Four days had passed since Eric Jacobsén’s arrest in a luxury villa on the Danish side of the sound. Fabian had spent most of that time at home with his family, though he had, admittedly, been unable to completely let go of the Molly Wessman investigation, which, if all went to plan, should be concluded in the coming week.

Jacobsén had unreservedly confessed that he was the man behind both Columbus and the secret surveillance in eighty-seven flats all over north-west Skåne. He’d explained his actions by saying one thing led to another. From his pathological porn consumption to his wish to watch in real life to finally graduating to active participation.

He firmly denied, however, any involvement in Molly Wessman’s murder, and when the attempted murder of Fabian in the jacuzzi was mentioned, he dismissed it as an act of panic and claimed there had never been any intention of actually killing him. An explanation unlikely to hold up in court.

What’s more, Molander and his two assistants were far from done with the investigation of Jacobsén’s home, and they were all convinced that if they only looked hard enough, they were sure to find part of Wessman’s shorn fringe, traces of ricin extract or some other incriminating detail.

The murder of Lennart Andersson, on the other hand, remained unsolved. None of the clues and samples collected from ICA Maxi in Hyllinge had led anywhere, and the only person they’d managed to identify through fingerprinting was, ironically enough, Jacobsén, who’d taken his son shopping there the day before the murder.

Their hopes now rested with Klippan, who was busy combing through the CCTV footage from the week leading up to the murder and who had announced he was going to give a presentation at their next morning meeting.

With a bit of luck, they may be close to solving that, too. Either way, the doomsday headlines had been replaced with considerably more hopeful ones about how the residents of Helsingborg could finally feel safe again. They’d even been given personal praise, both from the National Police Commissioner and the Minister of Justice, for the intensive work that had led to the arrests of Jacobsén and Skanås.

Fabian was not at all prepared for the music that suddenly started blasting out of the speakers; even though he recognized the strings, the melody and the maracas in the background, he couldn’t place it. He turned around to see Sonja enter from the living room.

‘Remember this?’ she said with a smile, and he nodded, even though he still didn’t have the foggiest.

‘It’s Prefab Sprout’s “Hey Manhattan”, silly.’ She poured two glasses of wine and sang along. ‘Don’t you remember how you always used to put this album on whenever I was feeling blue?’