He opened it; the first thing he saw was a copy of the framed photograph from the traditional Berlin café, showing Gertrud and Molander sitting together with two cups of coffee and a half-eaten strudel on the table in front of them. The date stamp at the bottom was circled in red, but the wristwatch of the man at the next table wasn’t, which indicated Elvin hadn’t discovered the twelve-and-a-half-hour time lapse.

He did, however, have a printout of the two boarding passes. They had likely been digitally downloaded to Molander’s home computer and been part of the contents Elvin had copied to his external hard drive.

SAS Boarding Pass
Mr Ingvar Molander – Fast Track Available
Flight Date Time From To Seat Boarding
SK1673 24 Aug 13:30 Berlin Copenhagen 14F 13:10
2007 TXL CPH

easyJet Boarding Pass
Mr Ingvar Molander
Flight Date Time From To Seat Boarding
EZY8627 24 Aug 19:05 Copenhagen Berlin Free seating 18:45
2007 CPH TXL

It was the puzzle piece he’d been looking for. It was all he needed to break Molander’s alibi. That must have been what Molander had realized. It must have been why he killed Elvin. Finally, he had enough to inform Tuvesson.

Fabian pulled out his phone to call her. It rang and rang and rang again before he was redirected to her voicemail. Instead of leaving a message, he hung up and called back. It was late and hardly surprising if she was asleep. But this couldn’t wait, so he called a third time.

‘Yes, hello?’

‘Hi, Astrid, it’s—’

‘Hello! Who is this?’ she slurred.

‘Hi, it’s Fabian. I’m sorry to be calling so late.’

‘I said who the fuck is this?’

‘It’s Fabian. Fabian Risk.’

‘Risk? Bloody hell, why can’t you ever leave me alone? What the fuck do you want now, you goddamn—’

‘Nothing, I accidentally dialled the wrong number. I’m sorry. See you tomorrow.’ He ended the call and could only remark to himself it was lucky he hadn’t confided in her sooner. This might be her first relapse. But there would be more, many more.

He folded up the printout of the boarding passes, slipped it into his inside pocket and started poking around. He flipped through a stack of pictures he hadn’t seen before, and looked through a shoebox containing a number of crystal owls like the ones Gertrud collected and a precision drill with a number of different sander attachments and drill bits.

He picked up one of the owls and realized it wasn’t glass at all but plastic, with a round, flat battery in the base. He tried to find an explanation but was forced to give up.

Instead, he sat down in front of the computer and turned it on. It didn’t ask for a password. Elvin had obviously felt certain Molander would never find this place.