‘Rutger!’ Karolina raised a warning finger. ‘You know what Dad’s told you. You’re not even allowed in here.’

‘Are you? And what about him! No one but Dad’s allowed—’

Karolina grabbed his arm roughly. ‘Out. Okay?’ She stood up and pushed him towards the door.

‘But—’

‘No buts. You either make a snack or you don’t. I don’t care, so long as you stay out of here. Understood?’ She closed the door behind him and turned to Fabian. ‘I’m sorry.’ She sat back down and tried to collect herself. ‘Unfortunately, I have no idea where he is. He often stays out until the small hours.’

‘Maybe you have a phone number for him? The one we have is for a phone he’s left here.’

‘I don’t know anyone with more phones than Eric. I have three in my contact list, so you could try them, though I’ve always suspected there are at least a couple more.’ She pulled out her phone, found her husband in her contacts and handed it to Fabian, who immediately forwarded the contact information to Molander.

‘I’m sorry if my questions are uncomfortable, but—’

‘Please, just ask instead of apologizing all the time. I promise I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘Okay.’ Fabian nodded. ‘You said you’ve never had a functional love life. But surely at first you must have. So what happened around the time it ended?’

Karolina answered with a smile. ‘Right. That’s how it’s supposed to be. All you want to do is go at it, until reality catches up. But that’s not quite how it was for Eric and me.’ She shook her head. ‘We didn’t have sex. Not once. We tried a few times, of course, but he couldn’t quite rise to the occasion, and what we managed definitely can’t be defined as sex.’

‘So it wasn’t you who—’

‘Quite the reverse. I wanted nothing more and couldn’t work out what was wrong.’

‘Did you talk about it?’