrated by Molander. An illusion that at first glance looked plausible, but that at the end of the day rested on nothing but smoke screens, mirages and thumping music.

Like all magic tricks, the key was to pay attention to what the illusionist wasn’t pointing to. To the details outside the spotlight. For that reason, he’d transferred the pictures from his phone to his desktop computer, where he could use the bigger screen to scrutinize them down to the last pixel.

Like the picture from the café, the rest of the Berlin pictures showed no obvious signs of tampering. No matter how much he zoomed in, he had to conclude they were the genuine article.

The same was true of the date stamps at the bottom of the white frame. A comparison with his own old pictures confirmed that they were identical. The dates ranged from 23 to 26 August 2007, and all days, including 24 August, when the murder took place, were represented.

It wouldn’t be difficult to change the camera’s internal date and go to Berlin the weekend before or after instead. But that was unlikely since it would leave Molander in a position where he had to get Gertrud on board and trust her ability to lie about when they’d been there.

That said, there was another angle as far as the time was concerned. An angle that only occurred to him now as he zoomed in on the picture from the Berlin café with its mirror walls, marbled columns and stately crystal chandeliers.