But that was far from all. If Elvin was to be believed, two years ago, in the middle of an ongoing investigation of several murders among a group of old classmates from Helsingborg’s Fredriksdal School, Molander had drugged Ingela Ploghed from that same school class, surgically removed her uterus to mimic the perpetrator’s signature method and left her to bleed to death in Ramlösa Brunn Park. She survived, only to jump from a building a few weeks later.

And even that wasn’t the end of it. Three years before that, Molander had supposedly also been behind the so-called Ven Murder, in which a certain Inga Dahlberg was attacked while out running, also in Ramlösa Brunn Park, and subsequently raped and sent naked down the Rå River with both hands and feet screwed to a wooden freight pallet.

These crimes, and potentially more, Molander had allegedly committed while they were all working together. While they were having each other over for dinner, visiting crime scenes and at times working such long hours they spent more time with the team than with their own families.

And yet no one but Elvin had suspected him, and since the methods used had drawn inspiration from their ongoing investigations, suspicion had naturally fallen on other perpetrators instead of the real serial killer, who was sitting at the same lunch table and sipping coffee from the same thermos as them.

It was almost too much to take in, and the most convenient explanation was that Elvin had simply been wrong. Somehow, the whole thing just seemed too far-fetched. At the same time, he couldn’t think of anyone who’d be better placed to produce a crime scene with misleading clues than Molander.

He had considered involving Tuvesson so there would be someone for him to bandy ideas around with, but had in the end decided that her alcohol problems constituted too big a risk. True, she had managed to stay sober for a month now, but it was anyone’s guess how long it would last. If she were to fall off the wagon, it would only be a matter of time before Molander found out. Besides, he was the one who had found the key to the desk drawer where Elvin had kept his secret investigation.

It had already been two years since the day he borrowed Elvin’s desk during the investigation of the Fredriksdal Murders. A spilled cup of coffee had made him peer under the desk, where he spotted a key taped to the underside. A key that turned out to unlock the biggest of the three desk drawers. He had opened it out of sheer curiosity and realized it was full to the brim with folders and thick envelopes.