When she got to the kitchen, she poured the freshly made coffee into a thermos, took the milk out of the fridge and continued towards the conference room. This was her third day back at work since she nearly died of hypothermia a month ago, locked in a chest freezer by the same terrifying pair who shot Matilda. She actually had another six weeks of sick leave to take and could have stayed home, reading one of the many books awaiting their turn, or finally getting into The Wire that everyone was always going on about.

But the thirst, in combination with the loneliness, had left her climbing the walls and she was convinced she would have fallen off the wagon if she’d stayed home any longer.

Here, she had colleagues to distract and keep an eye on her. She had a role to fill and things to do, even though she was not above admitting she’d been looking forward to a few relatively quiet work weeks, especially since they were still recovering from their latest case, by far the most difficult murder investigation she had ever been in charge of.

But apparently, that was too much to hope for.

They hadn’t even had time to take down and archive the pictures from the various murder scenes – the victims lined up as though it had been a case of crimes against humanity – before it was time to put up new pictures. This time from a laundry room in Bjuv, where the perpetrator had forced his victim into an oversized washing machine and set it to rinse and spin.

As if that wasn’t enough, Fabian’s desk was glaringly empty and would not be filled again until after the summer when he came back from his sabbatical. It was a long time, and she could already sense they were going to miss his ability to think outside the box.

At the moment, there was no indication this was anything but a stand-alone act of madness. Besides, serial killers were very rare in Sweden. But in light of the fact that the country had been rocked by not one but two cases involving serial killers in the past two years, she was not about to jump to conclusions. That both investigations had ultimately ended up on her desk made her even less likely to make a snap judgement.

She gathered up the pictures from the previous murder investigation, put them in a folder and had started erasing the notes on the whiteboard when Klippan arrived with his laptop.

‘Molander says we’re going to have to start without him. He’s still in Bjuv.’

‘Has he found anything?’

Klippan shrugged. ‘You know how taciturn he can be when he’s in that mood.’ He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. ‘Hey, where’s Lilja?’

‘I’m sure she’ll be here any minute. How have you got on? How’s the mother doing?’