He went over to the printer in the bookcase, lifted the lid of the built-in scanner and placed the photograph face down on the glass. As soon as the printer cable was plugged into the laptop, some driver or other sprang into action, asking if he wanted to scan a document.

Surprised at how easy it was, he clicked yes, named the file Young Elvin in dress and chose the highest resolution. A few minutes later, the picture appeared on his screen.

This was his first time analysing a photograph, and he had imagined needing to use Photoshop and having to run the picture through various filters and contrast enhancers to get answers. But it only took a few commands, zooming in on Elvin’s head, to establish what he had been suspecting for the past few hours.

The picture had been manipulated.

It was undeniably Elvin’s head, but the light on his face came from the left, not the right as in the rest of the picture. Furthermore, there was something about the sharpness that was out of line with the sharpness of the dress, which in turn made the contrast around the hair and by the neck more noticeable, despite obvious attempts to even them out.

Elvin had been inserted, in all likeliness scanned from one of the photographs missing from the album. The other was probably of Elvin’s sister, wearing a white dress, helping her mother hang laundry.

In other words, Elvin’s gender dysphoria was a fabrication. Probably intended to provide a motive that was shocking and complex enough to overshadow everything else, to make sure no one would even begin to suspect that he had been murdered.

He felt his pulse start to race and a rush of adrenaline. All of a sudden, it was as though he could see into the future, all the repercussions that would follow if it really did turn out to be Molander, a member of their own team, who was behind Elvin’s death. He had no idea how adept Molander was at photo editing, but given his general technical know-how, it wouldn’t surprise him if he was at least proficient.

Granted, the perpetrator could be anyone from an old convict who had done his time and come back seeking revenge to just about anybody. But if Elvin’s suspicions had turned out to be true and Molander had realized he was on to him, he had not only a motive but also the expertise needed to commit a murder so convincing that no one other than Elvin himself would know to be suspicious.

What he didn’t have was any solid evidence.

But as Stubbs liked to say, it didn’t matter how meticulously you cleaned up after yourself – somewhere, there was always a speck of dust.

18

Was this some kind of concert?