He hadn’t realized the red digits were showing his number and that there was suddenly another person behind the counter. Lennart Andersson, according to the name tag pinned to his butcher’s smock. He looked to be well over fifty, though he was clearly doing everything in his power to look at least ten years younger. He was unusually fit for his age, and that, combined with his low hairline and fake tan, conspired to trick the eye. It was better to look at a person’s hands. That’s where you could count the rings. No surgery in the world could change people’s hands. Just like his colleague, Lennart was dressed in white, though with one small but significant difference.

His red tie.

Granted, only the knot was visible, but that was more than enough.

‘One rotisserie chicken leg,’ he said. He pulled out his dice and started shaking it while the man walked over to the heated display case.

A one.

One single dot in the middle.

It was what he needed to move on to the next phase.

The dice bounced on to the counter with a small bang and rolled over towards the basket of discarded queue numbers, where it finally came to a stop.

‘Anything else?’ Lennart put the price tag on the chicken bag.

A one.

Bloody hell, he really had rolled a goddamn one.

The decision had been slow in coming, but it was made now and in hindsight it seemed completely right.

‘No, thank you, that’s great, Lennart. Really great.’ He allowed himself a smile, slipped his dice back into his pocket and picked up his chicken leg.

‘All right then, have a good day.’

‘And you, and you. You never know how long the good times last,’ he said and walked towards the tills.

22

‘All right, that’s all I wanted to ask you.’ Lilja stood up.

‘What, so we’re done already?’ said the woman who had been caught on CCTV, dashing across Norra Stationsgatan in Bjuv just minutes after someone turned on the rinse cycle in a laundry room a hundred yards away.

‘Yes,’ Lilja said, walking the woman to the door. ‘But if we have more questions later, we will of course contact you again.’ She couldn’t see any reason not to believe the woman’s story about going to the shops and not having enough credit on her card and therefore having to rush home to get cash. She’d even shown her the receipt saying purchase cancelled.