Any other Ring Knutstorp Sunday, he would have rushed out in the morning and not been back until dinner. Today, the opposite had been true. He’d dawdled, saying he wasn’t feeling well, and almost cancelled even though he’d already paid for his ticket. He was clearly on to the fact that she was up to something, which was why she’d left the house before lunch, saying she had to wrap up the Moonif Ganem investigation.

In reality, Assar Skanås was still in intensive care with his gunshot wounds and couldn’t be interviewed yet. Which wasn’t much of an issue since Molander had found his fingerprints on the glass door of the washing machine, which meant the interviews, whenever they took place, would be more or less pro forma.

Anyway, Hampus could be home any minute, so she had to get out of the house and on her way to—

The hand on her shoulder made her stop dead.

‘So this is where you’re hiding out.’

The voice didn’t match the person she’d assumed it belonged to; even though it only took her a fraction of a second, it felt like an eternity before she put it together.

‘God, you scared me.’ She turned to Klippan.

‘I’m sorry, the door was open, so I—’

‘Don’t worry about it. Did you bring the trailer?’

‘And my neighbour’s van.’

‘Perfect. You know, I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible.’

‘Then we’d better get cracking. I suggest we start with the big stuff: sofas, beds, cabinets and so on. Unless you mind me being in charge of the loading, that is.’

Lilja laughed and shook her head. ‘I trust you implicitly.’

‘Great, now you tell me. Let’s see how you feel about it when we’re done. Let’s start with the bed.’ He turned to the bedroom door and was just about to open it when Lilja hurried over and blocked his way.

‘Look, I was actually going to leave it. New life, new bed.’

‘All right, any other cumbersome items in the bedroom that are coming with us? Wardrobe or chest of drawers?’

‘No.’ Lilja shook her head. ‘Nothing. So there’s no point going in.’

Klippan nodded, but seemed puzzled. ‘All righty, then. Let’s grab that sofa.’

Together, they carried the sofa through the hallway, out into the front garden and towards the driveway where Klippan had already unlatched the trailer so they could walk straight into the van.

‘What happened to your lawn?’ Klippan said as they walked back to the house. ‘It looks awful.’

‘Don’t ask me. Hampus has some project to get rid of the moss. Come on, let’s keep going.’

But Klippan stayed where he was, gazing out across the ruined lawn.