Tuvesson nodded. ‘Internal bleeding. Apparently too many instances to count. Which makes things worse.’

‘How?’

‘It means it was the spinning that killed him, not the water from the rinse cycle, as one might have assumed. Though there was quite a lot of that in his lungs, too.’

‘Oh my God…’ Lilja dropped the picture and put her head in her hands.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t get it,’ Klippan said. ‘Granted, it’s horrible. But why would it be so much worse?’

‘Ingvar.’ Tuvesson turned to Molander. ‘The programme the murderer used. Approximately how long would it take before the spin cycle started?’

‘I’m not entirely sure, but I’d guess after about fifteen or eighteen minutes.’ Molander shrugged and sipped his coffee.

‘Are you saying it was a full fifteen minutes before he…’ Klippan faltered and seemed to disappear into himself.

‘Okay. But did he find anything of interest?’ Molander said eventually. ‘Such as signs of sexual violence?’

‘Not that I know. But you know how tight-lipped Flätan is before he’s completely done. So paedophilia could absolutely be a motive. It’s kind of odd we haven’t thought of it until now.’

‘Do you have a suspect?’ Lilja asked.

‘I do, this bloke.’ Klippan started up the overhead projector and connected his laptop, displaying a picture on the wall of a pear-shaped man with slicked-back hair, a moustache and glasses. ‘I found these pictures on his Facebook page.’

‘Cool cat. Who is he?’

‘Björn Richter. You know, the one I told you about on the phone. The one who lives on the second floor in the same building and works as a nursery nurse at the Sunflower Nursery.’

‘Right. The one you thought was creepy but you couldn’t say why.’

‘Are you seriously telling us he works in a nursery?’ Tuvesson exclaimed.

‘There’s always a shortage of male teachers. I assume people like him can get a job anywhere,’ Lilja said.

‘Well, we shouldn’t judge people on appearance alone,’ Tuvesson said. ‘But I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with my children being in his care.’

‘You haven’t seen the worst of it.’ Klippan clicked to the next picture.

It showed the man in what appeared to be his living room, sitting on a plastic-covered sofa, surrounded by hundreds of china dolls. He was posing with a lot of dolls in the next picture as well, but in that one he was in his bedroom, under the pink duvet of his king-sized bed.

14

The smell of stagnant air hit Fabian when he opened the door to Hugo Elvin’s flat, switched on the much-too-dim ceiling light and let Hillevi Stubbs in.